This week I’m speaking at the California Society for Association Executives in beautiful Monterey. I’m trying out my new business cards, which are bright, sleek mini cards that point people to the new site, AskBethZ.com. This event is more or less my coming out party for the author/speaker path I’ve been wanting to take, a diversion from the freelance writer/marketing consultant road I’ve been on for almost three years.

Last night I ran into a speaking guru and personal brand expert, who asked me what I did. I froze. Speakers are obliged to be able to spout their conversation-provoking “brand promise” or tagline or elevator speech in a nanosecond — confidently and with conviction. It’s a thing, and I don’t have that thing.

So I stuttered and said, “Oh, I don’t have my little speech down yet, but let me give you my card.” So I got out my cute little cards that had been impressing people all day. I was hoping he’d love how adorable and colorful they were and would see how I was positioning myself. He said, “You certainly need to work on your brand promise.”

Sigh. Deflate.

And then there was a wonderful coincidence — this guy is actually a brand promise coach for speakers and authors! And he could help me hone my brand promise with one-on-one consultations! My… I am a lucky girl to have found such expertise at a time when I need it so much.

All sarcasm aside, though, he’s right. My tagline — Beth Ziesenis, The Quick Tech Trainer — was a suggestion by another speaker during a 5-minute breakfast conversation at another conference. My first draft was something like, “Hi, I’m Beth Ziesenis, and it really makes me happy to help people.” That wasn’t quite catchy enough. For a while I’ve gone with themes around me being “The Cheapskate Freelancer,” but speaker coaches and marketing gurus really, really hate the whole “cheap” theme.

Is it just me, or is it almost impossible to be your own marketing analyst to elevate your business? I spend so much time answering emails, writing for clients, sending bios to meeting coordinators and making travel reservations that I feel like I never have time to really think about my own messaging. And when I do come up with an idea, it’s tough to find people to bounce it off of because I work alone and don’t have much of a community around me.

What I need is a me — an outside consultant who can take an objective look at what I want to do and help me figure out how to say it. Any volunteers?

This week several people at the conference came up and said, “I used to keep up with you via your blog — aren’t you writing anymore?” Thanks for the encouragement to get back to the blog, and thanks to the guru for giving me an ego-bruising encounter as a writing prompt.

Here’s a speech I regularly give to people who ask about how I spend my days as a writer:

The writing life is different from other professions. We writers could never write for a full day — it’s just too taxing. We have a tough time just sitting down and writing, and we rarely get in more than a couple of actual writing hours (read: billable hours) per day because the act just takes too much concentration and energy.  (Here’s where I sometimes lay the back of my hand against my forehead.) It’s tough being us.

Turns out… I’m completely full of crap.

I was listening the other day to a piece about Mark Twain and his writing habits. He went to work writing in the morning, spent all day at it, and returned in the evening. Stephen King writes 10 pages a day, even on holidays. Ernest Hemingway wrote 500 words a day. Writers, at least those who make a living writing, WRITE. All the time. Thousands and thousands and thousands of words, some of which are complete crap, and others that turn into something phenomenal.

Writers like King and Twain seem to me as a mere mortal writer to be fearless word wranglers. With such prolific writing, they must not be afraid that the writing is not perfect the first time out. They must not fear a missed plot or a badly developed character. They must trust that with all their words, things that are good will rise to the top.

In contrast, I am a cowardly, conservative writer. Truth be told, I write most of my work for my clients in one sitting, one draft. I don’t write a thousand words to pick one hundred for publication. If I need 100 words, I write 92 and celebrate being a concise writer. I think I’m fairly lucky that my first drafts usually come close to the end product, but I think this skill makes me a lazy writer, especially when it comes to my own creative writing projects.

So what would happen if I sat in front of a typing instrument for 6-8 hours a day and just produced words? Well, I’ll let you know. On Saturday I’ve signed up for a 6-hour writing marathon through the San Diego Writers’ group. It seems illogical that I would pay $100 to sit for 6 hours somewhere else to write, but I want to change my venue, change my writing style and just let the words flow. For one day in 2010, I want to write like Mark Twain — fearless, without an inner critic, with fingers flying. I’m going to work on the mystery novel I started last January, before I got the nonfiction book deal.

If you took your own fear out of the way, what could you accomplish this month and into 2011? How can you break out of your own habits, bad or not, to tap into new areas of your brain, new stores of your creativity?

For the last 8 months or so, I have been a member of a networking group. Every week we’d meet for breakfast and tell each other about our companies and what kinds of clients we were looking for. Then we’d exchange business leads, share announcements and generally exchange witty banter for 90 minutes.

Membership fees are good for a year, but because of a change I made in my membership category, my remaining credits wouldn’t transfer, and I decided to leave the group instead of paying for another full year (plus another application fee! Really, people? Come on.). I had recently assumed a leadership position with the group, and I loved the social interaction, business connections and dang it all — just the people in general (we writers don’t get out much, you know).

The end of my tenure happened very quickly, and when the group found out that I wouldn’t get my remaining credits, “SAVE BETH” emails started to fly. (They wanted to start a fund to help pay for my new dues so I could stay with the group. I was incredibly flattered, but I respectfully declined their charity.) Many people wrote to say, “The group won’t be the same without you!”

I realize it’s taking me 200+ words to come to some kind of point for this blog, but here it goes… even though I felt the love from my group, now that I’m gone, I’m gone. In order to really reap the benefits of networking groups, social media, blog presence — anything in this time of micro-attention spans and constant bombardment, you have to be present. You have to give more than you take, participate regularly and stay front and center with the people who can make a difference to your business. Sure, members may mention my name for another meeting or two, and they want me to attend the holiday party, but by the time the new year rolls around, I’ll be just one of the many who has come and gone from the group.

Being present is a challenge for anyone who relies on reputation and presence to make a living. How can you be present everywhere, all the time? I’ve let my Twitter stream trickle to a few drops a month. My blogs have cobwebs. I pay $30 a month for an email service I haven’t used since the summer. When I try to be present everywhere, I end up getting overwhelmed and retreating. I think the key to changing this dynamic is to sit down and truly identify where being present is essential for my business. Then I can focus on really standing out in a few venues and let the rest of the areas go.

So I’ll put forth this goal: By the time I put up a new calendar (here’s a 2011 cupcake calendar I have my eye on), I want to have a list of 3 places I want to be present. Any suggestions about what the focus should be for small business folks like me? What’s working for you?

For the last two weeks, I’ve been trying to find a way to relate what’s been happening in my personal life to a lesson about running your own business, being a freelance writer, growing a career… all the topics I’ve tried to cover in this blog. After all, I’ve managed to relate hair color to self awareness, skinned knees to moving past your fears, purple socks to visualizing success, bad haircuts to customer service and pedicures to being a salesperson. So you’d think my BIG NEWS would somehow relate back to my business.

But I got nuthin’. Or at least right now I can’t think of anything because the only thing on my mind is the BIG NEWS itself.*

So here we go… The BIG NEWS: I’m getting married! After almost three years of dating (and a year and a half under one roof), D.J. popped the question. I’m wearing a beautiful, amazing diamond ring, and I’m picking out ribbon colors and trying to find the perfect shoes for our Thanksgiving week wedding. I’m gloriously happy, overwhelmingly busy and completely in love.

*The only possible business lesson is that when your boyfriend proposes, your work life may come to a screeching halt. Try to manage the situation by limiting your Google searches of “unique wedding favors” to two a day.