Writers of The Round Table

A Destination Website: www.roundtablecompanies.com

Corey Blake — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:28:58 +0000

After nine months, the website for Round Table Companies (www.roundtablecompanies.com) is up and running! While we’re still pending another two months or so of building out the portfolio sections, it’s in good shape and ready to unveil to our clients.

Developing the website was an arduous process in the beginning that turned explosively fun as we finally started seeing the buildout. That’s something I always talk to clients about: in one way or another, achieving something exceptional takes time, energy, and a lot of patience. For this website, we needed to get across that we not only specialize in strategic thinking, writing and design, but we build entire systems around our clients’ brands. From school curriculums and nonprofit foundation setup to extensive marketing, advertising and public relations, we work to create and draw attention to dynamic brands for clients in a very wide range of industries. Pairing this message with the visual and interactive components we wanted was a daunting task.

We spent a lot of time creating the right logo, which we felt we couldn’t build the site without. Then, in order for our creative director Nathan Brown to stretch and do something different with the functionality, we hired outside assistance to help create the menu. We’re still putting finishing touches on arguably the most important part of the site: the separate portfolios. I’ve worked on the author and press portfolios, and Sue is working with Nathan to create the niche business portfolios. Finally, we’ll have three different blogs on the site: writing (creativity), marketing (business), and design. Already, Nathan’s design blog receives 60,000 page views each month, and he’s working aggressively to build that out even further. Our goal is to create a place that makes it easy for people to see the depth and quality of our work, with a creative, interactive website that inspires as much as it informs.

There’s still work to do, but I’m hopeful that the website will become more of a destination site, which people want to visit regularly. Ultimately, we want to make people aware that RTC is not just a business, it’s a support mechanism for our thought leaders and the clients they partner with: Corey Blake (Storytellers and Authors), Sue Publicover (All things Marketing), Nathan Brown (Design and Illustration).

What are your thoughts on the website (www.roundtablecompanies.com)?

When Does Your Company Need to Re-Brand?

Corey Blake — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:21:50 +0000

The necessity for re-branding usually arises when the status quo is disrupted—hopefully, in a good way. If your company’s core values, target customer base, and/or product and service range have changed, for example, it might be time to consider re-branding to more accurately represent what you’ve become.

At the Table, we realized our own need for re-branding: Our writing for clients was successful, and our clients were happy with the work. So happy, in fact, that they were requesting other services from us. Non-writing services. So we brought on additional support and built a design division, an intellectual property division, a public relations division and a marketing therapy division. But because of our name—Writers of the Round Table—new clients weren’t aware of the full breadth of our new capabilities. They trusted their relationship with us and didn’t want to go elsewhere, but they didn’t realize that we also excelled in these other areas until we let them know.

From a branding standpoint, that wasn’t efficient. Before they even speak to us, potential clients should know what we’re able to do for them. Without re-branding, how else would they know that Writers of the Round Table could help them apply for their 501(c)3, for example? Or help them develop a corporate identity program? Or design their album cover or movie poster?

As a solution, we created Round Table Companies, an umbrella company that encompasses all of our divisions, and helps people see us as a full-service partner. Our new tagline is “Creative Solutions for Businesses. Business Solutions for Creatives.” After a nine-month process, we also have a new website: www.roundtablecompanies.com. Take a peek. I’d love to hear your thoughts! And if you’re considering a re-branding for your company, contact our director of business development, Erin Cohen at erin@roundtablecompanies.com.

Why You Should Find the Courage to Fuse Art and Business

Corey Blake — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:48:09 +0000

In the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with hundreds of very creative, very brilliant people who find such joy in pursuing their art. But many of these same people find it difficult or impossible to see their art as a business-or, conversely, to make a business of their art. Art, some of them feel, has no place for business. It’s a place for passion and whimsy and discovery; how can business possibly fit in among these things?

