Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

The Art of Writing Clear Instructions (or How to Tell People What to Do)

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If you’re a coach or other service-based business owner, you may not think writing instructions is very important – after all, you’re not selling technical gadgets or furniture with “some assembly required.”

The truth is that your clients, prospective clients, readers and website visitors absolutely need clear instructions from you! After all, the whole premise of content marketing is that you are providing valuable information about how to solve their unique problems.

A common format for blog posts and articles is to present a topic and then include some actionable steps at the end to help your reader apply their learning. Here are a few ways you might do this:

  • Reflection: Ask your readers to ponder or consider the new idea or perspective you shared with them, and how they might integrate it into their lives.
  • Journaling: Ask your readers to write about the topic. You can provide specific questions for them to answer, or invite them to ask and answer their own questions.
  • Rehearsal: Ask your readers to practice a new behavior, habit, thought pattern or language. Suggest how many times per day or week they should do it, and in which specific situation(s).
  • Action: Ask your readers to take a specific action or actions. Suggest how many times per day or week they should do it, and in which specific situation(s).
  • Documenting: Ask your readers to keep track of their progress; give them a checklist to mark off their actions or ask them to record it in a journal. You may also ask them to keep track of their results, feelings or thoughts during this process.
  • Reporting: Ask your readers to share their results with you, your community or an  accountability partner.

Tips for writing clear instructions

  • Limit each list item or sentence to one action (for more details, join us on January 13th for the free call, How to Write a Better List)
  • Give your readers an idea of how long to spend on each exercise
  • Separate any commentary about the exercise so it’s not mixed in with the list of instructions
  • Use a numbered list if the order and number of steps is important; otherwise, use a bullet list
  • Walk through the instructions several times yourself, from your readers’ perspective
  • Ask volunteers from your target market to test your instructions

Some of the above material was adapted from Chapter 23 of The Customizable Style Guide for Coaches Who Write. The Guide also contains similar writing guidelines for other common writing projects.

Clear instructions are also crucial when you’re writing your blogsite pages, to help people navigate your site and especially to take the next step to work with you.

When you take the time to write clear instructions, you increase the chances of helping your reader apply their learning. After getting such good results from your ideas, they will come back for more. And when they’re ready to go to the next level, you’ll be right there.

P.S. I searched online and found some more fun and helpful tips from Dennis Jerz, who uses the lyrics of the song Coconut (“You put the lime in the coconut…”) as a teaching point in his blog post, Instructions: How to Write for Busy, Grouchy People.

Reviewing 2010 and Preparing for 2011

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One of my holiday projects has been to finish moving my Genuine Coaching Services website to its new home.

I’ve really enjoying reviewing the materials I created to support my self-care coaching clients, many of whom were creative artists.

I first published this year-end review exercise in 2005. This week, I decided to go back to my coaching roots and follow my own original instructions.

Here are just a few of the gifts I am celebrating from 2010:

  • Witnessing as my cousin’s daughter become a Bat Mitzvah in April – the entire family worked very hard to prepare and the service was such a beautiful tribute to their love and dedication.
  • Turning 40 in August, and also celebrating with my friend Candace when she turned 40 in January (see photo below).
  • Attending the inaugural Wealthy Thought Leader event with Andrea J. Lee in Vancouver, BC, and hanging out with so many amazing thought leaders, including my former coaches Mark Silver and Charlie Gilkey, and friends and colleagues Sandra, Alicia, Marcy, Karri, Tia, Jeremie, Glenda, Leesa and so many others!
  • Finishing my book Write Your Way to More Clients Online.
  • Receiving so much love and support through Chyna’s illness. I was grateful when Chyna sent the message that it was time to share my love with another greyhound, and that GINA worked so quickly to bring my next perfect match. I continue to be humbled and strengthened by lessons of patience and acceptance as Patch continues to adjust to his new life away from the race track.
  • Harnessing the power of Twitter to meet like-minded business owners in my new hometown of Barrie – before I even arrived!
  • Moving into this beautiful home

Celebrate your own gifts with this simple three-step exercise from the Genuine Coaching Services website.

Here is a photo of Candace’s birthday lunch from January 2010:

Linda and Candace

Choose Your Words Carefully (Lessons from My Morning Meditation)

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Choose your words carefully What are you building with your words?

This question occurred to me after my morning meditation session. I was reflecting on how I could be most useful today, and I decided to get some help from a new iPhone/iPad coaching app that I recently discovered.

ThinkPal is designed to "kick-start your creativity and unearth new perspectives," by delivering a series of random coaching questions that you can apply to any topic. The one I clicked to this morning asked, "What are you building?"

