Get Published, Get Known: Building Authority with Purpose

In this episode of Stop the Noise, Susan talks with Erica Holthausen about how independent consultants can use publishing as a powerful tool to build authority - without falling into the trap of “get published and they will come.” Erica shares why publishing with purpose matters, how to select the right outlets for your goals, and how to turn published articles into long-term business assets. She also breaks down her SOAR framework for planning impactful pieces and offers practical advice for those who don’t see themselves as strong writers.

Notes from the Show

• Being published builds credibility, but the real value comes from using the article strategically after it’s published.

  
  

• Start with your business goals to choose the right publications and topics.

  
  

• The SOAR framework - Serve, Objective, Action, Reputation - keeps writing focused and aligned with your brand.

  
  

• Repurpose and promote published articles repeatedly; don’t let them gather dust after one post.

  
  

• Even if you think you’re “not a good writer,” you can create strong content by separating thinking, writing, rewriting, and editing.

Quotes to Remember:

“Once you get something published, all you’ve done is gotten something published. Now you actually have to use it for a purpose.” - Erica Holthausen

“No writing ever goes unused when you’re writing for your business.” - Erica Holthausen

What’s Inside:

• How can consultants use publication to establish social proof?

• The secret between social proof and generating new business.

• Do you have to be a “writer” to publish an article?

• How to focus and target your article in the most meaningful way.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Register to attend Erica's free monthly mini-training and Q+A

Erica Holthausen | LinkedIn

Catchline Communications

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Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:00

Hi everybody, welcome back to stop the noise. I'm Susan Tatum, and today my guest is Erica Holthausen from Catchline communications. Erica is an authority development consultant. She helps consultants, coaches, and executives, build credibility by getting published in respected outlets like Inc, Harvard Business Review and trade journals. She guides them through developing their ideas, structuring and writing strong articles, pitching to the right publications, and importantly, using those articles as business assets after they're published. Erica also runs a writing practice community, a monthly membership for consultants working on blog posts, newsletters, books or other business writing, and it includes writing workshops, peer editing and skill building sessions.

Susan Tatum 0:58

Welcome Erica.

Erica Holthausen 1:00

Well, thank you so much, Susan, I'm delighted to be here.

Susan Tatum 1:04

I'm so glad you're here because you we have a lot to talk about, and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna jump right into it. When you and I talked previously, you made an interesting point, and you said that most consultants overestimate the power of being published and underestimate the power of publishing with purpose. Do you remember that

Erica Holthausen 1:23

did I said that?

Susan Tatum 1:25

Those are your words.

Erica Holthausen 1:26

That's that was good.

Susan Tatum 1:28

More importantly, do you agree with it?

Erica Holthausen 1:31

Yes, I do agree with myself, which is also a good thing. Yeah. And part of what I mean by that is, and I don't blame the consultants, I actually blame the industry for basically saying, oh, as soon as you get published here, that's worth, like, millions of dollars in exposure. And so a lot of people think, Oh, if I write an article for a publication and it gets published, like, Great, I'm good to go. Like, the hordes of humans are going to knock down my door. That's got lead generation. I'm going to get new sales. I'm going to get all these different things, and the truth is that that is only the first step. Once you get something published like all you've done is gotten something published. Now you actually have to use it for a purpose. So before you even decide to write for a publication, thinking through what are the business reasons that I am doing this. What do I want to get from this? Because that'll tell you not only which publication to pitch, but also how to start using those published articles as assets to help you achieve those business goals.

Susan Tatum 2:33

Couple questions that came in my mind there, I don't think you're saying, Don't bother doing this, that being in the publication. And I'm wondering, some years ago, decades ago, maybe you did get a lot of mileage from being in a publication when there weren't so many other forms of stuff coming at you. We didn't have online networks or anything social media, anything like that. So a lot of that advice that we're continuing to get, and I see the same thing from sales advice is left over from a long time ago.