Make no mistake: To make a business of your art takes courage; just not for the reasons many creatives think.

You don’t have to objectify or devalue your art in order to think like a businessperson. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Thinking like a businessperson means thinking realistically but also thinking big. What this means, in other words, is that you have the freedom to dream. For example, let’s say you’ve penned and published a memoir about your facing and overcoming childhood cancer. Why would you want to take a wait-and-see approach-wait and see how many copies are sold, wait and see the kind of recognition (if any) the book receives? Wait for permission to sell it, to market it, to impact lives with it?

No. Think bigger. Think like a businessperson. Think about putting your book into the hands of children suffering from disease. Think even bigger. What about introducing the book to hospitals? To schools? What about giving it-yes, giving it-to organizations that help families cope with catastrophic illness? Why not send galley copies to and seek reviews from publications interested in cancer?

The point of this example is to show that, by having the courage to fuse art and business, you will give your art a much bigger, better chance of making a difference in the world. Which is what every artist-and businessperson-wants most. You can do it, just like Alesia Shute is doing it with her book Everything’s Okay. Alesia is using her personal story of overcoming childhood cancer to make a real difference. What are you doing with your art?

Check out Alesia’s journey at www.everythingsokaybook.com… and then follow in her footsteps.

Setting Goals in 2010

Corey Blake — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:20:44 +0000

There’s something about being on the cusp of a new year that really inspires dreaming big—which is what we, as a company, are all about! I see 2010 as holding so much potential for our clients. There will be even greater opportunity for brand building and storytelling around our brands, and for harnessing the power of networking to reach as many people as possible. I want to urge all of our clients to set lofty goals for themselves in the coming year:

How many speaking engagements they’ll do.
How many media appearances will they make?
How many key relationships do they want to build?
How many local, regional, statewide and national victories do they want to achieve?

Once they have these yearly goals in crystallized, numerical form, we can work together to create the strategy that will generate these results. Then we’ll break that down to a monthly punch list of implementation.

With our business clients, it’s all about setting goals for how they want to build community around their brand.

How many individual lives do they want to impact this year?
How will they measure those outcomes?
How many stories do they want to focus on to demonstrate that impact?
How many people do they want paying attention to all of the above by the end of 2010?

Of course, our company also has its own goals. Storytelling is going to be a very big focus for me in 2010. I also plan on increasing the number of business clients that we work with (using marketing to articulate core values and define company culture internally and externally). We want to pick up more large-scale clients in some of our niche industries, such as real estate and construction, healthcare, technology, and consulting/coaching.

Coming out of a difficult economy and tough global outlook, it will be important to treat one another well in 2010 and to remain steadfast to our own core values of integrity, synergy, brilliance, creativity and joy as we continue to grow. We’ll be walking away from some old clients who no longer share those values (not easy to do, but necessary!) and be on the lookout for others who are a better fit for what we offer. We have goals of expanding our design division to work with more comic books, movie posters, and illustration/animation. We’re also looking for a two or three highly successful individuals looking to use their personal story (memoir) to have a global impact. More specifically, we want people who are already successful in their industries, but who want to become pioneers through investing in our book development and publishing process.

What are your goals for the coming year?

Thankfulness

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:25:09 +0000

As we close up 2009, I want to offer a post expressing my appreciation for all the people who support what we, as a company do.

First, our clients. Because our clients are trailblazers, they have to trust in our guidance and expertise. We utilize a “no cookie-cutter” approach to brand building, which means that we customize every program to suit our client’s needs. Within those tactics there are great successes and difficult lessons to learn. You each honor us with your trust as we carve out new niches that blend creativity, storytelling and business. To those of you who have referred others to us, I thank you for recognizing the value of our brand and our standards, enough to put your own name on the line. We recognize that referrals are to be treasured and we hope you know how much it means to us when you recommend our business.

