Monday Spark: Tell me again…why can’t you get that done? [VIDEO]

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get things doneThe reasons we come up with for not getting things done are pretty lame sometimes.

We set ourselves a task or a goal, and get started.

Then we find our goal is not as easy to achieve as we first thought.

Then we pause. We get distracted. We decide we need to do some more research.

Then we find reasons why the whole plan might not work. We lose confidence.

Then we find that some elements or components to our plan are not easy to find or develop.

Then we get scared of failing. We lose faith.

Then we abandon the plan.

Then we blame all kinds of outside circumstances for the failure of the plan.

Like I said, pretty lame.

Contrast this with the approach of William Kamkwamba of Malawi, Africa.

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When you write a web page, give it the “help a friend test”.

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help a friend web copyThe help a friend test is a simple analogy. I have used it before, and so have others.

But this has been the foundation on which I have built every line of copy and content I have written over the past 30 years. It worked when I started out, and it still works now.

Here is the basic approach

Before you write any content or copy for a web page (or for any other medium), imagine the person who will be reading the page is actually sitting in front of you.

Let’s say it’s a friend of yours, and you’re having coffee together.

Your friend has a problem and wants to raise the topic with you because he or she knows you are something of an expert in that area.

So your friend asks you a question. For example, it might be, “Jack, I want to pay more into my retirement fund, but I still have some credit card debt to pay off. Which is more important…adding to my retirement fund or paying off the cards?”

Yes, your friend has a problem and is actively seeking advice and help.

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Monday Spark: Stop worrying about bad news.

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sign of bad newsWhen you watch the news on TV or browse your favorite news websites, it’s guaranteed you’ll find some really bad news on page one.

The news media put a lot of emphasis on bad, scary and generally depressing news.

Right now you can take your pick from rising gas and food prices, the looming “fiscal cliff”, riots in Europe, nuclear weapons in Iran and so on.

And if world news doesn’t do it for you, there are plenty of depressing stories you can find closer to home – about bullying in schools, people losing their homes, and whole communities being washed away by hurricanes.

One way or another, whichever news source you look at, you can be guaranteed to be overwhelmed with bad news.

Before you go hide under the bed for the next 10 years, here are a couple of things to consider.

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6 Questions freelancers ask me about my coaching service [VIDEO]

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coaching for freelancersMaking the decision to work with a coach is a huge leap of faith.

First you have to choose a coach to work with, without really knowing him or her all that well.

Then you have to pay them money.

And all this without really knowing in advance whether the coaching process will work for you.

It’s a leap of faith.

I have made that leap myself, when I worked with a coach about 6 years ago. Like anyone else, I didn’t really know what to expect.

I don’t much like putting myself in someone else’s hands. And I’m not someone who is quick to trust someone I don’t know very well. But to give that coaching engagement a fair shot, I had to let go of my usual constraints and allow him to do his work.

As it turned out, that experience was transformational for me, and I’ll always be grateful. (Thank you Alan Allard!)

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Why good websites are written like junk mail.

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websites written like junk mailYou might be surprised to find me saying you should write a website the same way you write junk mail.

After all, I have spent the last 15 years insisting that writing for the web is different.

Well, I’ll happily defend both positions. Writing for the web really is different, in several ways. But also, it’s important to remember that the web is a direct response medium. Click or no click. Action or no action. Response or no response.

Therein lies the similarity. Just like with junk mail, a website can only claim success when its readers take some kind of action. If a visitor simply glances at your home page and neither scrolls nor clicks before hitting the back button, you have failed. You haven’t driven action of any kind.

Let’s look at the life of a piece of direct mail, from the moment it lands on your doormat, and see how that compares with a successful website.

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Monday Spark: Do you love your message as much as this guy? [VIDEO]

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eddie obeng enthusiasmRecently I have been writing and speaking about the power of loving your message.

Simply put, it isn’t easy to promote yourself when you try to sell your services on the basis of the sum of your expertise and experience. You’ll never feel totally confident, because you’ll always know that your knowledge is incomplete and that other people know more than you do.

But when you have a message you love, everything changes. Instead of trying to promote yourself, or the sum of your knowledge, you promote your message.

My message, back in the late 1990s, was “writing for the web is different”. It was a new and exciting message back then, and nobody else was saying it. And it built me a business before I had any kind of expertise or experience in writing for the web.

People hired me because they loved my message.

Now…to give you an idea of what loving your message looks and sounds like, check out the video below.

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