I did coaching over the phone with a Baltimore area businessman who had a Do It Yourself Business Website that he discovered had suddenly crashed. He had saved a lot of money by struggling with the technical difficulties of creating, launching, and maintaining his business website. He thought he had derived value by doing his business website by himself. Then, he discovered that he could not fix his defective do it yourself business website because he lacked the experience in diagnosing and repairing websites.

Don’t Let This Happen to You

You may think that you’re sensible to save money by having a do it yourself business website. In today’s reality, however, you should learn from other people’s lessons: Saving money in the short run with a do it yourself business website can cost you money later. This lesson is real. This lesson is no exaggeration.

Don’t let this happen to you and to your business website. Unless you, personally, have over 5 years of hands-on business website creation, launching, and maintaining, you should never do it yourself.

Brand Damage

The strongest danger in a do it yourself business website is brand damage. That business website that you saved money on by doing it yourself just may be causing serious damage to your brand. You may have brand damage to deal with if your business website that does not work properly, look visually appealing, and have specific content that is adapted to your target audience.

Brand damage is very difficult to repair. The best advice is: Don’t allow your brand to be damaged in the first place.

Trust a Professional

You can save yourself potential brand damage and costly website repairs down the road if you just make the correct decision: Don’t do a business website on your own. Trust a professional to help you succeed with your business website. You will end up saving money by wisely avoiding the dangers in do it yourself business websites.

• Business use of the Internet to reach target audiences
• Communications and public relations experience in major USA media markets
• Corporate, Government, and, Nonprofit sectors experience
• Creative and innovative thinking
• Dynamic interpersonal skills and high emotional intelligence
• Editorial leadership of print and electronic content
• Graduate degree in communications
• People management experience and track record
• Professional writing and public speaking skills
• Project and people management experience
• Public affairs outreach experience in major USA media markets
• Senior-level executive communications leadership and development
• Social listening tool experience using Radian6
• Social media platform experience (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc.) for public relations, outreach, marketing
• Team player skills at a major contributor level

Currently in the Washington, DC media market, but willing and able to relocate as needed.

Coach Woody Goulart

You have arrived at the website for coach Woody Goulart at CoachWoody.com. I am Woody Goulart. That’s me in the photograph. Coaching services are my speciality, and I thank you for visiting my coaching website today.

You know how you feel fear when you realize that you need to start a brand new website or update a tired, 1990s website for your organization? This is the normal reaction. This makes you want to hide somewhere safe.

I can help you get through the fear and the urge to hide. I can empower you to succeed in reaching your target audience with a highly effective website built for today’s needs, not yesterday’s.

Here is what I see as my ideal role. And, here’s a quick look at my qualifications to be your coach.

My Work in 2012

Ned Lundquist of Washington, DC benefitted from my web coaching. I guided and advised him in updating his three websites in 2012 to give all three a fresh, contemporary look and highly interactive capabilities:

I am the author of Your Virtual Website Coach: For anyone who needs help unlocking hidden powers of the Internet — updated in January 2012. I also have written numerous articles that can empower you to use the Internet more effectively.

One of the professional services that I offer to clients is website coaching. Another is communications consulting.

Products and Services

Here are some of the products and services that I have professional experience providing:

• blogging for business
• brochures
• PowerPoint presentations
• public speeches, talking points, scripts
• complete, cutting-edge websites
• digital online strategies/tactics for business/government
• advertising campaigns (online and traditional media channels)
• short digital video presentations online
• Photoshop editing/production
• strategies/tactics for dealing with disapproving or hostile audiences
• strategies/tactics for communications during a crisis or emergency
• teaching/mentoring writers for business and government
• coaching senior executives for public appearances/speeches/testimony

Woody Goulart

Living Well, Purposefully, and Successfully

I was born and grew up in San Luis Obispo, California in a small-town environment. This is where I learned to be genuine, honest, and down-to-earth. Because I have traveled extensively throughout most of the 48 contiguous states and have lived and worked in all four of the continental US time zones, I have acquired a lot of perspective on how to live well and live with purpose. I also know how to succeed at the things I set my mind on. I can coach you drawing up all these things that I have learned over the decades.

Executive Coaching Experience

My professional experience has most recently been in the Washington, DC area where, since 1995, I have produced communications outreach campaigns and products to educate and persuade target audiences using both Web 2.0 and mainstream media. I am especially known for performing research and development and then launching and maintaining effective campaigns using today’s communications technology that reinforce an organization’s reputation, mission and vision. I use today’s interactive media (especially blogging and other social media channels) to reach, engage, and influence target audiences. But, I also am experienced in senior-level executive communications. My professional writing on behalf of senior executives has included speeches, talking points, op-eds, magazine articles, scripts, multimedia presentations and ghostblogging.

