Welcome to Lateral Action 2.0

If you normally read Lateral Action on the main site, you may have noticed a few changes recently. And if you read it via e-mail or RSS, you might like to pop over to the site today, while I give you guided tour of the upgraded and revamped Lateral Action – and a sneak preview of what’s coming next…

Before I get into the details, I’d like to give you an idea of the thinking behind the changes I’m making.

When I took over Lateral Action from my awesome partners in the summer, I took the opportunity to reflect on what we’d achieved and what I wanted to do with the site in future. I went right back to my roots as a coach, and asked myself what I could do to help Lateral Action readers achieve their creative, professional and business goals.

The phrase that kept coming to mind, which will be the theme of the next phase of Lateral Action, is helping you make it happen.

Here’s how I’m going to do it.

The Lateral Action Blog

As usual, the blog will continue to serve up practical inspiration in the form of an article every Monday morning, mostly by me, but also featuring the fantastic guest writers who bring an added dimension to the blog. Next year I may pick up the posting schedule a little, but only if I can be sure of maintaining consistent quality.

One area that I’m finding more and more coaching clients interested in is internet marketing for their creative business – specifically, how to attract an audience and turn fans and followers into customers. So I’ll be writing more about this on the blog, based on my own experience of marketing my business online over the past five years.

By the way, I’ve not forgotten the creative blocks series. It’s been interrupted by the work I’ve been doing on the relaunch of Lateral Action, but there are still several more instalments to come, and I’ve had lots of requests to release the whole series as an ebook, so watch this space …

And if you’d like to write for Lateral Action, I’m always open to receiving high-quality guest posts about practical creativity, meaningful productivity and creative entrepreneurship. Please send me your proposals via the contact form.

The Creative Pathfinder Course

This free 25-week program in how to succeed as a creative professional is now the ‘foundation course’ for Lateral Action. It covers the essential creative and business skills needed to survive and thrive in a 21st century creative career.

I wanted to make this more than just a series of articles on the different topics, so every lesson comes with a worksheet for you to download and use to reflect on your own experience and take action to develop your skills and achieve your goals.

The students who joined in the first week, back in August, are now halfway through the course, and the response has been off-the-scale enthusiastic. Here’s just one comment, from Nick Walsh:

You can visit 100 blogs and forums and you won’t find content that comes anywhere close to the quality offered at Lateral Action… If you are a budding entrepreneur, seriously… you can make your career by checking this link out.

Go here https://lateralaction.com/pathfinder/ right now and sign up for Mark’s course. I guarantee you this course is amazing. It should be mandatory for everyone in their junior year … or any year for that matter.

Nick Walsh, Creativity 101

I’ve hardly promoted the course beyond linking to it from my own blogs and my column over at The 99 Percent, but there are now well over 3,000 students enrolled. And every week – almost every day – I receive e-mails from students telling me what a difference it’s making to their working lives.

If you haven’t signed up yet, it’s free to join, full details on the enrolment page.

Coaching

I started out as a coach, 15 years ago, when I started working with artists and creatives in London. In many ways I think coaching is what I do best and enjoy the most.

Recently, I discovered that the internet is not only a great way to reach people via my writing, but webcam technology means I can coach clients ‘live’, wherever they happen to be in the world.

I did a quick inventory this week and realised I’m currently coaching people on four continents! I guess the 21st century has well and truly arrived. 🙂

The one thing I can’t do with a blog or e-learning course is tailor the ideas to your individual talent and circumstances, and help you through the process of turning your dreams into reality. That’s where coaching comes in.

So if you’d like some one-to-one help in achieving your creative, career and/or business ambitions, check out the revamped coaching section of Lateral Action.

For an explanation of how the coaching works, as well as fees, typical number of sessions and client testimonials, see the main page on Coaching for Artists, Creatives and Entrepreneurs.

And these pages will give you more details of the main areas I specialise in as a coach:

• Creativity and Productivity
• Internet Marketing for Artists, Creatives and Entrepreneurs
• Communication and Collaboration
• Motivation and Momentum

If you’d like some one-to-one help from me, you can book a coaching package via those pages – or if you have any questions before you decide, just let me know via the contact form at the foot of each page, and I’ll get back to you very shortly.

The Creative Entrepreneur Roadmap

Image by Hugh MacLeod

This is the flagship e-learning programme at Lateral Action – an in-depth course in how to build a profitable, sustainable and fulfilling business around your creative talent. I created it in partnership with Brian Clark, Tony Clark and Sonia Simone over several months last year, and it’s been a huge hit with the students who have enrolled on the two occasions we’ve offered it to the public.

I’ve had a lot of people asking when the course will be next available, and the advance notice mailing list is growing steadily, so I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be opening the doors to a new group of students early in the New Year.

I’m working on a new free report for the launch, which I think you’ll enjoy and hope you’ll find useful.

So if you’re a creative person like Jack who aspires to become a creative entrepreneur like Marla (without turning into Lou) – and you want to be first to get your hands on the free report and first to know when the course is open for enrolment, you can sign up here.

New Products

I’m currently busy behind-the-scenes developing several new products and courses with different partners, covering the whole range of creativity, productivity and business skills for creatives. I can’t say much more than that at the moment, except to say I’m really excited about the courses themselves and the calibre of people I’m working with – and I think you will be too when you see the results.

The people who will be first to hear about the new releases are the Entrepreneur Roadmap and Creative Pathfinder students. Just one more benefit of getting your name on the list. 😉

New Theme

If you look at the About page you’ll see I’ve revised it to reflect the fact that lateral action is now a one-man operation. I’ve also added an About Mark page, in case you’re wondering who I am and how I got into this weird and wonderful business.

Another change that may not be so obvious is that the site is now running on the Genesis Framework for WordPress, courtesy of some kind assistance from Brian Gardner of Studiopress, who very patiently ported Tony Clark’s cool design onto Genesis.

The flexibility of Genesis means I can now move things around without having to email Tony every time I want to change something. 😉

And a nice benefit for you as readers is that threaded comments are now enabled on the blog, which makes it much easier to reply to other commenters and have a proper conversation. This has only been enabled for a few posts, but I’m already finding it much easier and more enjoyable to respond to comments, and we’ve had some really good discussions.

I hope you’ll try the new facilities out and join the conversation – especially if you’re one of the many readers who has never left a comment. Trust me, we don’t bite! 🙂

Thank You

Finally, I’d like to thank all of you for helping to make Lateral Action what it is today. Out of all the things I’ve made and done in my career, Lateral Action is the one I’m most proud of. And I’d never have made it this far without you.

After years of following up my different interests in poetry, psychotherapy, copywriting, coaching, training, personal development, entrepreneurship – and of course creativity – it feels like I’m now synthesising them into something new and exciting.

I hope you’ll want to join me for the next stage of the journey.

And if you have any requests for new features, products, or services you’d like to see from Lateral Action in the future, just let me know via the contact form, or by leaving a comment below.

Onward and upward…