Erica Holthausen 3:07

Yeah, yeah. And I'm definitely not saying don't do it, but I'm saying do it intentionally. Do it with a purpose for it. Because the truth is, like when you get published in what I call a high visibility publication, when Fast Company Inc, Harvard Business Review publishes an article you wrote that is an instant credibility builder. Somebody else vetted you, and they said, This is somebody who has stuff, something to offer to our readers. That's excellent social proof, but transitioning social proof into new clients or new opportunities, is not anywhere near as easy as I do think it once was. It once was a whole lot easier. You know, you could content marketing was once a whole lot easier. A lot of these types of things were once a whole lot easier because, well, there was less noise.

Susan Tatum 3:57

Yeah, exactly. And that's what we're trying to stop. And this is not noise that I mean, this is, I mean, there, like you said, the credibility factor alone, I think really accomplishes, I mean, is a really important thing, and trust goes in that as well. And as independent consultants, we don't have massive marketing machines behind us to help build that familiarity and trust and Yeah, and so it's even more important here. So you mentioned that it was important to decide what your objective is, because that drives everything. What kinds of objectives do you see from people?

Erica Holthausen 4:34

Yeah, so this can be anything from, I do want to get more clients to I want more speaking engagements to I want to be really known in my industry so I don't have to chase after clients. So I can my fees can be what they are, and they're not negotiable. So it can be all of those different things that people are trying to accomplish and that they think they're going to get just by getting published. But then it's really what you do with the thing? So you were talking about how, yeah, there's a lot of credibility that comes with getting published, but that credibility only counts if anybody knows about it. So what I see so often is people will get an article published someplace. They'll be like, yes, this was amazing. They'll have done the work to get it published. Then they will promote it on LinkedIn once, and then it will just sit on a dusty corner of the internet and never be heard from again. It's an asset that you have to use again and again and again. So if you want to get better referrals from your referral partners, making sure that they see the article, sharing it with them, directly encouraging them to share the article with people who they are thinking of introducing you to when it's you know, if you want to really get a foothold in a specific industry, you might be writing for, for an association publication, and then that can open the door once they see that you are providing real value to their members, You can then find out what are the other opportunities to work with and collaborate with this association. Maybe they host webinars or conferences. So that gives you more ways to get in front of people and start to be known and recognized as, oh, that's the authority. That's the authoritative expert. That's the person who knows about this. That's who I want to work with.

Susan Tatum 6:20

Key point that I'm taking from that is there's a lot more work than just getting the article written and published.

Erica Holthausen 6:26

Yeah, that's the first step.

Susan Tatum 6:28

And then you got to have a team of people to make sure that everybody sees it.

Erica Holthausen 6:31

Well. Except you don't really need a team of people like I really, I think it can really be done. You just need to be strategic about how you're going to use it. So one of the clients that I worked with a while ago, one of the things that he did is he was great at he would write an article for a very specific individual. He'd have a conversation. They would ask a question. He would write an article in response to that. Once it got published, he would be able to turn around say, Hey, Susan, remember that conversation we had about a month ago, I wanted to let you know, like you really got me thinking, so I wrote an article about it for such and such publication. I'd love to hear your thoughts. So it's a great way to sort of start nurturing relationships. It doesn't have to be blasted everywhere. It has to be focused, strategic and intentional

Susan Tatum 7:21

good point. And I was kidding. I didn't really mean that you needed to have a but I do, and still going back into the past, those things were done that were done in reprints and mailed all over the place. It was all part of the back when you had introductory kits and things like that. So,

Erica Holthausen 7:34

yeah, yeah.

Susan Tatum 7:35

So you have a framework that you use called SOAR. Well, tell us about that.

Erica Holthausen 7:42

Yeah. So SOAR is the framework that I use to help people plan out an article that they're writing. It can also be used to plan a talk, to plan it can be used to plan all sorts of things, but it's a framework that I use that it has helps people plan, okay, exactly what is this article going to be so what it stands for is is, S is, serve. Who does this article serve? So who's your audience? O is, what is the objective of this article? In other words, you know this is an article about X, this specific audience will feel compelled to read it. Because, why? So, why is that objective? Like, what? What are you actually going to get out of it. Then A is action. How will this article? What is the action that this audience will be able to take as a result of reading this article? In other words, how will their thinking mindset or behavior change? And then R is the last one that should kind of be the first one. Will this article enhance or diminish my reputation?

