Multiple Streams of Writing Income Part 6: Developing Your Strategies and Tasks

Types of Strategies

There are three categories of strategies in my plan:

1. Infrastructure

2. Marketing

3. Revenue-Producing

Below your vision box at the top of your flowchart, draw lines down to three boxes, and write Infrastructure, Marketing, and Revenue-Producing in the boxes.

Keep in mind that many of these strategies can actually be used for both marketing and revenue-producing, or even infrastructure. I'm putting them where I'll see the most benefit by using that strategy.

Let's look at Infrastructure first. Draw three boxes below that category. The most important strategy under Infrastructure is your Support Team, so add that to the first box. Product Development/R&D is also under Infrastructure. Distribution is the foundation for several of the other strategies, so I consider them Infrastructure as well.

Marketing is a key category that bridges Infrastructure with Revenue Producing. Draw four boxes below Marketing and add these strategies: The Internet, Publicity and Promotion, Direct Marketing, Advertising.

Under Revenue-Generation, draw 8 boxes and add Teleclasses, In-Person Events, Printed Material (books/workbooks), Audio Products (Cds/tapes), digital products (e-courses, e-books, webinars, eMessages, eVideo), Live Online (webinars, training), Video (DVDs), Continuity programs.

You have now identified your strategies and organized them by category.

The next thing to do is to develop a list of tasks to accomplish those strategies.

Your Tasks

Tasks are the specific steps that need to be taken to accomplish the strategy and vision. I take each of the strategies and brainstorm what needs to be done to get them set up and operating. I will use my tactics to show you how this is done. This is not a definitive list. As you proceed, more will be added to the list. You will find that some will not be necessary and can be eliminated. As you develop your own list, you will begin to see what you might not want to take on as a strategy and eliminate that from your plan.

Important! Many people move into overwhelm and panic when they see the extent of this list. I am not suggesting that you take on all of the tasks at once! What this process does is give you the big picture of the possibilities. From there, take one or two strategies at a time and get started. As you progress, you will be able to look at all of the other strategies/tasks and see how your writing can be leveraged more easily for other strategies/tasks.

Remember, your vision is what keeps you on track. The extent of your list might seem like a big obstacle if you don't have that clear, compelling reason to tackle it. However, when you are moving toward a specific goal, the tasks become much less daunting.

This is the end of the 6-part series on Multiple Streams of Writing Income. Thanks for joining me on this series!