A critical part of strategic communications and marketing is the branding and positioning of you and your business. Successful business people will intentionally develop a plan to position and brand themselves as an "authority;" an "expert;" and/or a "valued resource" in their industry or profession. The people who successfully do this are those that appear regularly in the media after being interviewed about some industry trend,

new regulation, or other event that could impact the industry. They are the ones who are cited by others as a "leading authority" or "expert" on certain subject matter. Many of these people regularly give speeches, conduct seminars and workshops, and write business articles and books.

A critical part of strategic communications and marketing is the branding and positioning of you and your business. Successful business people will intentionally develop a plan to position and brand themselves as an "authority;" an "expert;" and/or a "valued resource" in their industry or profession. The people who successfully do this are those that appear regularly in the media after being interviewed about some industry trend, new regulation, or other event that could impact the industry. They are the ones who are cited by others as a "leading authority" or "expert" on certain subject matter. Many of these people regularly give speeches, conduct seminars and workshops, and write business articles and books.

There is tremendous value in achieving the status of "authority;" "expert;" and/or "valued resource" and it does take some strategic thinking and planning to garner those designations. Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach offers some basic strategies that can facilitate your ability to achieve this special status. The basic strategies include:

Strategy #1: Commit to writing articles and having them published in professional publications, trade journals, newspapers, or e-zines in your professional field and the industry sectors you work within. Remember to write these articles with an educational and information angle, not an advertisement. When your articles are published it becomes a great method of promoting yourself, your business and your expertise.

Strategy #2: Develop a plan and a commitment to write a book. This is a much more difficult strategy to execute than writing articles. One option here is to use the content you have developed in your articles to serve as your major input into your book. And today, with all the technology available, you can write a book and publish it online, use other self-publishing options, or convince a publisher to print it for you.

Strategy #3: Promote yourself as a speaker and talk about the things you have written about in your articles and/or book. Develop a marketing plan to promote yourself as a keynote speaker at meetings and conventions. Speaking engagements can be more memorable than an article and is more personal, and in direct contact with your target market.

Strategy #4: Develop seminars and workshops and then market those seminars to your target markets. These can be anywhere from 2 hours to a full day or multiple days. These presentations demand more preparation than articles and speeches, but provide a tremendous informative training tool and an effective marketing tool for specific markets.

Strategy #5: Capitalize on your website. Look for ways to improve your website to provide information about yourself and to promote you as a resource for people researching information within your areas of expertise. Commit to making your website be the place people go to when looking for an answer to a question or when researching material for themselves. You should also have ways for clients and customers to contact you easily through your website.

Strategy #6: Commit to continuously improving your public relations skills and develop positive working relationships with the media. Position yourself to be the one the media contacts when there' is a question they need answered or they need a quote for a story. Develop good "sound bytes" for electronic interviews and good "quotes" to use when being interviewed in the print media. One of the ways I keep in touch with my target media is to have them as free subscribers to my monthly newsletter which always has 3 business topic articles written by me.

Strategy# 7: Commit to developing and providing a continuous flow of new information and ideas to your target market. Your status of "authority;" "expert;" or "valued resource" will be earned if you follow the above strategies. However, please remember that you must also "maintain" and "retain" that status by continually refreshing your materials.

Your strategic thinking business coach encourages you to fully realize the benefits of business coaching to strategically position and brand yourself as an "authority;" "expert;" or "valued resource."

Glenn Ebersole, Jr. is a multi-faceted professional, who is recognized as a visionary, guide and facilitator in the fields of business coaching, marketing, public relations, management, strategic planning and engineering. Glenn is the Founder and Chief Executive of two Lancaster, PA based consulting practices: The Renaissance Group, a creative marketing, public relations, strategic planning and business development consulting firm and J. G. Ebersole Associates, an independent professional engineering, marketing, and management consulting firm. He is a Certified Facilitator and serves as a business coach and a strategic planning facilitator and consultant to a diverse list of clients. Glenn is also the author of a monthly newsletter, "Glenn's Guiding Lines - Thoughts From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach" and has published more than 225 articles on business.

To find out more about the benefits & rewards of effectively working with a strategic thinking business coach, please contact Glenn Ebersole through his web site at http://www.businesscoach4u.com or jgecoach@aol.com

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