I have coached senior executive-level people in the Washington, DC market about how they can best present themselves in public to succeed in front of any audience situation. I have served in both the Washington, DC nonprofit and US military sectors including work for the US Army and for the Department of Defense. I also have coached senior executives in the Department of Justice. My efforts have been primarily in advocacy and social marketing to change target audience beliefs, values and behaviors. I also have coached small business owners who do not happen to live only big cities.

Teaching and Training Experience

I have recent experience in the Washington, DC market teaching and training adult students to enhance their business writing, public relations, and professional communication skills. My experience is both in my instructor-led, face-to-face meetings in Washington, DC area classrooms, and I also have professional experience using the Web-based online education facilities owned operated by the University of Maryland. I am an expert curriculum builder and provider of professional writing and speaking skills training and career counsel to adults built upon several years experience as a full-time university-level faculty member in communications and journalism.

Business Experience

Although my primary expertise today aligns mainly with marketing communications along with tradition and digital public relations, I also bring a general manager’s perspective to running a business and achieving targeted results across performance criteria. I have had experience as a general manager with a $13 million-dollar budgetary responsibility and a total staff of over 80 people. I also have first-hand experience from starting and running my own small business to provide clients with coaching, training, and communications services for the 21st century. My leadership accomplishments are augmented by my professional experience as a writer in news, public affairs and advertising in major markets–Boston and Los Angeles. Additionally, I have professional experience and expert-level skills using today’s digital production and online content management systems and software. I have conceived, written, built, and launched websites for a wide variety of key audiences and numerous clients in large and small organizational settings. Most significantly, I have provided website coaching services for small business owners using today’s social media capabilities. I am the author of Your Virtual Website Coach: For anyone who needs help unlocking hidden powers of the Internet.

Educational Background

I consistently demonstrate a strong focus and follow-through. For example, I was only 28 when I successfully completed my doctoral degree program in communications at Indiana University in Bloomington. I also earned a Master of Arts degree in communications from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo.

Awards

      

One tangible proof of the effectiveness of my Web work is that my writing efforts won me three consecutive years recognition in the Washington, DC metropolitan region for the 2003, 2004, and 2005 APEX Awards.

My direct experience using the Internet for business started back in 1996 in Washington, DC—one of the most competitive major media markets in the United States. My expertise using the Web for business comes from many lessons learned over the span of several years. I am very different from the many people today whose expertise and passion for using the Web for business comes primarily from their recent college degree or only a couple of years experience working for one organization that happens to have a website.

These are my opinions as someone who coaches people in business (not athletes):

A coach who is truly moral and truly honorable would never tolerate anyone around him who behaved in immoral ways. A coach who is truly good and decent could never knowingly enable or protect anyone around him whose sexual behaviors victimize and violate young boys.

If nothing else is true, a coach must be someone who shapes the lives of others in positive ways, who helps guide someone to become better at what they do, who leads by moral example, who represents the very best that a person can be in this life.

Football is not as valuable as human dignity. Pennsylvania State University needs to demonstrate an acceptance of that truth no matter what the cost to the university and to the alumni and no matter whom the university needs to terminate.

Bad karma follows (whether it be inside a religious organization or a state university) when men in power believe that somehow due to their power they are not accountable to moral codes and civil laws.

Related content from ESPN: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7221684/the-tragedy-penn-state-nittany-lions-coach-joe-paterno

Also read this commentary from a young man who is 31, an Iraq war veteran, a Penn State graduate, a Catholic, a native of State College, acquaintance of Jerry Sandusky’s, and a product of his Second Mile foundation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/penn-state-my-final-loss-of-faith/2011/11/11/gIQAwmiIDN_blog.html

As I writer, I see my purpose as sharing of ideas, not the selling of computerized or hand-held devices.

I have not owned a Kindle device even though I am a classic early adapter. I will admit here, however, that I ordered the new Kindle Fire on the very first day that it was announced. Now I eagerly await the day when my Kindle Fire arrives at my door!

I completely respect Amazon as a company. In all the many years that I have been a customer, Amazon has never once failed to impress me. I have dealt with many brick and mortar and online companies as a customer. In my opinion, Amazon’s customer service is second to none. Period.

But, back to the device question: Why did I choose to go with an eBook that is exclusively available on Kindle instead of going with the more traditional hard-copy version? The answer is simple. The future of book-length writing belongs to those who embrace eBooks. To me, this fact could not be more obvious.

For those who somehow do not want to spend money to own one of the hand-held versions of Kindle, the alternative is to use the FREE online version that Amazon has today for Windows and Mac.

• You are born with talent.
• You can learn skill.

