Marketing Strategy and Writing Services for the Busy Educational Consultant
What I Do
Hi. My name is Willy Wood, and I provide a wide range of services to help educational consultants build successful businesses. Read on to learn a little bit of my story and why I believe that I’m perfectly positioned to help you with your business.
My Journey in Education
I started out, as almost all educational consultants do, as a classroom teacher. For 14 years, I taught at the high school and university levels, primarily teaching English at the high school level and writing and literature classes at the university level, though I have also taught social studies and physical education classes and coached 5 boys’ and girls’ sports.
Over those 14 years, I learned first hand the challenges teachers face every day—from the big challenges of figuring out what teaching strategies work best and learning all the ins and outs of effective classroom management all the way down to the smaller (but no less real) challenges of learning how to conduct oneself in the teachers’ lounge and learning how to “hold it” for another hour till you get a bathroom break.
I left the classroom when I had the opportunity to serve as the Language Arts Consultant in the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in my home state of Missouri, a job I held for 5 years, working on curriculum, instruction, and assessment initiatives for K-12 teachers across the state. During these years, I gained a broader perspective on the goals and challenges of teaching as I talked to and worked alongside teachers from all grade levels and all content areas.
In 2001, I left the state department and launched my own career as an educational consultant. I had become curious—and then excited—and then passionate about the field that was, at that time, called “brain-compatible teaching” and is more often called “brain-based teaching” or “mind, brain, and education” today, and I couldn’t wait to share what I was learning from that field of research with teachers across the country.
And I did just that. Over the past 18 years, I have presented workshops in hundreds of school districts, and presented breakout sessions, full-day workshops, and keynotes at educational conferences both nationally and internationally. I have been a frequent attendee and presenter at conferences such as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the Learning Forward Conference (formerly NSCD), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference, Eric Jensen’s Learning Brain Expos (no longer in existence, sadly), and the Learning and the Brain Conference. In addition to my own presenting, I have also run two annual teachers’ conferences for over 25 years, where my main role has been to hire speakers and communicate with them throughout the process.
What I’ve learned from my own educational consulting experiences and my experiences as a conference coordinator could fill a book, but the Cliff’s Notes version is that I have learned a great deal about effective speaking, publishing, and all the day-to-day “office stuff” (contracting, invoicing, collecting payments, taxes, etc.) that consultants have to deal with. But about 10 years ago, I realized that there was one area that I really needed to learn more about in order to take my business to the next level….
What Makes Me Unique
You see, I finally realized (after struggling along for a number of years) that there was another whole set of skills that I needed, and nothing in my long and varied career in education had provided me with those skills. What were they? Marketing and copywriting skills.
And that was a bitter pill to swallow because I have always considered myself a good writer. I could write a book (I’ve written several) or a great blog post or newsletter article (I’ve written hundreds) and communicate my teaching ideas effectively to others in education. But, as I learned when running my consulting business, there are many other kinds of writing that I needed to master in order to market myself and my products effectively—things like writing website pages to take advantage of SEO, Google ads, free reports for lead generation and list building, e-mail autoresponder sequences, and social media marketing posts (to name just a few).
So, I swallowed my pride and dug in. Over the past 10 years, while continuing to present in schools and at conferences, I’ve taken a number of courses from American Writers and Artists, Inc. (AWAI), widely considered the leader in training for copywriters, including courses on:
- Doing website audits
- Writing e-mail newsletters
- Writing e-mail copy
- Writing white papers/lead generation special reports
- Writing website copy that’s optimized for SEO
- Creating money-making websites, and
- Social media marketing
That doesn’t even count all the other courses and webinars I’ve taken or the live events I’ve attended to hone my marketing and business writing skills.
Today, I can honestly say that not only do I have a deep understanding of what educational consultants need to establish themselves as recognized experts in their specific fields (content knowledge, presenting skills, expertise in writing for educational audiences, etc.), but I also have developed a solid skillset in marketing and expertise in writing for the web.
How I Can Help You
So, what’s my point? Simply this:
There are many marketing consultants out there, and there are many copywriters out there, but there are very, very few people who combine marketing know-how, copywriting skills, AND nearly two decades of experience living the life of an educational consultant.
So, if you’re an educational consultant who’s struggling to get your consulting business found in the search engines, or struggling to make a positive impression, or struggling to build a community of followers, I can help. I know the challenges you’re facing, because I’ve been there. I’ve done that. And now I’ve made it my mission to help you get past those struggles and start making the kind of difference you know you can make.
Let’s do this!
To get started, just contact me for an initial free consultation. Or, if you would like to look more specifically at the services I offer, check out the Get Found, Make an Impression, Build Relationships, and Establish Authority pages to learn more. And, if you still have questions, there’s a good chance that I’ve answered it on the FAQ page.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Willy