To our freelancers. You have hung in there through a tough economy that finally caught up to us in November. We have learned some tough lessons, but are regrouping now to replace some business that we have determined is no longer the correct fit for our company. We understand that presents hardship to many of you and loss of regular income. We hope you will remain positive as we have, and trust that in the long run, this is an exceptional move for all.

To our staff. I want to give a special thank you to Sue Publicover, who has done an exceptional job expanding the capabilities of our business marketing division. Sue does what I could never do; she lights up with fire over industries like healthcare, technology, and real estate and construction. Her passion for those fields is an immense asset and one that will allow us to expand our client outreach in 2010.

Thank you also to our project manager, Erin Cohen. She has been dynamic in helping Sue create a streamlined process that can deliver exceptional work to our clients quickly. So often with writing and design firms, quality and speed battle one another with a clear victor. Together, Erin and Sue have created a fluid system that delivers top notch product at lightning speeds and that capability allows us to handle larger volumes of work without quality suffering. Bravo!

Thank you to Nathan Brown for working to make the design side of the company into something that is exciting for him—that willingness has led us into the wonderful world of comic books and illustration, movie poster design, album covers, and other creative based industries. Nathan has also done extensive work on re-branding our company so that our clients understand the full breadth of services we offer (www.roundtablecompanies.com – it’s still growing, so check back frequently!). Make sure you check out Nathan’s design blog at http://www.roundtablecompanies.com/design/.

Here’s to wishing everyone around The Table a happy and healthy holiday. We’ll see you in the new year!

Corey’s Story Adventure—The Writer’s Perspective, Part 3 by Katie Gutierrez Painter

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:37:09 +0000

Corey, Annie, and I had a great call today. After chatting for a few minutes on everything from colds to hypnosis, we got down to business. Corey was feeling compelled to talk about a ghostwriting project that had stretched and challenged him from multiple standpoints: business, creative, emotional, and financial. As I listened, I tried to figure out how the story would translate to writing. Though the story was engaging, it was really only skimming the surface, which doesn’t fly with the written word. Then Annie, mindreader that she is, paused the conversation. In her nurturing but firm way, she guided Corey to push beyond surface-level exposition and reveal the emotional depth of the story. I thought, Ah! That’s just what I needed! Sure enough, we got to the bruised softness of the story’s core, and Corey was excited to be making new revelations about the experience.

This call made me think about what I’ll call the three levels of powerful storytelling: exposition, emotion, and scene. See, a mediocre story will be all exposition:

“I went to the mall to buy a sweater for my dad. I had to go to four stores before I found one I liked—and even then, it had a stain right under the armpit! I haggled with the salesperson and got ten percent off. I’ll clean off the stain before giving the sweater to Dad.”

A better one will include emotion, and emotion changes the story:

“I remember how my dad used to buy the softest sweaters for me when I was young. They made me feel safe and loved, like nothing could hurt me. Now that he’s sick, I want to give him the softest sweater I can find. So I went to the mall…”

But a powerful one will also have scene:

“At Macys, the perky holiday music seemed to fade as I sifted through the sweaters on the shelf. The nice charcoal-colored one was too wooly; I rubbed my fingers over the collar and imagined it itching my dad’s neck. The crimson one was soft but thin, too thin; it wouldn’t keep him warm. Then I found it: thick, warm, soft cashmere in deep blue, the color of Dad’s eyes. I held it against my cheek and smiled. He’d love this one.”

Okay, I’m not claiming literary merit for these little pieces, but you can see how the story changes with each level added. This is the challenge for the team as we move forward with Corey’s book. We have the exposition—the experiences themselves—and we have the emotion. But I think that, as we start fitting pieces together, we’ll see the need for more scene. I think (at least I hope!) it’ll be fun for Corey, though—to challenge his memory and pull out the scenic details that will bring his experiences and lessons alive for readers.

Onward!