I am someone who has taught writing to adults at the university level. I admit this right up front so that you will know where I am coming from in my commentary about writing.

I have seen how difficult it is to teach someone how to write well who somehow was born without the necessary talent for the task.

I also have seen people grow and become better writers because they deliberately chose to apply themselves in a learning situation.

And, one more admission: I have been pleasantly surprised to discover adults with an ability to write well in the English language even though they were born into some other language.

So, after many years of professional experience as a writer and also because I am one who teaches others how to write well, this is what I believe: Success in writing well in the English language starts with a person’s ability to use their mind well.

I further believe that a person must attain the skill to use their mind to do two related tasks: (1) to consider symbolic meaning, and, (2) to express meaning to others symbolically.

Attaining success at each of those two tasks can yours if you start by deliberately applying yourself in a learning situation. Such a learning situation can be in a classroom.

But, another equally valid learning situation is this: Read a book or two written by a person who is known for succeeding at the two tasks (thinking about symbolic meaning, and, expressing oneself symbolically).

In my humble opinion, everyone should be able to name at least one book and one writer of the book that made an impression on them. The ability to know and respect a masterful writer is essential to improving one’s own writing.

And, the book and the writer do not have to be of some lofty significance intellectually. When I was very young, for instance, I was quite impressed the very first time I read the children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by Lyman Frank Baum (1856 – 1919).

As I matured with age, I never forgot how strongly positive I felt about the famous fantasy story, but I became more impressed the works of with another American writer named Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910).

What writing is impressive to you will be as individual as you are. What impresses you before you reach the age of 13 will be far different from what impresses you after you reach the age of 31.

What’s important is to explore writers and their works while deliberately applying yourself in a learning situation. Yes, you should read for enjoyment. But, enjoyment need not be separated from learning.

I will end this commentary with one observation: Broaden your horizons by reading writers whose works are in the nonfiction category.

The enjoyment of a nonfiction writer’s works can match or exceed that of enjoying fiction writers’ works. Sometimes, you will get very lucky and find one writer who succeeds well at both fiction and nonfiction. American Norman Mailer (1923 – 2007) is one such writer.

Here are what I consider the five essential dimensions of effective writing. Use these to generate important questions that you need to ask yourself before you start writing:

1–Situation

I want to reach the reader why…
I am writing this because…

2–Audience

I am writing this for whom…
I want the reader to do what…
I expect the reader will already know…
I want the reader to respond how…
I expect the reader actually will respond how…
I want the reader to use this for what…

3–Message

I want the reader to remember this one thing…
I want to have this specific outcome…

4–Method

I want to reach the reader how and where…
I want this to go out where and when…

5–Evaluation

I intend to measure the impact by…

These four building blocks or essential ingredients of effective human communication today are each worth knowing and understanding. You may explore each at this website at your own pace in any order that you choose. Keep in mind that all of the communications coaching solutions that I provide to clients start with these four human behaviors:

I offer communications consulting services upon request. Each of these services is priced separately based on the complexity of the job. I will work with you to negotiate a fair price.

However, our basic nature is not enough. We all need to know and understand the very best ways to share.

If you know and understand the very best and very worst ways to share, you have an advantage over others. This knowledge and understand can mean the difference between success or failure in connecting with people and winning them over to your points of view.

Historical Example

During the 1968 presidential campaign in the United States, New York Senator Robert Francis Kennedy was a leading candidate for the White House. During that campaign, RFK was following a schedule of public appearances as all candidates do.

Kennedy was scheduled to deliver a campaign speech in Indianapolis, Indiana the evening of April 4, 1968. The predominantly African American audience was gathered to listen to the candidate speak to them.

Before he walked out at the front of the gathered crowd, RFK was told the news that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. The Indianapolis audience was not aware of the King assassination.

What RFK chose to do was one of the clearest examples of how to share: Kennedy walked out in front of the Indianapolis audience and threw out his prepared speech in favor of talking with the people from his heart.

What Kennedy said in Indianapolis is viewed as one of the most stunning examples of how a public speech can have an immediate impact upon people. While other major cities saw urban violence in reaction to the news of the King assassination, because of RFK’s from-the-heart speech, Indianapolis that night saw a markedly different outcome.

Watch a video of the Robert F. Kennedy speech to learn more. Just a few weeks after the King assassination, RFK also was shot to death.

Best Options

Should you share using Twitter? Facebook? Give a public speech in Indianapolis? The key questions that you need to ask yourself are these:

• Will the way I intend to share connect me in the best possible way with my intended audience?
• Will the way I share put my messages out in front of all other competing messages from other people?
• Will a combination of multiple channels to share be my best strategy for success?

