Meet Tara Hayes

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tara Hayes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tara below.

Tara, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I believe that resilience and determination go hand in hand. Ever since I was a child I’ve been determined to succeed in anything that I put my mind to. My resilience stems from always wanting to win. I’m competitive in a sense. I remember wanting to be the fastest runner out of myself and my sisters. Also, we all played violin in grade school and I wanted to be the best player out of all three of us. I wanted to win when we played video games together. When I didn’t perform my best or I was faced with a challenge, it was upsetting. No matter how many times I’ve said I would quit when things got tough, especially in business, I never do because I know that I am not a quitter. There’s a fire in me that just keeps going no matter the challenge. My determination to succeed has always been greater. That fire inside of me is my resilience.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a twice Self-Published Author and Digital Publishing Specialist who is passionate about mental wellness due to my journey with anxiety before becoming an anxious author.

I specialize in helping women self-publish non-fiction, self-help, and inspirational books.

I have more than 15 years of experience in anxiety management. I started my R.A.C.E. to Recovery with my book, Panic to Picnic, and continue to Recognize. Awareness. Changes. Everything. Daily.

My services are unique because I help women manage their self-publishing anxiety in less than 30 days by defining, designing, and delivering Digital Publishing Services.

I recently launched my new website, Tarafiedpublishing.com, and I am very happy about it. The website demonstrates how I can help aspiring writers, authors, and journalers who want to create digital products and self-publish.

I also recently created a list building with digital printables masterclass for those who want to build an email list of eager buyers, ready to engage with their content and offers.

I’ve come a long way from someone who was dealing with anxiety and just wanted to share my story to help others. The beginning of my journey has been the blueprint for how I got to where I am today.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Three qualities that you should have are patience, authenticity, and consistency. You need patience because building a business does not happen overnight. I remember when I published my first book on Amazon back in 2019. I felt so accomplished. Don’t get me wrong, it was a huge accomplishment. Even though I had done all of that hard work, what I didn’t know was that self-publishing was the easy part. Building an audience and loyal readers was the difficult part. I thought that my first book would blow up because it was on Amazon and that was not the case. I also thought that I would blow up from being on my first-ever podcast episode. I’ve been on a dozen since then. Unfortunately, it was my ego. So patience is important. Give yourself time to grow and learn what it takes to build an audience, loyal followers, and readers. I had to give a lot of free resources as well.

Also, be yourself. No one can be Tara like me. People gravitate towards authenticity. Recently I went to a networking event and we all had to stand in front of the group and introduce ourselves. I told the group of women that public speaking gave me anxiety and we all laughed. I felt more comfortable because I was able to be myself. And the next speaker after me felt comfortable enough to share that public speaking wasn’t her strong point as well!
By being who you are, people will begin to know, like, and trust you and want to be a part of your community and your journey.

Lastly, when you’re first starting, you have to be consistent. I’ve made the mistake of jumping to the next thing when a product idea, launch, or email didn’t hit. I didn’t consider that maybe some people didn’t see my email so I thought that my offer sucked instead of sending it out again with a different subject line. You’ll never know what works if you don’t keep testing. Most people need to see an offer up to 7 times before they make a purchase. My advice is to keep going. As long as you keep going, you will get there. Believe me, I still have frustrating days but I know that I have come so far and I have so much to give back to the world. So I will keep going and I want you new business owners out there to do the same.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
I recently read a book called Your First 1000 Copies by Tim Grahl. The book was impactful because it shows you step-by-step how to market your book. As someone who markets my book and helps clients who want to market their book, it is a great resource to have in my toolbox. What I learned from the book is that I am currently doing a lot of the strategies it suggests. I just need to do the strategies consistently. There were just a few tweaks that I could make to my website to sell more copies. I loved the suggestions to grow my email list, such as adding a slide with a call to action to join my email list at the end of a presentation or masterclass. I usually include the call to action to book a call. Going forward, I will include a slide at the end of every video to join my email list. I could also simply message people in my network asking them to join my email list. Something else I haven’t done yet!

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