Define Your Brand and Build Smarter Prospects with a Book

Hello Design Alexandria,

Happy Friday! I’m excited to announce a new event that will help many of you articulate your strengths as designers. It’s going to be in the beautiful campus of WeWork Crystal City (https://www.wework.com/locations/washington-d-c/crystal-city) (yeah, I know it’s not technically Alexandria… but a supportive design community knows no bounds!). This joint talk by Deborah Ager of Radiant Media Labs (http://radiantmedialabs.com/) and Maggy Sterner (http://maggysterner.com/) is all about defining your brand as a designer and then expanding your brand as an expert in your area to build your business.

This will be a good event for you to attend if you identify with any of the following:

• You feel nervous about introducing yourself and describing what you do.

• You may be losing out on jobs or promotions because you’re not aware of
your unique skill set in a crowded field.

• You want to share your expertise yet feel stuck because your notes are “all over the place.” You may have lectures, blog posts, or presentations ready for a new life. Or you don’t know how to start writing a book and need help.

• People ask you the same questions over and over and you’re looking to create something that they can refer to without asking you.

Interesting resources to check out before the event:

• BLOG: What Makes a Great Brand? Be Yourself. http://bit.ly/1Zq5MqH

• BOOK: Purple Cow - Seth Godin http://amzn.to/1OTZ7mS

• BLOG: No Mud, No Lotus: To get creative, try getting “messy.”
http://radiantmedialabs.com/2015/11/20/no-mud-no-lotus/

• TEDTalk: How Great Leaders Inspire Action, Simon Sinek https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

Tweet thoughts/reactions to @DesignAVA (https://twitter.com/designava)

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Here’s some more information from our speakers:

There are a million designers. What makes you different from your competitors? Can you describe that point of differentiation as if you’re telling a five-year old? Defining your brand means knowing who you are so you can market your services to your ideal clients. If you can’t describe what you do, no one is your client.

If you’re tired of answering the same old questions from prospects, a book can help educate prospects so they’re smarter and more engaged by the time they express interest in your services. You can build your brand and business and use a book as one of the foundation points to get more business, gain credibility and increase thought leadership.

Deborah Ager’s portion of the talk is called “Build Smarter Prospects: What a Book Can Do for Your Brand”. Who is Deborah Ager? First, a note from Deborah:

Prospects get to know you by asking questions. Your book can help educate your prospects so that they’re smarter and more engaged by the time they express interest in your services. If you want more speaking engagements, authoring a book can open doors at conferences. Build your brand and business with a book and use it as one of the foundation points to get more business, gain more credibility and increase thought leadership.

Deborah Ager, Book Doctor/Ghostwriter
Radiant Media Labs

Deborah Ager founded Radiant Media Labs to help experts turn their big ideas into books. Radiant Media Labs offers book strategy sessions, ghostwriting and workshops to help experts write books in less time. In her career, she’s focused on helping people write better, think better and learn more.

She’s written and/or edited four books, edited 20 issues of a magazine and holds the MFA in creative writing. Her career includes teaching writing at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Florida. At the American Red Cross, she built digital marketing programs from the ground up and generated $100M in revenue in three years. While working on a contract with a division of the NIH, she developed a blogger outreach program that resulted in 11,000 orders of a cookbook.

Sign up for her weekly letters (http://www.radiantmedialabs.com/newsletter) and Facebook community (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1577762229213863/) for help taking action on your writing projects.

Maggy Sterner’s portion of the talk is called “Define Your Brand, Rule the Competition”. Who is Maggy Sterner?

Maggy Sterner is a chief instigator & brand coach. She helps entrepreneurs & small businesses define their brand (what are you really selling?), discover their superpower (what separates you from your competition?), and learn how to articulate it clearly and simply. THAT'S where the magic happens.

After a career as a television & radio reporter for CBS News in Manila and Johannesburg, Maggy worked as a project manager and user experience analyst at NPR.org and managing editor for multilingual websites at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and geek-to-human translator for her consulting clients.

Her mission in life is to help people know who they are, what their job in the world is, and then find the gumption to go do it.

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An ENORMOUS “THANK YOU!!” to our super-supportive sponsor, Pivot Point.

Pivot Point (http://www.pivotpointcom.com/) is a creative communications agency that provides marketing and PR services to clients with a unique story to tell. Come say hello—Pivot Point is happy to talks to folks about their own or their clients’ needs.

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Getting to WeWork Crystal City:

Address: 2221 S Clark St, Arlington, VA 22202

Ask for us in the lobby.

Parking is bit limited on street but there is Park Mobile. There is a garage parking on 23rd St.

Metro lines are yellow and blue and the closest stop is Crystal City.

The building is the only multi colored one—it stands out!

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See you guys there! Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @DesignAVA. (https://twitter.com/designava)