These four building blocks or essential ingredients of effective human communication today are each worth knowing and understanding. You may explore each at this website at your own pace in any order that you choose. Keep in mind that all of the communications coaching solutions that I provide to clients start with these four human behaviors:

I offer communications consulting services upon request. Each of these services is priced separately based on the complexity of the job. I will work with you to negotiate a fair price.

The phrase to describe this is performance anxiety. Yeah, that sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it?

Okay, the truth is: Forget what it’s called and think instead about how you can prepare yourself to speak in front of others and get past the natural fears you may experience.

Prepare to Succeed

If you prepare yourself, you can begin to get through much of the natural distaste for public speaking.

You probably have met some people who LOVE to get involved in public speaking. For those lucky people who do not feel concerns about getting up to speak in front of a group, the world is very different.

But, if you are like most people, then there is a very natural feeling that somehow getting up to speak in front of other is stressful and worthy of being avoided at all costs.

Understanding What is Being Asked of You

The first kind of preparation that you can do is to think about why you are being called upon to get up and speak in front of a group of people. There is always some specific reason. It can be a happy occasion like a wedding reception where you are the one who must say a few words about the bride and groom.

It can be a sad occasion like a memorial service where you are the one who must say a few words about someone who has passed away. But, you need to be clear about the reason why are you going to get up on your feet and speak to a group of people.

Think about who is in the group that will be listening to you. Of course, you do not need to know people in that audience on a personal level.

But, you absolutely must think about that audience in terms of what they have in common with each other and with you. In the wedding reception example, usually what the audience and you have in common is some connection to either the bride or the groom or both. The same can be true in the memorial service example–you and the audience may all have a connection to the person who passed.

In some speaking opportunities, you and the audience can be completely aligned in agreement. In the memorial service example, everyone will feel the emotions of the loss of the loved one who passed.

In other instances, you and the audience can be out of alignment when taking into consideration people’s agreement with you about the circumstances and what you have to say to the group.

Different Needs Call for Different Solutions

For example, if you are a company spokesperson who must deliver bad news to a group of employees or stakeholders, you definitely will find yourself in a far different kind of setting than compared to social situations like weddings or funerals. If you must speak about issues that involve people’s security as an employee, their compensation as an employee, or other work-related matters, your level of difficulty will increase directly in connection to how high the dollars-and-cents stakes are.

But, the preparation process is the same no matter how high or how low the stakes might be: You need to know and understand your audience first before you do anything else in preparing to stand up and speak to a group of people. Failure to know and understand your audience is a quick and certain guarantee that you will fail in the public speaking setting.

Only after you have done your homework and truly know and understand your audience can you prepare to succeed in a public speaking setting. This is a standard truth that has been around for hundreds if not thousands of years on our planet.

You need to put yourself into the mind of the audience. You need to “walk a mile in their shoes” or whatever other phrase you choose. But, in your mind you must think about what your audience wants to hear you say, what your audience would agree with or disagree with, and how you think you can win over your audience with you presence in front of them and the words that you choose for that occasion.

People who get up in front of a group of others to speak without preparing themselves as to knowing and understanding the audience and then thinking about how to win over that audience probably probably should never open their mouths.

What you say often can be far less important that your preparation about audience and winning them over to your particular point of view.

After you complete those two important steps in preparation, you next need to consider how you will create an emotional bond between yourself and your audience. You need to consider how you will connect emotionally with your audience and what you can say in front of that audience to persuade them to trust and identify with you while you are speaking.

You then need to choose a way of speaking that will fit the occasion or situation. Telling jokes in your remarks at a sad occasion, for instance, would typically be a bad choice of technique for you as a speaker. Saying things that anger or insult your audience is generally a dumb idea no matter what the situation might be. Talking too long or using confusing or misleading words can also deal a fatal blow to your chances for success in front of an audience.

In The Moment

The final aspect is how your audience relates to you in the moment when you are speaking to them. If you are genuine and accessible and straightforward with the audience while you are speaking, you can increase your chances of feeling good about yourself in the moment. Your chances of success will increase if you feel good about yourself in the moment. If you do nothing else, you must become comfortable enough with yourself so that you can feel good about what you are doing in front of your audience.

Whether your audience will remember any of your words that were spoken in front of them, they nevertheless MUST remember how they FELT ABOUT YOU in the moment if you intend to succeed with that audience.

These four building blocks or essential ingredients of effective human communication today are each worth knowing and understanding. You may explore each at this website at your own pace in any order that you choose. Keep in mind that all of the communications coaching solutions that I provide to clients start with these four human behaviors:

I offer communications consulting services upon request. Each of these services is priced separately based on the complexity of the job. I will work with you to negotiate a fair price.