Transcripts
1. Take-Action Journals - Overview: Hello and welcome. We're going to talk about the five step approach to designing a take action journal for your audience. This is a strategy that I've recently discovered that it's changed my business, and it's changed the lives off many of my students. And so what I want to show you here today is how you can have that kind of impact on your business and your audience. My name's Devora Lansky, and I'd like to just briefly introduce myself. I've been teaching online full time since 2000 and seven. I've created over 40 online courses I've published over 20 books, and I've taught online marketing course creation and journal publishing to thousands of authors and entrepreneurs across the globe. And it has been an absolute delight. Many of you listening in have been in many of these programs with us because we have a a warm and caring community, and people seem to really like the interaction that happens from being with like minded individuals. And what I'm going to be teaching you here today is you can harness the power of your take action journal and build a community around your message. So I'm really looking forward to sharing this training with you, so let's five in. So here's what we'll cover today we're going to talk about First of all, what is a take action journal? I use the term interactive or take action journal. And on our recent survey, that was the most popular question of what is an interactive take action journal. So we'll dive into that and I'll explain what that means. And then we'll talk about how you and your audience convention if it from your take action journal. And then I'll share a five step approach to designing a take action journal for your audience. So you may want to have pen and paper handy because you can follow this five step method as a foundation for creating your own take action journal. And then I'm going to share a collection of journal ideas and a couple of case studies, which I believe you'll enjoy
2. What is a Take Action Journal: So let's start by talking about what is a take action journal now. Traditionally, we know a journal, slash diary as a book or a pad that has lined or blank pages for people to write in. That's typically what people think of when they think of a journal, and you can certainly publish a journal like that. However, a take action journal is so much more and can give you so much more boom for your buck as a published author and as a business owner, because you can guide people through a process and provide them with a way to track their activity and their results. So you're teaching them you're holding them by the hand and you're helping them navigate a route that they need help with. So you're becoming known as the go to person to help them with that situation, and that can really help you grow your sales, your credibility, your business, your community and this will allow them to accomplish a great deal while positioning you as that expert in your field. Your journal can become a companion to your products in services, providing people with a blueprint to help them overcome challenges they're seeking solutions to what you take as second nature. Other people are thirsting to know, and you can help them in the process. And this could really increase your customer testimonials and lead to future sales. Because, let's say you offer a course or you offer a coaching program. People can come to you from your journal into your bigger programs. So becomes part of your funnel. And a take action journal is an essence. Ah, cross between AH, laser focused workbook or action guide, and a guided journal experience where readers tracks specific activities and results. So you want your take action journal to be based on your expertise because you're going to be navigating. You're going to be the tour guide to help people in uncharted territory, which could be a lot of fun and a wonderful opportunity for building relationships.
3. Who is Your Niche Audience: So I like to share with you a five step approach to designing a take action journal for your audience, and you may want to have pen and paper handy because you can take this five step process and develop the foundation of your very own take action journal. So here are the five steps I'll just outlined them briefly, and then we'll dive into each one. Step One is where we'll get crystal clear on who your niche audience is and what challenges they face. Step two is where will identify the solution you provide. Step three is where you'll discover the steps that you can walk people through to help them achieve their goals. Step four will choose three or four things that you'd like readers to journal about each day, and I'll explain why that's important when we get to that step and step five. How having a take action journal can benefit you and your audience, so let's start with step one. You want to get crystal clear on who your niche audience is and what challenges they face, what challenges they face. And here's why. While a traditional journal can be used by the General public. Your take action journal can be designed for your specific niche for your specific niche audience, and this will help to position you for your expertise and can lead towards future business relationships. This type of journal will also allow you to have a positive impact on the lives of the people you serve. So one of the things that people find satisfying in business is not Onley. Being able to make a good living but toe also do something good in the world in one way to do good in the world is to help others. And your journal can be that bridge that helps other people to where they want to be. So who is your niche audience gonna ask you to imagine that you're standing on a stage and you're looking out at the auditorium full of people sitting on the edge of their seats with their credit cards out. They want to do business with you. Who do you want in those seats? Do you want just anyone? Do you want to just fill those seats with people that it doesn't matter who they are, what they're interested in, or would you rather have the exact people who are seeking a solution to challenges they face that you can help them solve. Think about it. Sometimes we're so busy growing our email list or adding our social media subscribers or contacts that we don't really think about are these good contacts for me, Is this my community? Are these people I can learn from that I could become friends with that I can help. And so that's what you want is you want to be crystal clear on who your audience is. So how would you describe your ideal client? Do they live in a specific geographical location? Are they in a specific age range or economic bracket? Do they struggle with health success? Or you can fill in the blank there. What issues do they struggle with? What would you say is their number one challenge? You could take that to the bank. You might want to write that down. What would you say is your ideal student client customer? What is their number one challenge? Their number one challenge that you can provide a solution to, and you may have an ah ha moment as you're doing this exercise, because if you identify their number one challenge, and it's not based on your expertise. You either need to change the focus of what you're offering or search for people who are in need of what you have to offer. So your ideal client, your ideal audience, is one who needs what you have to offer and that you have the skills to help them through the challenges that they're facing.
