Now in its second year, Tribe Conference is taking place this weekend at The Factory in Franklin. Franklin resident, and author Jeff Goins created the conference. Goins has authored five books, the last of which was a national best seller. He also teaches online courses and hosts events for writers. Goins and his wife have lived in the Franklin area for nine years. He sat down with us to tell us more about Tribe Conference, his tips on being an author and some of his favorite places in Franklin.
Tell us more about the Tribe Conference this weekend?
We’ve got 18 speakers coming and they are best selling authors, podcasters, online entrepreneurs, bloggers, people who have built an online message to share who have done an effective job of getting that message out there. The conference is for anyone who has a message to share and to figure out how they need to do that using today’s technology and resources available to any communicator. Conference starts on Friday night and goes through Sunday afternoon.
The sessions will take place on the Main stage. All speakers will speak from the main stage, either as a keynote speaker or through discussion. And what we do is a curriculum based conference, we’ve done this two years now, but every year we teach through a four step process, that I teach in my main online course. Those four steps are toning your voice, establishing your platform, extending your reach and going pro.
So each speaker will come up and represent a piece of that four step process. More than one speaker is talking about each step. My friend Emily is a fantastic writer, so she’s going to be talking about what it means to actually find your authentic voice as a writer, as a speaker and then as a communicator. She wants to help you tap into the message that you have to share it.
Chris, who has built several online and offline businesses in the Philippines in entrepreneurship and what that means today for writers, communicators and someone who has something to say to the world, who wants to do it in a sustainable way where they could actually make a living. He’s gonna talk about going pro and he’s gonna talk about it from is vantage point, of having built multiple businesses and being an expert in entrepreneurship.
A lot of people want to be full time writers, but don’t understand the business side of it. It also attracts people that do know the business and marketing side of it, but want to get better at the craft. Connecting people with those who know how to make that message spread has been really fun to see.
Last year we had 150 people and about half of them wanted to be writers and others were more like online marketers, people wanting to start online businesses. So we want to market anyone who has something to say, who’s looking to leverage social media, digital technology and other resources to communicate. As a writer, there weren’t any events that supported me in these ways. There were writing conferences, which are fine, but they were talking about 25 year old methods, not blogging or social media. It’s great for learning about the publishing process, finding an agent, but we have people who will show you how to build a website by using artificial intelligence. All you have to do is start writing and uploading images, and this technology will automatically create a website for you, based on your writing style. It will be completely customized for you, and you can continue to change it, depending on your content. It’s one of our sponsors called Grid, they’re going to demo for us.
Before becoming an author, you were in a band, can you tell us more about that?
I was in a Christian worship group my first year out of college, over 10 years ago. I went to school in Illinois and was a Spanish major and studied abroad in Spain. I kind of fell in love with music and ended up in Nashville and married my wife. We met in college, two weeks before I left. We wrote letters while I was gone – it was sort of an old-school courtship. In one of those letters she told me she was moving to Nashville and she wanted to work in the music business. I didn’t have any other plans, so I moved to Nashville, slept on a couch for about a year, bought her a ring and we got married.
You’ve lived in Franklin for some time, what are your favorite places?
One of the reasons we’re doing this conference at Tthe Factory is because I love that space, there’s so many concerts and conferences that are in a hotel and I’m not opposed to that, but those places aren’t very interesting typically. I’ve lived all over Nashville but we call Franklin home because it’s a small town with big city amenities. You’re so close to Nashville and there’s a lot of local culture. A lot of the places I enjoy are in The Factory. We’re trying to involve as many vendors and we’re encouraging our attendees to check them out. I love the Frothy Monkey, I love to work there. At The Factory, Five Daughters Bakery is great, I love hitting up Honest Coffee for a big cup of coffee. Of course the Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning is awesome. Last year I had a lot of conference attendees check that out. I just found a meat market called Carnivore. I’m a big fan of local business, I want to support it as much as I can. I love Gray’s on Main too.
What are you reading right now?
I like to read biographies, I’m in the middle of a five-part biography about Ernest Hemingway that I’ve been reading for over a year now. I’m reading the fourth book now called Hemingway in the 1930’s. I read fiction too. I’m reading another book that I found after reading an article about this Mexican fisherman who basically gets lost at sea for a year and a half, survives and comes back. I realized there was a real guy who gets lost at sea and lives to tell the story about it. It’s called 408 Days.
Give us your best tips for those who want to become a writer?
1. Call yourself a writer. I think something powerful happens when you own that title. There’s no certificate or licensing for writing. Because there’s none of that you have to decide when you’re going to be professional and start acting professional.
2. Write at least 500 words a day.
3. Share your work, publish stuff in newspapers, email friends, write a blog. You have to try to get your work in front of other people.
Thanks so much to Jeff Goin for taking time out to talk with us. Tickets are still available to the Tribe Conference, purchase them online here.
