Trusting Your Inner Knowing to Build a Business You Love
“Give yourself permission to do things differently . . . I’m someone that not only do I not believe in doing things that you’re not excited to do even if it comes to book marketing, I don’t think they’re going to work.” —Jenny Blake
Have you ever thought to yourself that you should’ve listened to your gut but you didn’t? Or maybe you thought that your intuition said to do something, but your logical mind said to go a different way? And then you went that “logical” way and found out you were wrong? Well, that gut instinct is there for a reason. The more in tune you can get with your intuition and use it as a practical way to grow, the more you will be in alignment with and enjoy the journey as an author and entrepreneur.
On this episode of “Author’s Who Lead,” I am privileged to talk to Jenny Blake a second time as we dive deeper into following your intuition when writing, publishing, and marketing your book, as well as building your business.
Business Intuition
In our last podcast with Jenny, we talked about how most business advice is based on metrics and data and that using your intuition is a dangerous way to run a business. We disagreed with this notion.
Jenny tells us that when running our businesses, “especially for authors, intuition is a way of tapping into the collective consciousness.” Sometimes it feels like writing is a solitary process, but really we’re having a conversation with our readers on the page, so we’re a messenger for whatever idea we’re trying to share.
Intuition is what guides our writing, editing, designing, and marketing because otherwise it would be overwhelming listening to all the “shoulds.” These “shoulds” are overwhelming because there is so much information on how to write and how to run businesses that it gets confusing. And what might work for someone might not work for you. This is when we need to listen to that inner voice and decide which path works for us.
Nonlinear Breakthroughs
In our conversation, Jenny advises that whenever we’re faced with something that is hard, we should invite a nonlinear breakthrough in. For example, if someone tells us that a certain problem is going to take a long, hard time to fix, we should invite a nonlinear solution instead of fighting our way through it. We should ask ourselves, what if it isn’t hard? What if it’s actually an easy fix?
At “Author’s Who Lead,” we use this idea of a nonlinear breakthrough when designing our programs. We give a pathway to our authors but then encourage them to make it their own, whether that means breaking it or going around it. This structured freedom encourages authors to explore their own uniqueness and really tap into the creativity that could otherwise be lost or stuck.
Marketing and Intuition
As Jenny says, it’s “uncool” to hear an author complain about being exhausted because of their book launch. Readers want to be excited along with the author. With her book Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, Jenny wanted to market it with “magic and serendipity.” Although it’s hard to ask for help, reach out to podcasts, and get rejected over and over again, Jenny was intent on finding a nonlinear breakthrough so she could enjoy all the moving parts of getting her book out.
With the publishing and marketing of her newest book, Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, she again noticed her own intuition and energy and focused on what was fun for her. For Jenny, podcasts were her focus, because they were fun and actually sold books. Other than that, she relies on nonlinear breakthroughs and gives herself permission to not do any marketing stuff or obsess with landing on a morning show or massive podcast. She thinks of marketing as “throwing seeds out into the world,” and calls it “serendipity popcorn.” If each reader who finishes a book told one friend, it would start a massive chain reaction.
Free Time Framework
In her book Free Time, Jenny has come up with three guiding principles to help manage time and focus: align, design, and assign. These can be applied to all business areas, including book planning and marketing. She tells us that the first stage, align, is where you “align your marketing with your strengths, your energy, your interests.” The second stage is design, where you design the processes for marketing in the areas you discovered in the align stage. The last stage is assign, where you delegate anything and everything that you don’t personally need to do. Having a team is invaluable and can preserve your energy for actually talking about your book and sharing it.
Listening to your intuition, looking for nonlinear breakthroughs, and practicing the Free Time Framework principles can all help you actually get your book out into the world in a way that no one else expected because, truthfully, you’re the only one who planned the right path for you.
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? What are your biggest marketing concerns? Share in the comments below!
That’s all for this week. If you have a message inside of you that needs to be written, today is the day to start. Don’t delay—take action.
Episode Resource:
Connect with Jenny Blake:
Twitter
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Get a copy of Jenny’s book:
Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
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