4. What Solutions Do You Offer: so that was Step one. Once you have that in hand, what you want to dio is move on and identify the solution. You provide the solution you provide. So what do you known for? What do you help people with? What do people come to you for? What have you written the book on or created a course about? And what do you want people to pay you for? If you haven't given this a lot of thought, many of you have. But if you haven't given this a lot of thought, this would be a wonderful opportunity for you to take some time and go someplace quiet where you enjoy writing and thinking and ponder on this. Because maybe your business is going to take a new shape or it's just gonna become refined like a polished diamond that you want to sharpen your skills. You want to sharpen your focus so that you can take what it is that you know and also take what it is that you love and connect with the audience that you want to serve. And this is this will really help you and it's also never there's a there's a saying that goes, It's never too late to start a new habit in the middle of a bag of potato chips. Well, well, it's never too late to redesign or redefine your business or to reshape it. Maybe you're heading in one direction and it's been route and it's worked for you. Or but you're feeling that you want something mawr or different. Or maybe your feeling that your business has slowed down because of the way the age of technology has has gone along and things are shifting and the economy is shifting or the needs of your audience or shifting. So maybe you need to shift in your business. It would be a good time for you to think about. What is it that I love? What would I What would I do if if I didn't even get paid for it and if I got paid for it, I would love it even more. Who could I help? And in what ways can I help them? And so this is a really powerful exercising. I'm gonna encourage you toe to take some time when when you have some some free brain space where you can just sit quietly and write and think, because the ideal solution for you to provide meets at the intersection of your expertise and the needs of your audience. So here's the bottom line based on your knowledge and expertise and the needs of your niche audience. What solutions can you provide and what solutions do you want to provide? Because there may be some solutions that you can provide, but you just know that that's not something that you want to dio. So when you find that intersection between what you love, what you know and what your audience needs, that is the sweet spot. That's where you want to be. This is gonna help you identify the perfect topic for your take action journal.
5. Develop Activities for Your Take-Action Journal: Now let's move on to Step three, and we're going to talk about what steps can you walk people through to help them achieve their goals? What steps can you walk them through? Because, as we mentioned, a journal can be mines or blank page lined or blank pages. A journal can also be a little question at the top of a page, with lines or blank pages where you say right about your day, which is pretty broad, or write about something that happened today or write about what you're grateful for now. If you are not teaching on the topic of gratitude, then all of those questions are great, but they're very general, So you wanna have clarity as faras guiding people through a process. So we talked about the analogy of you being the tour guide, right so you can send people. Here's your here's your map and actually don't even give them a map. Just give them a blank piece of paper and a pencil and tell them there's the path. Go ahead, have a good walk and it's a wine D path, and it goes uphill and down hills. And there's places where the where the is not real clear which way to go and they're just on their own. That's one way to do it is to send people off without a real with without a real clear direction. Or you could be crystal clear. You can have a map that outlines you can go this way, and this is what you'll see, and this is what you can dio. You could go this way, but be careful because there's a deep mud pit and there's no fence around it. So you're cautioning people, your guiding people, you're painting a picture for people and you're letting them know By doing this, you can experience this. And so as you think about the challenges that your audience have, what do they want to achieve? What obstacles could they encounter and how can you help them short cut their journey? How can you help them achieve their goals and find the solution to what they are seeking? So let's so you. So you want to start here with the steps that you can walk people through. So once you identify the perfect topic for your take action journal, and you can do that by going through the the exercises that we just discussed. Do some brainstorming and identify approximately five tasks or exercises that you can walk readers through to help them towards the solution that they seek. And you want to put it in sequential order. What do they need to do first? What do they need to do next? Is there any equipment that they need to? Are there any tools or resource is do they need? Do they need to be in a certain frame of mind that they need to be in a quiet place? Do they need to have prepared something in advance? So you want to equip them and walk them through step by step through The five different five is an arbitrary number approximately. It could be that there are three tasks that you want to walk them through or nine tests that you want to walk them through. So five arbitrary number, But it is a good amount of activities tohave In a take action journal, you can build an entire take action journal around five tasks, and you can also I'm gonna plant this seed because this was an ah ha moment that I didn't think about until I wrote my journal and my journals on the topic of our workshop today. And as as I