How to Separate the Gems from All the Other Pretty Rocks

Corey Blake — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:53:29 +0000

There is a lot of under-par work out there, put out by businesses and artists alike. Some of it actually makes money—even a lot of money—and amid all the pretty rocks, it can often be difficult to spot the gems. But they’re there, and when you do find one, you keep it, you protect it, and you love it. However, as an artist or businessperson (or both), you should know that an exceptional product alone doesn’t always constitute a gem. In order for your work to leave a mark on the world and affect some sort of change, it must glow with your own personal character.

Think about it like this: There’s nothing quite like picking up a book, listening to an album, or watching a film and knowing that you’re seeing the artist through their work. It’s the difference between the pop hits on the radio that make millions of dollars but disappear in six months, and the classics, the ones that stick around, that we still listen to and feel twenty years after they were first popular. True gems aren’t fleeting. They last because they say something powerful about the people who crafted them and, ideally, something powerful about us, their audience, as well.

So how do you inject your work with your unique character? How do you turn it into a gem? Be brave! Don’t let trends or traditional “wisdom” keep you from getting personal. After all, if you didn’t want to put something powerful into the world, why would you go through the joys and pains of creating it in the first place? Remember to ask yourself what you want your art to say and why that message is important and meaningful to you. If you allow yourself to speak authentically through your art, chances are that someone will hear your message and respond. That’s a gem.

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From the Writer’s Perspective: A Story Needs a Voice

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:30:32 +0000

Let’s be more clear: A story needs the right voice. In the case of Corey’s book, which I’m co-writing, it needs Corey’s voice. Not mine, not some vague idea of what a creative executive should sound like, not an imitation of similar books out there (if there were any)—not any of these; it needs Corey’s voice.

A couple of years ago, before I was a full-time professional writer and editor, I sent a few of my fiction and narrative nonfiction pieces out to literary magazines. I was prepared for rejection, just as all writers should be. So imagine my surprise when, just a few days later, I found an acceptance letter in my e-mail! My short narrative nonfiction piece had been accepted by a top-tier magazine. I was in happy, dazed shock. But then came the editing. To make a long story short, my piece was published, but its voice sounds less like me and more like the editor, who appreciated Hemingway’s minimalist style versus, say, Morrison’s lush language. While I’m proud that the piece is in this magazine, I feel unsettled when I read its published version; truth be told, I still like mine better.

That’s a feeling I never want Corey to have. After that experience, which was by no means traumatizing—simply educational—I learned the importance of capturing and preserving the right voice in stories. Fortunately, Corey has a fantastic storytelling voice, as anyone who has heard him speak knows. The trick is in taking that voice and the stories it relates on the phone each week, and interpreting them both for the written word. See, oral storytelling and written storytelling are different. When you’re reading a book, the words need to somehow capture the emotion that you can hear when somebody’s voice trembles or cracks or rises in a flash of anger or elation. I wish I could say there’s a foolproof way of doing this, there’s not. And I’m glad. Formulas are great for math and science, but writing is magic, alchemy. So I do my best to capture the essence of Corey’s voice and rely on him to tell me how on or off the mark I am. All I can say is, I hope I’m more often on than off!

Brace Yourself: A Brand-Building Reality Check

Corey Blake — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:08:18 +0000

I’ve talked before (and will continue to talk about) my growing impatience with clients and potential clients who think we’re ready to call Oprah because the first draft of their manuscript is written. Not only is this expectation both naïve and grandiose, it’s completely based in fantasy. This childlike look at the book industry would be completely laughable if it weren’t so frustrating. What people need to understand is that, yes, it’s possible to get Oprah’s attention. Yes, it’s possible to get on the bestseller list. But it will not happen overnight. It won’t happen in a year. Give it five years of real effort, and then you have a chance. Ten years is more practical. Let me illustrate.

What I’m seeing is that when building a brand that someone is looking to launch on a national level, it takes 100 smaller victories (local) to generate a medium-sized victory (state level). It takes 10 medium sized victories to gain a large victory (national). So, while the medium-sized victories do come more quickly after the first one, you’re still looking at 300 – 500 local victories that need to occur before you get that first piece of national exposure.