Susan Tatum 8:39

I can imagine. It's funny wanting to write an article that would diminish their reputation. Diminish their reputation, but I guess they do

Erica Holthausen 8:44

me either, except it's so much easier than you sometimes think I used to. I used to ignore that as well. And I was like, Oh, it's just in there, because it has to be in there, and it makes a nice word, but then it's easy to become known for just a part of what you do. So like, for example, when AI first came out, and everybody was like, yay AI, it's like, going to the be the answer to all of our prayers. I was like, actually, here's some concerns. And I started to get a reputation as an AI curmudgeon, and I don't mind that title, but I didn't want to be better known for that than for the work that I actually do. So, you know, there was an article I wanted to write about it, and I was like, actually, I probably should shelve that article because I don't want to keep reinforcing, oh, here's the AI curmudgeon or AI cautionary tale.

Susan Tatum 9:34

Well, you know, when you were talking about it, it went through my head that that's a great part of a prompt, too, if you do use AI, which, I mean, I'm not advocating that it be used to actually write the final version of an article, but say you're going to have it critique your article, to give it these sore things the way that you just phrased them out the you know, who are you writing it for? And what's the objective and what's the action you want them to take? And does it enhance my reputation? Or great questions to have AI answer for you?

Erica Holthausen 10:05

Yeah, AI is a great tool for one of my favorite ways to use it is after your article is written and you've got it like to the best of your ability, putting it into AI and having having the tool evaluate it. What are the strengths? What are the challenges? Where could it be better, because you get some fascinating sometimes you get some really good stuff. Sometimes you get stuff that you're like, Eh, I'm not worried about that, but it's a great way to sort of see some of the gaps in your own thinking, because it's hard to do this stuff when it's you and your big toe. So you know, AI can sometimes serve as that external audience, especially if you also tell, tell the tool to behave as if it is the exact audience you're trying to reach.

Susan Tatum 10:47

Ah, yes. And how are you reacting to this?

Erica Holthausen 10:51

Yeah.

Susan Tatum 10:52

So what walk us through the journey that you go through? From you've got these raw ideas, what are all of those steps that come in between from the from the time that I say, that would make a great article. Then what goes What? What? What are the steps that we go through until it's actually an asset?

Erica Holthausen 11:10

Yeah, so I would, I would back up even further from that would make a great article to thinking about all right, what are my business goals? Because a big part of it is you have to select the right publication. And every publication has a different audience, has different rules, has different things that you're allowed to do or not allowed to do. So the more you know about what it is that you're trying to accomplish, the better able you are to match your goals with the right publication. So an example that I often use is say one of your goals is to be able to interview other experts in your field, and you want to be able to profile them in an article. You can't do that for entrepreneur, they won't allow it. Inc, will allow it. So if you know that you want to interview other folks, then you have to look for a publication that allows you to do so. So that's that's that's where I would start. And then you figure out, Okay, here's, here's the publication, or a couple of publications that I'm thinking about now I have this great idea, cool, what is, you know, figuring out the angle and figuring out, this is a part of my body of work. This is how it fits in to the reputation I'm trying to build to the body of work that I am creating. This is that audience. This is the audience that I'll be talking to, because that's the audience that the publication talks to. And that gives you that kind of first like, Okay, I know that this is the right this is the right angle for the piece that I am going to write for this publication. Then what I have, what I have my clients do, is I actually have them do a soar analysis of their idea, so that it can flesh it out a little bit, so that one they know what the focus is, because it's very easy for those of us who know stump really, really deeply. It is so easy for us to get stuck into the weeds and end up writing a book when really we're supposed to be writing a 750 to 1250 word article. So that gives it some focus. It also allows me, or whoever is editing it, to have a really good sense of, okay, this is what they're trying to accomplish. So I have them do a soar analysis and then a very simple outline to give them a container of what they're trying to accomplish. Then it's all about write that first draft, and write it quickly, and let that first draft be really, really terrible, because the point of it is to get your ideas out of your head and onto the page, then you can start refining it and all of that kind of thing. I encourage my clients to write the article before they pitch the article, because then the pitch will be stronger. So after the piece is done, then it's pitching the piece to the publication that was selected, and then it's working with the editors in whatever way, and different publications work differently, but in whatever way they need. And then once it's published, now you have an asset that was a very long answer to your question.