published the Journal, I realized that I had the foundation, of course, in that journal that I could take what I had written in that journal with the action steps and turn it into a complete four or five module course. And we can talk more about that a little bit later. But the reality is, this is a diving board, a jump, a springboard, if you will. This is a springboard that can take you toe a variety of different places. So what do they need to know first, or what do they need to do first? And then what are the next steps that they need to take and really walk them through step by step, making things crystal clear? Don't leave it up to interpretation. So as you write down your activities, write them to the best of your ability and then take a break and come back and read what you've written as if you didn't know anything about your topic and then refine it from there because you want to take them on this journey up the mountain, and you want to make it really clear that they don't want to go to the left, where there's no fence around the mud pool. You want them to go this way and pack their binoculars and a picnic so that they're prepared. So you just want to be crystal clear and then take a breath, come back refreshed and read it from the point of view of your ideal student or client. So once you have your ideas, you can create a rough draft or a worksheet, and I'm gonna show you some examples in just a moment. So based on the action steps that you outline, create a worksheet or me just I see a typo here create. Try that again. So based on the action steps you outline, create worksheets or checklists that walk people through the process so that you can equip them and help them to move forward. These rough drafts can then form the foundation of your published take action journal. So in the essence of what is a take action journal, the thing that sets it apart the most there's two things I'm gonna talk about, the other in a moment but the biggest is this one. Here you're providing them with guided, step by step action steps that can walk them through a process and take them two different levels and allow them to move further along towards achieving their goals. So these air two pages from my journal, which is on the topic of our of our workshop here today. It's it's called Create and Publish a take action journal for your audience, and the exercises that we just went through are two pages in the journal, and I wanted to show you the format. I wanted to point out a few things. Do you notice how everything is uniform? There's the same amount of space between each section. There's the same amount of bullet points. For example, on the left hand side, there are three sections with four bullet points on the right hand section. There's an initial question and that there are three sections with three bullet points, with the same amount of space between each bullet point and the same amount of space between each section. You noticed that the top that the titles are even the same size font, and that the description that the instruction paragraph starts at the exact same place. It's the same size font, and it's the same number of lines. That kind of consistency helps draw people in. You'll also notice the white space. That's another thing that draws people in one of the things that causes people to stall or to stop taking action is overwhelmed. And when there's too much information squished onto a page or it's not clear what you're asking, people might say, you know, I'm gonna come back when I have a clearer mind. I'm not sure what this means or this looks too overwhelming. There's to much stuff here. I'm going to come back when I can when I when I can think clear. You don't want them to do that because they might not come back because there they have the idea in their mind that this is gonna be too much work. Instead, you wanted to be fun, and so I call this a ah, yummy journal, and what I mean by that is just the even the bullet points. Do you see how the bullet points? They just look, In my opinion, they look attractive. The lines did just inviting. There's not too many words telling them to do too many things. It's just imagine that they're at an appetizer at an appetizer buffet and you're giving them little bites of yummy nous. That's what your journal can be, and that's what's gonna allow you to take to have them take action. You'll also notice that each page is on its own topic, and that helps them focus in on one specific task at a time versus having two different tasks on the same page. It's better tohave blank. It's better to have a blank section or line section that says notes at the bottom of the page. Then combine two different topic areas, so you want to keep things separate. You want to make it so that it's one chomp and maybe so that so each page is a chomp with with a several different shoes, if you will, because we're talking about the analogy of an appetizer bar. So there's an example of exercises that you that you could include in your take action journal
6. Create the Journal Section of Your Book: Now let's move on to Step four, and we're gonna talk about what three or four things would you like readers to journal about each day? Because your journal could also become a 30 day journal that they use every single day for the month. It could be longer. However, the longer your book is. Depending on how many pages you have, it's going to cost more to publish and cost more for them to buy. I found that a two page journal spread and a handful of exercises and a handful of note pages a marketing page, um, in introductory page section dividers that that creates approximately 104 pages, and the minimum to have a spine on your book is 100 and one pages. So if you wanted to have a 60 day journal, I suppose you could have a one page spread and you would have the same number of pages. Or you would just need to know that your journal would cost more or you would make less