That led to some powerful insights as I reflected on how the actions I choose to take today could intersect with what I want to be building in my business and my life.

Then I wondered how the question might help you, and this blog post was born.

What you DON'T want to be building

Here's what you may be unintentionally building with the words you write on the web:

  • Overwhelm – By trying to pack too much into one article or post, you may be creating confusion instead of clarity
  • Doubt – Overwhelm and confusion can lead your readers to doubt themselves (and you!)
  • Distance – If you're using a lot of jargon or technical language in order to sound smart, your readers may feel that you're talking down to them
  • Disrespect – Too many typos, misused words or grammatical errors will have your readers questioning your professionalism and capabilities

What you DO want to be building

Here's what you may be intentionally building with your online messages:

  • Insights – Just like the ThinkPal app brought me new insights this morning, your writing has the power to inspire the same for your readers
  • Understanding – You can help someone grasp a concept that's new to them – even if it's obvious or old news to you
  • Action – By building insight and understanding, you guide and inspire your readers to take action
  • Suspense – Michael J. Katz's writing provides a stellar example of suspense and other story-telling techniques that help you engage your reader

Will you help me finish this post?

I thought of some other examples, but I wanted to leave room here for YOUR thoughts: What are you trying to build when you write a new blog post? What results have you gotten? What have you built with your blog? Please enter your comments below.

Three Ways that Blogging Improves Your Customer Service

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When you publish new content on a consistent basis, it encourages you to continually ask the question: What is my ideal client looking for now? And how about now?

You'll get new answers all the time – and that also means more new ideas for your blog posts.

Customer service benefit #1: When you approach blogging with the intention of meeting your clients' needs in each moment, it will ripple through the rest of your business. Your services are bound to be more relevant, and your delivery more effective.

Earlier, I wrote that if you want to write more, read more. Specifically, read blogs, articles, books, reports and websites about your specialty area. Don't forget these important sources – often free and right at your fingertips – when you're planning your continuing education and professional development for 2011.

Customer service benefit #2: When you immerse yourself in the current voices of your industry and/or your clients' industry, you will be able to share the latest and greatest ideas, tools and resources with your clients and readers.

"Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." (I've seen this quote attributed to both Theodore Roosevelt and John Maxwell.) Swooping in once a month to write a brilliant thought leadership post doesn't do much to show that you care.

Instead, stick around through the month with a variety of posts, and take part in conversations via the comments section and/or social media.

Customer service benefit #3: When you publish new content consistently, several times a month (or more), you demonstrate to your readers and clients that you are committed to their development and success.

Although you will not meet or even speak to everyone who visits your blog, it is a natural place to express your commitment to customer service. Yet another benefit of blogging!

Drill Your Way to Better Blog Content

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Drill your way to better blog contentYou have great information to share, that will help people and make a difference in their lives. Writing high-quality content and publishing it consistently is a good start, but it's not enough. You also need to make sure your content is seen, read and absorbed by as many people as possible.

It's important to recognize that people have different reading styles. Some prefer to skim for an overview of the topic (they may come back for a closer look) and others like to delve deeper.

For that reason, I like to use the drill-down writing strategy, where you start out with a broad overview of a topic, and then drill down in subsequent pieces (I mentioned this in a post of tips for writing your website pages).

This strategy helps me achieve three important goals:

  1. Reach more readers – By publishing a variety of content in different styles, it's more likely that my visitors will find something that suits them.
  2. Solve writer's block – By expanding on articles I've already written, I always have a starting point for my next article.
  3. Focus my writing – By recognizing which phase of the drilling process I'm in (see below), I can guide myself to either stay broad or to hone in on one main topic and its supporting points.

Time for some drilling!

How to drill down your blog posts

While not every blog post will fit into this model, these simple strategies could keep you busy for a long time!

Phase One – Choose a relevant topic that addresses a key problem your ideal client is grappling with. Then craft a broad overview of the topic (e.g., Ten Leadership Strategies You May Have Overlooked). A top 10 list is a great format for this phase, or you could write a thought leadership post.

Phase Two – Drill down and expand on some or all of the elements you discussed in Phase One (e.g., if listening was one of the skills on your list, you could expand it into Listening Skills for Effective Leadership). Mix and match your article formats, or choose a unified structure and present the collection as a series. BONUS: Compile all of these pieces into one flagship product. I did this with Ten Ways to Thrive as a Creative Artist.

Phase Three – Dig a little deeper. Find another aspect of the same topic (or a related topic) and start again (e.g., Essential Listening Skills for Work and Home).

When you balance your blog with posts that accommodate different learning styles and preferences, you'll keep things more interesting for you and your readers!