Susan Tatum 13:57

It was a good one couple of things was, does anybody ever say I want to be in Harvard Business Review, because my audience is highly regards that publication, and they read it, and then you would reverse engineer what you needed to do for an article to get published in that because the way I heard you describe it, it was, this is how I want to write The article now. Who would accept that?

Erica Holthausen 14:21

Yeah, I always start vice versa. It's what are your goals, where your business goals, and then which publication will help you achieve those goals. And then, okay, here's your idea. How do we can we get that idea? Does that idea work for this particular publication, or do we need to modify that idea? Or do we need to trash it and go with something else?

Susan Tatum 14:42

So to go back to what you were saying about write the article first and then pitch it, I could hear some, some of the listeners who aren't even listening yet, they're saying, well, then I went to an awful lot of trouble to do something that didn't get accepted.

Erica Holthausen 14:55

Yes, but here's the beautiful thing, when you're writing for your business. No. Writing ever goes unused. It may not get accepted there. You might pitch it to another place, but you might put it on your blog, send it out to your email newsletter, use it on LinkedIn, put it into your sub stack, so that writing never gets wasted. If as a freelance writer, and that's part of my background, is coming out of this world, as a freelance writer. As a freelance writer, you would never do that, because you don't get paid for it if it doesn't get published, so you wouldn't write it before you pitch it. But when you're writing to build your authority, and you're writing for your business, if that publication doesn't accept it, it's okay, because you now you still have this thing that you can publish elsewhere.

Susan Tatum 15:40

So I want to, I'm going to segue off of this for just a second, because you mentioned sub stack, and I've been seeing more and more and more of that showing up lately. I, you know, it was, it was a, I think it's sort of as a place where you could publish newsletters, and now it's become almost like a blog for people. What are your thoughts on that?

Erica Holthausen 16:00

Yeah, I have a lot of complicated thoughts about sub stack, in part because there have been several articles in The Atlantic about their business model, and I know a bunch of people who have taken basically have left sub stack for other platforms that operate in a similar way the Reader's Digest on sort of the business Model problem is there are a lot of white supremacist organizations that are on sub stack and are promoted by sub stack, because sub stack takes a portion of whatever you bring in, like if you have a paid newsletter, whatever you bring in monetarily, sub stack gets a cut of that. So sub stack kind of got themselves in trouble, because not only are they getting money from white supremacist organizations, but they are also actively promoting those organizations so that they get more subscribers, so that they get more money. So that's still a moving target, because there's been a lot of publicity about it. It started about a year or so ago with the first article in Atlantic, and then there's been a lot more conversation. But the bigger point that I think you're getting to because there are a lot of other organizations, like sub stack. There's now, I think it's called beehive, and then there's ghost, there's a couple of other and medium was sort of the pre sub stack, sub stack. And these tools, the biggest thing for these tools are first, it's basically a blog. Some of the platforms have more interactive where you're interacting with other writers on that platform, you know, but it's, it's basically another blogging tool. So what I often say, and and it says, does act as a newsletter as well. So there's nothing wrong with it, necessarily, if it fits what you're trying to do. But also, anybody can do it, anybody can set it up. It's not a vetted situation, so it's it's another blog situation. So one of the things that has in the past been a challenge, but since, like AI, is changing SEO as well. So search engine optimization is changing, like fantastically, but it used to be. The old school was keep your writing on your own website, because you want to direct traffic to your own website, not to this other thing. I think that that's really less of an issue these days, but tools like sub stack are really meant for folks who want to have a publication and get paid for their writing. So that's, that's the biggest difference between sub stack and medium. Medium was basically a blogging platform. Sub stack was, I'm going to write and I'm I'm going to get subscribers who pay to get my writing.

Susan Tatum 18:37

Oh, do you think that because medium and you're set, you're using past tense with it. And I have heard that it's nowhere near what it used to be. If it's even still around, is it

Erica Holthausen 18:46

It is still around. They kind of, they hit a big thing, and then they kind of fell off. And it used to be that you could make some money on medium, but it was, it was through advertising dollars. But that has fallen way, way, way down. So like, you might make a couple of pennies over the course of a year, and there's a lot more competition. They were sort of the they were sort of early in

Susan Tatum 19:07

I think that one of the reasons for putting your work, whether it's on medium and it's heyday or sub stack or even LinkedIn articles, would be the opportunity to be exposed to more people than it would be on your website.