per book or you would need or it would cost you more or you need charge more and any of those combinations. So let's move on to. So let's move on to step for and we'll talk about what 3 to 4 things you'd like readers to journal about each day. So once readers have gone through the activity pages you offer in your journal, you can provide them with a 30 day journal journaling for 30 days is going to reinforce their efforts and help them to track their activity in their results. There is a saying that it takes 21 days to create a new habit. Well, if you're giving them this new habit for 30 days, at the end of the time, you're going to really help them tramps transform their lives. So think about the possibilities, and I'm gonna show you an example of what I mean by this type of journal page. This is gonna allow you to help them create consistency so that they can develop those new habits, whether it's eating in a different way or exercising in a different way or relating to people in a different way, or working in a different way or focusing in a different way. Whatever your topic is, they're going to be rinsing and repeating and rinsing, repeating and journaling and thinking and writing for 30 days you're going to create new ingrained habits and think about it. You're gonna have the satisfaction of knowing you're helping people, and you are going to be able to transform lives, and they are going to be able to change their lives for the better. So you're creating this wonderful win win scenario where you get to be the hero in a not any egotistical way. But it's just how wonderful to be able to help people. Just think about what you want to accomplish. What if you could have a guide in your hand, and in 30 days you could You could create a new habit, a new positive. Have it? What would that have it be? What would you want to learn? What would you need to have in place? And do you want to go at your own? Where would you rather have a step by step guide in your hand? And we, of course, we could all probably go it on our own. But how long have you wanted to accomplish that goal? And how many more months, days, years, will you put it off? Well, what if someone that you trusted or that you were referred, Teoh could give you a guide and change your life in 30 days. That's the power of a take action journal. So when I talk about having a 30 day journal, this is what the 30 day Journal looks like in my journal. In all my journals, it has the same type of set up, and I typically have four, sometimes five different sections. And these are I really think, these through carefully based on the topic of the journal. What do I want people to write about each day? So on the left hand side, it has a play place. Where has the day number? I have 30 days. I have 32 page spreads and the date because they by having it open like that, you don't you can use for many, many years. You don't have to republish every year, and also people may skip a day in between. Or they may only do Monday through Friday. Or, they may forget, come back two weeks later. So it'll be interesting for them to see now. You can also build in community. Maybe you have a Facebook group that goes along with your journal and on one of the marketing pages in your journal, you invite people to join your Facebook group, and one of the things that you do in your Facebook group is that people share something that they're celebrating or something that they accomplished each day. And so you have this whole group of people that they're working on their journals every day . It's gonna help people remember all I need to do my journal, and they're going to get to know each other, and you're going to get to know them, And it could be a wonderful experience. So in this journal, the topic is creating a journal. And so I have the first journal. Prompt is what I worked on today for my journal. So I originally had their what I accomplished, and I realized that they people could say, I cleaned my house. I organized my desk, I went for a walk, and that's what those are wonderful accomplishments. But I wanted to keep this journal page on the exact focus of the journal, so that's why I'm as specific as possible. I didn't just say what I worked on today. I said, What I worked on today for my journal, so I just wanted to demonstrate the specific specificity. That's a mouthful. I just wanted Teoh demonstrate how specific that question is that at the bottom of that page, because they're thinking what they did while they're in that zone. I'm gonna I asked them what it says. What all focus on tomorrow and now they have their basic the foundation of their to do list right there towards their journal that they can just flip back and refer to. And when you have your journal, you could offer a bonus webinar or a bonus workshop where you walk people through step by step and teach them how to use your journal that's gonna keep people close to you. It's going to show them that you're knowledgeable and that you care, and it's going to help them make the most of their journalists and a grow your community and grow their their success rate with your tool. And then on the right hand side on the top, it says ideas, realizations and research, and at the bottom it says to do items. So I just wanted to show you how consistent same number of lines the same place on the page with this facing nice, clear font, lots of white space. So that would be an example. So my question to you on the previous page was, What are the 3 to 4 things that you would want people to trap? Now you can have two things on the left as simple as what I worked on today or what I accomplished. They are what I'll focus on tomorrow or the top. Could be what I accomplished today in the bottom left could be what I'm grateful for and the right could be notes. It could be that General, or it could be as specific as you want for your topic area, whatever you think would help assist your ideal audience.
