[Top Author Series] How to Create Your Breakthrough Idea with Dorie Clark, Author of "Stand Out"

Dorie Clark is a top strategy consultant who has worked with clients including Google,Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, and many more.

She teaches for Duke University at the Business School, and has lectured at Harvard business school, Stanford, MIT and many more.

She is the author of "Reinventing You" and her latest book "Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It" (Portfolio/Penguin, 2015)

On this episode…

Dorie's new book, "Stand Out" is about building your personal brand in a way that gets you the attention and focus you need in order to move your projects forward. She's become an expert at it, especially since she's done that very thing for her own brand. In this conversation she shares a few of the ways she went about doing that, from her first efforts at getting her writing published on big name blogs, to submitting book proposals to publishers, to leveraging her books once they were published to build her email list into the tens of thousands. Dorie unloads a lot of stuff for us, so be sure you take the time to listen.

How Dorie built her brand from scratch.

When Dorie Clark needed to start building an audience she was very strategic about it. Her belief was that blogging on already established, reputable sites made more sense than trying to build her own blog from square 1. That's what she did, and when she found out what mattered to the publishers of those sites, she did her best to maximize that so she was seen as a huge success. Find out the details of her little hack on this episode.

She's a successfully published author now, but Dorie Clark has received many, many rejections to her book proposals in the past. If you're an author, you know that feeling. On this episode Dorie talks about what that means to be rejected by a publisher and gives some tips on how you need to think about it so that you can keep submitting proposals in the face of rejection. If you can't learn that lesson, you'll quit before your book has a chance.

Maximizing her books to skyrocket her email subscriptions.

In her latest book, "Stand Out," Dorie Clark created many self evaluation questions that she included at the end of each chapter. Those questions made a wonderful resource to offer on her website as her "offer" to increase her email subscriber list… and it's working like crazy. She tells exactly how she did it, step by step on this episode so be sure you listen to get all the details.

Coming up with your own unique "breakthrough" idea.

When you're trying to come up with your "breakthrough" idea, it doesn't take lots of time as much as it takes mental space. You've got to be able to clear out the "head room" to think deeply and get to the root of what you're about. If you can figure out how to do that, you can make serious headway toward quantifying what it is you have to offer. On this episode Dorie Clark unpacks that idea and offers a free resource to help you get it done.

Here's a glimpse of what you'll get on this show:

• [0:25] Jeremy's introduction of this episode and his guest, Dorie Clark.
• [1:09] How Dorie came up with her latest book title… it was a fight.
• [2:38] How to find Dorie's assessment tool (it's FREE).
• [3:10] Success stories from her new book, "Stand Out."
• [6:23] Some of Dorie's personal favorites (loves).
• [13:57] Some personal things about Dorie you may not know.
• [19:34] Why Dorie pursued a degree in theology.
• [21:00] How she moved toward university teaching and the topics she specializes in.
• [25:34] An aspect of networking and connections that most people neglect.
• [27:32] Dorie's thoughts about luck.
• [29:35] The Craigslist story.
• [31:08] Dorie's book proposals that got rejected and how she dealt with it.
• [32:34] How Dorie built an audience.
• [35:56] How she decided it was time to write her second book.
• [42:04] Advice Dorie received regarding her book writing and promotion.
• [44:03] How she decided to create a self assessment rather than some other giveaway.
• [46:49] Dorie's mentors.
• [49:10] Some of Dorie's biggest disappointments and how she pushed through it.
• [52:40] Dorie's proudest moments.
• [53:31] Dorie's ebook: Standout Networking.
• [54:30] Final advice from Dorie and how to reach her.

Dorie's resources mentioned on this episode

• www.DorieClark.com (get your FREE assessment tool)
• Dorie's new book: "Stand Out"
• "Reinventing You" - Dorie's other book
• "Stand Out Networking" - yet ANOTHER book

People and Other Resources mentioned

• John Corcoran
• Derek Halpern
• Robert Cialdini
• Seth Godin
• Dan Miller
• Dan Pink
• James Altucher
• Claudia Altucher
• A.J. Jacobs
• Out magazine
• Log Cabin Republicans
• The Christian Coalition
• BOOK: "Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck"
• Dorie's blog post on the Harvard Business Review: "How to Reinvent Your Personal Brand."
• The Harvard Business Review
• Robbie Samuels of Socializing for Justice
• Rob Eagar, author of "Sell Your Book Like Wildfire."
• Dov Gordon
• Jenny Blake
• David Allen