This isn’t meant to be pessimistic—in fact, knowing what it takes to achieve a national victory (and then many national victories) is empowering. I’m seeing it with Robert Renteria and our work together. We’ve done a ton of work at the local level before we finally reached the state level in terms of political support, with the endorsements of IL Secretary of State, Jesse White, Illinois Director of Literacy Dr. Jodi Martinez, State Rep Linda Chapa LaVia and others. This week, we have our first real opportunity for national exposure through LULAC, the largest Hispanic organization in the country, with 500,000+ members. We’ve been invited to present our program at their national board meeting in Los Angeles. This is an opportunity for exposure and endorsement at the national level. And we would be honored. LULAC is an exceptional organization with the ear of the Obama administration among other powerful decision makers.

At the same time we are pursuing these political outlets, we’re repeating the smaller/medium-sized victories process now with corporations and schools. As a result, we have achieved more local victories with IBM and McDonalds at the corporate level and with the Chicago Public School District with schools. If we repeat this process over and over again, we’ll build up to national deals with corporations and school systems. And, very importantly, we’ll publicize each victory along the way so that, together, these victories can generate the momentum we’re after.

Robert’s story is a great example of possibility—of what a book, an author, a career, a dream can look like with all the work behind them that they deserve. Frankly, anyone fantasizing about a national brand who isn’t willing to work toward this series of smaller and medium-sized victories first probably isn’t someone who is ready to be successful at it.

Corey’s Book: From the Writer’s Perspective

admin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:37:07 +0000

Hello! I’m the third member of Corey’s book-writing, storytelling, epiphany-creating team—Katie, the writer. Corey has asked me to contribute one blog per week describing our unique process from my point of view, and I’m happy to do it. The truth is that, to many, the writing part of this equation is quite mysterious. I’d like to shine some light. But, first, a little history.

Corey and I have been collaborating on projects since fall of 2007. That was when he hired me to proofread Robert Renteria’s wonderful book, From the Barrio to the Board Room. Because of the subject, Robert and Corey specifically wanted feedback from a Latino or Latina editor. I fit this bill, and I was also thrilled to work with and support a project—a cause—by a fellow Latino. That brief project (the proofreading took maybe two weeks) quickly parlayed into dozens of small assignments and several large ones, including writing two books with The Table. In the last two years, Corey and I have established mutual respect and trust. He’s one of the most fun and brilliant people I’ve had the pleasure of working with!

Now for his book: He approached me several months ago about the possibility of co-writing his own book, his own story. This is a big deal. For a guy who spends his life helping others tell their stories, and championing those tales to the world, telling his own was never going to be a light undertaking. I knew he’d give the process the same dedication and fire he brings out in his clients, and I was honored and excited to be a part of it.

My calls with Corey and Annie are different every week. Mostly, I listen as Annie leads Corey into telling the stories that compel him most in that moment. Sometimes I’ll ask questions, if the answers won’t get too tangential; otherwise, I’ll bite my need for detail back and insert those questions in the manuscripts I send Corey each week. But the cool thing in these calls is that they’re rarely what any of us expect. The only real structure is a deliberate unstructure, a kind of stream-of-consciousness storytelling that Annie always maintains invisible hold over. Because we’re all creative people and we’ve all been a part of this process before, we’re rarely bothered by the seeming lack of concrete goals; instead, we enjoy the stories and realizations that are made this way. Of course, there are times when we feel we’ve gone off track, even if we haven’t, but we trust in our process and our guide.

Here’s where I’d like to talk about the writing—but this post is long already! So I think I’ll leave you hanging here, but next week, come back to see what new discoveries we’ve made, and what it’s like to translate oral storytelling to the written word . . . and all the beautiful complications that arise in the process!