7. Take-Action Journals Benefit the Readers: And then we move on to step five and here we're going to give thought to how, having a take action journal convention if it you and your audience. So let's move on to step five. We're gonna give thought to how, having a take action journal convention if it, you and your audience knowing the answer to this question will fuel your engine and inspire you to create a powerful tool. This is also gonna allow you to help a lot of people, and it will help you to increase your credibility and grow your business. So again, you're quite you're creating that win win scenario. Here's some ways that people would benefit by having a take action journal. So there's three different areas I'm gonna talk about. First of all, how your audience would benefit from a take action journal next, how you could benefit from a take action journal and then third, I'm gonna talk about ideas for topics for take action journals. It can help students document their progress and experiences. That's a powerful one, because if someone has a big, long to do list or they feel, Oh, I'm so far from my goal, they may not realize how much they have cop accomplished. They might not realize how much they've accomplished. It's like going up a mountain that's not very steep, and you think I'm not going uphill. I'm just walking on a straight plane and then you look behind you and you see Oh my goodness, look at how high I climbed. And so that's what this is like. Having a way for them to document their progress and experiences is going to show them how far they've come and that's going to keep them moving forward. It will that would, that would. What that will do is it will help people take daily steps towards their goals, which is perfect because that's what you want them to do. You don't want them to just take one step and then not come back for months. You want them to keep the consistency and build momentum. Having a take action journal can also help people actually put into practice what they're learning. So think about that. How many times have you attended a class and you found it interesting. But you didn't really take action on it or you meant to. But you got busy. What if you had a step by step action sheet that walked you through and encouraged you to really track your progress over 30 day period? Could that have made a difference in your life for what you have accomplished? Well, that's what you'll be able to offer to. Your audience can also give them a place to record their answers and thoughts. Maybe you're asking them questions or you're asking them to research something or you're asking them to try something or do something and then record how they feel. Maybe you want them toe walk for 10 minutes every day in record. How did they feel before the walk? How did they feel after the walk? How did they feel before they went to bed? How did they feel when they woke up and will be interesting? So those could be for the four different prompts for the journal, and it will be interesting for them to see at the top left. You might have, uh, did I walk today or I walk today for X number of minutes or I walk today for I walked. I took my walk today. Yes or no? So you're not judging them you've given, They can check off either. And then you could say How many What? How many minutes did you walk today? If applicability and they could jot it down, then they can go through. And as they're reflecting back on their journal, they can say, I find it really interesting that I wake up feeling happy on the days that I've been for the on my walk for at least 10 minutes the day before. And I noticed that I wake up grumpy on the days that I haven't taken a walk the day before . They may not. They might not realize this until they could actually see it in writing. So think how that would apply to what, what? The process that you want to take them through you can. Also, also having a take action journal can help motivate and inspire customers to take action, and it could be taking action towards completing something that's an entry level activity. And if it's something they want to explore further, they can reach out to you and become a customer or a or a client or a student and learn even more and go even further. But it's going to get them starting on the path Annick and help readers get mawr out of your books or programs because you're take action Journal can be a companion to your existing books or courses. So that's how people can benefit from a take action journal. That's how your readers can benefit.
