Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

Write from the headlines: War, conflict, anger and fear

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I was thinking the other day about how conflict and anger can so often be boiled down to simple fear. One person or a lot of people who are afraid they will lose something they cherish or not get something they covet.

We see it in the house, in the workplace, in the car (!), around the corner and around the world (sadly, just take your pick of stories in the International news).

Writing prompt: Here are some ideas for how you can explore the connection between anger and fear in a coaching article:

  • Career coaches: 5 ways to respond calmly to an emotionally-charged conversation at work
  • Life coaches: 5 ways to get re-centered instead of lashing out
  • Money coaches: The 5 tricks that collection agents use to trigger your emotions and how to rise above them
  • Relationship coaches: 5 questions to ask yourself before you confront your spouse in anger
  • Parenting coaches: 5 ways to address the real reason for your child's tantrum
  • Business coaches: 5 ways to keep business from getting personal
  • Marketing coaches: The ethical approach to using scarcity as a marketing strategy
  • Spiritual coaches: 10 ways to cultivate faith when you're facing fear

How Gmail’s conversation view is helping me make new coach connections

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Gmail's conversation view is taking me awhile to get used to (I even missed a few messages early on, because I didn't scroll down far enough), but the more I use it the more I like it!

Where it's really working for me is in handling the abundance of messages I receive as part of my membership in the New Coach Connection.

I love this group – I joined back in 2005 when I launched You Talk, I'll Write, on the suggestion of my coach at the time, Andrea Lee. I knew that I wanted to work with coaches, and here was a fantastic group of coaches! There are also other members who serve coaches, such as virtual assistants.

I've made wonderful contacts in the NCC – people who have helped me in immeasurable ways (and yes, some treasured clients as well), and people I have really enjoyed collaborating with.

I noticed that my participation had dropped off lately – I wasn't even contributing to Free Friday, when we're invited to send promotional messages (otherwise that is strictly prohibited on this list, which is more about networking, guidance and collaboration).

The issue was that I had switched to digest email in an effort to tame my Inbox. But that meant I had to pore through really long emails. As well, replying to a digest message was cumbersome because I had to retype the subject line and trim away everything except the message I was responding to.

The solution? Switch back to receiving individual messages, and put Gmail's conversation view, labels and filters to work for me. Here's what happens now:

1. When a message from the NCC comes in, Gmail marks it as "read." This takes away some pressure, since I tend to feel compelled to read or deal with every single piece of unread mail in my account.

2. Gmail also attaches the label NCC, and there is a link in my sidebar that will pull up all emails with that label (or any of my other labels – it's Gmail's cool "instant folder" feature).

3. With Gmail's conversation view, when I open my NCC "folder," I can quickly scan the subject lines and open up and reply to the messages that interest me. Other people's replies are stored neatly underneath the original message – I can see how many replies there have been, but those replies are not taking up any valuable real estate.

4. To get back in the habit of joining the party at the NCC, I've added it to my list of business/relationship development tasks that I like to do on Friday mornings.

A special reminder to my NCC friends – please be descriptive with your subject lines! So instead of "I have an announcement," or "I have a question," say a few words about the specifics. That way I'll know instantly if I can help and I'll be much more likely to click through to your message.

Write from the headlines: The reinvention of GM after Chapter 11 bankruptcy

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I was quite impressed by the television commercial that GM has been airing over the last couple of days, following their filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday.

Talk about taking a coach approach to failure! In fact, seeing this commercial actually left me with the feeling that the "real world" was finally coming into alignment with the "coaching world" that I have been part of since 2002.

Writing prompt: Whatever target market you serve as a coach, I bet that you have a thing or two to say to them about reinvention, failure and starting over. Why not write some of those things down in an article or blog post?

Speak up and stand out: How to cultivate creativity in your article marketing

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We've been discussing the top three skills you'll need in order to make article marketing magic. We started with clairvoyance, moved on to clarity and today it's time for:

Article Marketing Skill #3 – Creativity

If your article was relevant enough to attract her attention, and written clearly enough to keep it, chances are that your ideal client clicked through to your website. Hopefully, there was a pink spoon waiting there for her, and so she joined your mailing list.

Now she'll be receiving your articles directly by email. But will she open them? Will she send them to others? Will she make the leap from your site to a sale?

If you continue to send her relevant, well-written articles, she'll probably keep reading them. But to keep her attention and really stand out as the solution she needs, you're going to need a little extra oomph.

Here's where you can distinguish yourself from similar products and services, by showing her your personality – your quirks, your strong opinions, your likes and dislikes, and a peek behind the scenes of your business. 

Warning: Being more creative and quirky in your writing means that some people (gasp!) won't like you. If you try to please everyone, you won't attract anyone. What makes this person your ideal client is that she "gets you." She speaks your language and you speak hers. So speak up!

To cultivate your creativity, read articles by people who express their personality in their writing (some of my current favourites are Havi Brooks, Karri Flatla and Scott Stratten).

As well, open your mind to creative ways you can get your information across by making unique connections. What can your daughter's finger paints teach your readers about marketing? How do today's news headlines reinforce the point you were making in your last coaching session?

Here are two other examples from Julia Stewart and Kathy Mallary.

Successful article marketers apply these three key skills (clairvoyance, clarity and creativity) and receive magical results as a result. But it didn't happen overnight. They had to learn and practice these techniques, and you can, too!

If you feel like you're lacking the discipline, skill or structure that you need to apply the power of article marketing to grow your business, please contact me today about how I can help!