Freelancing

Monday Spark: Why taking on a CHALLENGE may be more powerful than setting a GOAL.

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goals and challengesIn many ways challenges and goals are similar.

Both are about achieving something important at some point in the future. Both can give us a sense of purpose and direction in our lives, and in our work. Both set the bar a little higher and drive us to perform at our best.

But I think there is an important difference in how we perceive challenges and goals.

First, let’s look at goals.

A goal often takes the form of a written description, with a deadline. “I will publish my first ebook by the end of this year.”

There is nothing wrong with setting a goal like that. Apply a little self-discipline, set a schedule and you’ll get that ebook written and published.

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Integrated social media: The next opportunity for online writers and copywriters.

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social media integrationSocial media marketing is, thankfully, coming out of its trendy phase and moving into its business phase.

For those of us who have been online for a while, the trendiness of social media has been somewhat irritating. The web was social before the web even existed. In other words, the Internet was social before the first web browsers appeared. Back then we connected with one another through Listservs and the like. It was 100% social.

Services like MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook didn’t invent social media. They simply made it more popular and improved its functionality.

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Monday Spark: In fact, you CAN do it yourself.

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learned helplessnessWe just returned from a resort vacation in Jamaica.

Only for a week, but we had a great time.

The resort was divided by a fairly busy road, and the lady in the photo was one of a team who used their stop signs to help visitors get safely from one side of the resort to the other.

The process was fun to watch, because drivers clearly considered stopping to be optional.

Anyway, after a few days I walked to the side of the road, and found that the ladies with their stop signs weren’t there.

Just for a moment I wondered how on earth I was going to cross the road without them.

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Monday Spark: The 8 Secrets of success in 3 minutes [VIDEO]

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richard st. john successI wonder how many hours, days, months and years you have devoted to your search for the secrets of success.

All those ebook, talks, programs, and more.

Well, here is some good news for you.

Now you can learn the secrets of success in 3 minutes, thanks to this TED talk by author, Richard St.John.

Inspired by a question from a high school student on a flight, he decided to roll up his sleeves and really find out what successful people had in common.

In fact, he spent 10 years on this project and interviewed 500 extraordinary people. He then distilled everything into a talk he could give at high schools. In other words, after 10 years he found himself able to answer the question he was asked on that flight.

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The more skills you have in your online copywriting toolbox, the greater your value to your clients.

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online copywriter toolboxWay back when I wrote copy offline, I was pretty much a one-trick pony.

I wrote direct mail. That was my thing. I have never written a radio spot. I have never written a TV commercial.

Back then, it was fine to focus on a single copywriting skill, because there was no connection between what I wrote for a client as a direct response writer, and what their agency copywriter wrote for TV.

Sure, we all worked to the same brief, keeping within the same campaign idea.

But the key point to understand is that the quality of my direct mail piece didn’t depend on my knowing anything about writing for TV, radio or any other medium. Why? Because each medium was separate from the other.

All that changed with the arrival of the web.

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Monday Spark: Don’t wait to be rescued.

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drowning freelancerAs freelancers we work alone, and sometimes we have bad days, weeks and even months.

When things aren’t going well, we sit at our desks, our heads in our hands, and wonder how we are going to make things better.

We are at a fork in the road here…we can lead our thoughts in one of two directions.

The first direction takes us to a place where we feel powerless and want someone to rescue us. Maybe an old client can give us a project to help fill the coffers this month. Maybe a mentor can miraculously introduce us to a new client. Maybe that new e-book by this month’s hot guru can instantly result in a flood of new prospects.

We are passive. We feel we are the victim of circumstances. We want to be rescued.

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