8. How You Can Benefit by Having a Take-Action Journal: Here's how having a take action journal can benefit you. It could help you increase your book sales, because again, it could be a companion to your book. In your journal, you can promote your book, and in your book you can promote your journal. You conserve of the Companions Yearbook, as I mentioned it can help you develop a step by step training process that you use in your gym or in your online classroom, or when you're teaching at seminars, whether they're virtual seminars or in person conferences. And it's all based on that journal that you've developed this whole training system and or the journal is based on your training system and you're simplifying it and giving people an entry level towards a bigger path off accomplishment and achievement can also give you another product. Refer people to if they can't afford your coaching services so that you can keep them close . It's not like, Oh, you can't afford my coaching. Well, I'll come to me if your situation changes and have a good life, which often times happens when someone has a coaching one on one session and they like the person and they want what the person has to offer, but it's just not in their budget at the time. What you can keep them close by letting your take action journal coach them through your wisdom and having this tool that you could help them with. And over time they may come back to you because their situation changed or they were transformed so greatly by what you took them through in the take action journal that they realized I can't afford not that hire you to coach them. And having a take action journal can give your business more credibility. You will become a published author. If you're not already a published author, you'll have a second publication or a negation ALS publication. If you already have published books and when you go to events or you go to networking events, you have this tool that you can show people and have for sale or have a business card about it, and people can see that you have expertise in that topic area. You may find that your speaking engagements online and offline increase because you have that tool that they that it's very clear that you know how to help people navigate a challenge, and that's really powerful, and it will give you a sense of satisfaction knowing that you are helping others.
9. Explore Possible Journal Topics: The third topic area I mentioned was possible. Journal topics. You may have ideas already in your mind, and you might want to jot them down. Or you may feel like the ideas are bubbling, but you're not quite sure. So off the 150 survey responses I picked a handful to share here as a cross section toe hope toe hopefully spark an idea for you. You can help people with adult 80 HD. You can help people find and live their life's dream. You can support couples with marriage transformation. You can offer support for a healthy eating and living lifestyle, and you can help people redesign their life as they approach retirement so you can see there's no specific. One area that it take action Journal is designed for is designed for every walk of life. If you're a medical print practitioner, if you're a teacher of your nurse, if you're a student, if you are a health, a health buff, if you have a hobby, if you love dancing, if you love cooking, whatever it is that you love, that is an area that you want to develop. And hopefully I would say, develop your business because then you can really sustain you while helping others. That is perfect topic for your take action journal. You could also help people overcome procrastination and become more productive because so many times people are thinking about I'll get to it someday. Well, if you give them the steps to help them get on that conveyor built and then you encourage them to journal about it for 30 days, that can have a huge impact on allowing them to accomplish something that they've been trying to accomplish for decades and think about how grateful they're going to be to you and how that's going to strengthen the bond between you and them. And that's really powerful. And when we know we're helping others, it helps us know that we're on the right path and that we're doing the right work in this world so it can really feed you on that level is well
10. Your Class Project: So my question to you is what topic would be of support to your audience. What topic would you love to have your journal on? That would help your audience, and that's something to think about. And then my next question is, what would having a take action journal do for your audience and for your business? So as you think about that, it's going to really expand the possibilities in your mind when you realize that you know what? This could lead to me creating an online course because it will give me the blueprint. I could just take my journal and turn it into a course, which is actually something that I've done. So I recently wrote my journal, my Take Action Journal, on the topic of creating a take action journal. And once I published, I realize that I had the blueprint for a course. So I'm going to really encourage you gonna really encourage you to take action on what you learned today. And here are a couple of ways you can do that. First of all, you do have a choice to make. Today you can see the possibilities that having a take action journal could bring you, and you can choose to walk away from this training and forget about it. You could say, Well, that was interesting. And then once you leave the training, you don't give it another thought. That's definitely a possibility. If you were sparked by what you heard today, you can take what you learned today and run with it. Those five steps I outlined for you. When you complete those exercises, you'll have the foundation to create a take action journal for your audience. So I want to thank you for going through this training with us here today. Be sure to tell us about your journal in your journal idea so we can celebrate one another . And again, thank you for being here and until next time, here's to your success.