Erica Holthausen 19:20

Yeah, and that's where, if you can syndicate the content that works best. So syndicating is is just a fancy word for republishing the exact same thing. So all of my articles that are on my blog are also on LinkedIn, and they all started as articles for the society of professional consultants. So most publications, not all, but a lot of publications these days are perfectly content to have you syndicate your article with after a 10 to 14 day waiting period. So Inc, for example, you can write your article on ink, give it 10 to 14 days, then you can write the exact same article. You can put the same article on your own website. The only two changes you need to make, you need to change the title, you need to find your own image, and you need a line at the top that says, This was originally published on with a link back. So that allows you to take that one piece and have it show up multiple places.

Susan Tatum 20:17

That makes sense, all right, so I steered us off into that one a little bit. So we were getting to the part where we were talking about how this becomes an asset. So you want to run with that.

Erica Holthausen 20:31

Sure

Susan Tatum 20:32

we published an article in whatever,

Erica Holthausen 20:33

yeah. So you've published an article someplace, and now you have this article that has been published in a third party publication where somebody vetted you and decided, okay, you have something worth sharing with your audience. So that's the credibility piece, and now it's all about, how are you going to use this article? Because now it really is an asset. So a couple of things that clients of mine have done is, you know, certainly promote it on LinkedIn, certainly repurpose it and use repurpose stuff on LinkedIn, promote that thing until it is no longer relevant. So it this doesn't need to be a one and done. Nobody is paying as much attention to our content as we are. So you want it in a rotation schedule where you're promoting it, you know, you keep promoting it until it's no longer useful. One of my clients was able to use the article she published a piece in Harvard Business Review, and then use that to reach out to podcasts that she really wanted to be on speaking engagements she really wanted, and she gave them a copy of the article because it really gave them a sense of how she thinks. So it can be a really good relationship builder, a really helpful differentiator, and a way to say, okay, yes, there are a whole bunch of other people who do this thing. Here's how I approach it. And by the way, I was vetted by this entity that allowed me to then write for them. And that gives, that gives extra credibility, so that you at least read the thing and consider it more

Susan Tatum 22:05

okay. So those are good ideas, good suggestions for repurposing. And I, I guess there's no longer the problem with Google or the search engine optimization about duplicates.

Erica Holthausen 22:17

Much lower, much lower problem than there, than there used to be. That used to be the like, Thou shalt not have duplicate content. There does need to be a waiting period, like you should even when, like, once you publish it to your own thing, you want to wait a couple of days before you publish it to LinkedIn. So you do want that wait, because what Google likes to know is the order in which these things happened.

Susan Tatum 22:40

Okay, so what if you're not a good writer

Erica Holthausen 22:42

you're probably better than you think you are. So one of, one of the my favorite tools, you know, I often talk about people being either, you know, writers first. I am writer first. That's, that's how I make sense of the world. And then I have friends who are speaker first. Great if you are speaker first, I still recommend like jotting down a couple of ideas with in possibly doing the store and doing a brief outline, and then taking yourself and your phone out for a little walk and recording yourself and talk into it. This is what the article is. Because, you know, people will say writer's block. Nobody ever talks about speakers block. So if you're speaker, first, talk into your phone, and that can be your first draft. You can get, you can get a transcript of that, and then that can actually be the first draft of the article that you're writing. But so much of what we learned about writing is what makes us think we're not good writers. So in school, it was like, oh, write an essay. And so we sat down and we wrote, we wrote our essays. But writing is actually four different it's four stages. So it's the thinking stage is first, and that is entirely separate from the writing stage. So when you write your first draft, you put all of your research and everything else aside. And in my workshops, I have people write a first draft in 20 minutes, because in college with those blue books, we had to answer five essay questions in an hour. And we did it so that first draft is supposed to be terrible. You just get it out onto the page and make sure your ideas are there. And after the first draft, that's the writing piece, is the rewriting piece, and that's when you start like looking back into the research, bringing that in, seeing where the gaps are, making sure that it's really making sense, that it flows well, that a reader would really be able to follow along and understand and that your point is crystal clear. Only after that is the editing stage. Most of us learned how to write by editing as we write, which is absolute torture. If you do nothing else but break the habit of editing as you write, that will make your writing faster, better, a heck of a lot funner, and it'll just change a lot of that because that that editing as you write ends up stymie your own thinking ability and keeps you from ever getting into flow, and just makes it a torturous affair,

