How to create a platform

Platforms are as important as your ability to do your job and satisfy your clients

Platform refers to a process based on a unique message and a way of consistently communicating with your market.

Examples

There are several types of platforms: articles, blogs, columns, books, interviews, newsletters, podcasts, postcards, speaking, teleseminars, and websites.

The crucial issue is not which type of platform you use, but whether or not you have a unique message and that you consistently enhance and promote it.
eveloping the problem.

Advantages

• A position that visibly differentiates you from your competition. 

• An independent "stage" to present from, a way of packaging your expertise in a unique and easily recognizable format. 

• Ability to educate. Platforms help you communicate your point of view in a way that creates a "halo of trust" surrounding all your products and services. 

• Freedom and independence. You control your destiny, free from dependence or interference. 

• Self-improvement. Platforms encourage you to refine your ideas and your ability to express them. 

• Networking. Your platform will expand and reinforce a growing referral network.

Prerequisites

• Commitment. You must invest in yourself by mastering the resources needed to create and distribute your message. 

• Consistency. Your platform must be constantly visible. You never know when prospects will be ready to buy. 

• Efficiency. To achieve constant visibility, your platform must be inexpensive and easy to update with new information.

Steps to success

1. Choose your message.
2. Create an efficient way to distribute it.
3. Promote online with a website you can update by yourself.
   

Step 1: Message considerations

Your message should reflect your competence as well as well as your values, style, and enthusiasm.

Step 2: Distribution options

An effective platform requires a source, or nucleus, one that can be recycled and expanded.

For many, the starting point is a monthly One-Page Newsletter. Each issue offers enough space to introduce and address just about any topic, educating your market and proving your competence. Later, you can expand each issue into:

• Articles and columns for publication and syndication, media interviews, etc. 

• Presentations, including audios, speeches, teleconferences, podcasts, training, webinars, and workshops. 

• Online content and incentives to attract search engine traffic, reward your  clients, and build your opt-in e-mail newsletter circulation list. 

• Books and e-books. Books are the highest level of a platform. Writing a book becomes practical if you prepare each issue of your newsletter so it can be later expanded into a chapter of a book.

Step 3: An updatable website

Websites have to be continually updated. You have to provide new information on a consistent basis. 

Avoid fancy "art directed" websites; these are usually too inflexible to be easily and continuously updated.

How to get started

Progress typically proceeds best when you work with a mentor, or coach, who will guide you through the process and help you take a fresh look at yourself.

Ask for my Platform Creating Tip Sheet with more information about creating a platform to educate your prospects and control your future.

To learn how Roger can help you pull all the pieces together into a smooth running program, call 603-742-9673 or e-mail Roger@onepagenewsletters.com.