Susan Tatum 25:08

plus you find yourself rewriting stuff that then gets cut out of the article. Anyway,

Erica Holthausen 25:13

yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very easy to, like, obsess over the first paragraph, and then you get someplace and, well, that turns out not to be the first paragraph anyway, because you did what a lot of people do, which is bury the lead, and the first paragraphs actually three paragraphs down.

Susan Tatum 25:29

So that is so true. So let's spend a few minutes because we're running out of time. But let's spend a few minutes on how to get started for people that have been thinking about that they that they want to get in some publications, or are you right with you work with people that want to write books as well.

Erica Holthausen 25:46

I have clients of mine who do want to write books, but I'm, I don't, I don't do the book part of it. So those folks I tend to refer out in my community. I have a couple of people who are working on books, so that works so they can work on books. But for book expertise, that's, I'm not your girl.

Susan Tatum 26:04

Well, that's, you know, that's important thing to know. You're narrowing your focus, yeah, and you have people that you can refer folks to. So okay, so what are the, what are, what are the first steps that we take? How do we get started?

Erica Holthausen 26:17

So a big part of it is, if you have not written anything yet, start writing things

Susan Tatum 26:21

mean ever?

Erica Holthausen 26:22

like anything for your business, if you haven't really, if you don't have any blog posts or newsletter articles or things on LinkedIn, if you really haven't written any articles, start. Start by doing that. So you want to make sure you know if brand spanking new consultants may not be ready to write for high visibility publications because they need to really develop their perspective, their point of view, like how they see things, what they see as problems, what their approaches are. But writing, whether it's for your own blog or just for your own self, can really help you clarify your ideas. One of the things that I have always loved about writing is, you know, with speaking, we have body language. We can, like, self edit as we go. We can kind of fix things. With writing, it has to make sense just by what's on the page. So you'll read something and be like, huh, I don't even know if I understand what I wrote there, and then you have to fix it so that it's really clear and it can stand on its own two feet. So I would say, start with writing, and then it's really figuring out, okay, who are you writing to? Who is your audience? Where are they spending time? What associations do they belong to? Where are you know, what publications cater to that group are speaking to that group? Where are the conversations that you want to be a part of? Where are those conversations already happening so that you can start to really both listen to those conversations, so that you can figure out how you know, a big thing is add to the conversation, not the noise. So start listening to the conversations, and one of the things I always recommend is, as you're say, listening to a podcast or a webinar or reading an article. Look for things that make you say like that catch your attention, where you can say yes. And is that adding to the conversation Yes, but also adding No, because those types of prompts let you find things where it's like, Okay, I am naturally adding to a conversation that is already happening between this entity and their audience.

Susan Tatum 28:31

I like that. Very good. All right, so I have more questions, but we're out of time, so, the people that want to follow up with you, the listeners, and you do work with independent consultants and coaches, right? How do they get in touch with you?

Erica Holthausen 28:47

Well, I'm always on LinkedIn, so that's that's a first easy place to find me is right on LinkedIn, and my website is just catchlinecommunications.com so they are always welcome to Check me out there. And every month, just as a, as an addition, every month, I do a free mini training, and Q and A, so there's more information about that right on LinkedIn, but that's a place where folks can come get a sense of me, but also ask any questions that they have, so it can kind of demystify this process.

Susan Tatum 29:17

Oh, great. That sounds good. All right. We'll put that in the show notes and spell your so it's Erica spell Holthausen for us,

Erica Holthausen 29:25

sure it's H, O, L, T, H, A, U, S, E, N,

Susan Tatum 29:30

okay, and they will be in the show notes and Erica. Thank you so much for being here and sharing all that with us. It was very enlightening.

Erica Holthausen 29:36

This was wonderful. Susan, thank you so much for having me

Susan Tatum 29:40

great rest of your day, and we'll talk again soon.