Empathy is the gateway to attraction, but once you have people’s attention you need to be able to keep it. How? You learn to give things away. Sales isn’t about what you withhold, its more about the value you can give. If you are scared of sharing secrets in case you run out, just find out more about your subject.
Thankfully, I’ve been around the industry for 25 years and entrepreneurship even longer. When summer days arrived I was out with a bucket and sponge, knocking on people’s doors and washing their cars. In the late ’80s, £5 a car and £10 for inside and out was very lucrative. It paid for me to step into the college education that would shape my future years!
Blogging is something we all know we need to do but often don’t have time to do. For me, it’s a practice that has produced so much valuable content that it will form the basis of a book. It’s an absolute must if you want to BE the authority in your sector.
Now this isn’t a sales pitch, but if you haven’t got time, we can write it for you. The point of today’s blog is that people love to hear from the founder, the CEO. As a busy entrepreneur or business owner a blog helps you collect your thoughts and get into the mind of the clients you are trying to connect with. It allows you to add value and it also adds credibility to your leadership and inspires people to believe in your mission.
So, yes, get other people to write, but just like social media, people also like to hear from you!
Let’s suppose for a minute that you are feeling inspired and want to say a few words… how would you do it? What voice, tone, authenticity are you looking to express to leave the reader enjoyable content that they will act upon?
Well, headlines are about attention – ‘Man Landing on the Moon’ stops you in your tracks, but not all of us are Elon Musk or even Neil Armstrong… What do you need to stop the scroll? The easiest way to do that is to always end with a ‘what next’ moment…
Yesterday, I was sentenced to death for writing so many click bait headlines. What happens next will shock you…
Ok, ok. Where was I?
How to write a great blog post
Blog writing. So, writing a blog is still, even after all these years, a reliable way of connecting with your audience, whether you’re hoping to acquire new customers, provide a useful resource to existing customers or establish yourself as an authority in your field. Here are a few simple tips if you are dipping your toe into the muddy waters of blogging for the very first time:
B is for BE
Be consistent
– Write regularly. It’s weekly, fortnightly or monthly, not a mixture of all three.
– Remember why you are blogging. Stick to that.
– Be consistent in your spelling, particularly words related to your products and services.
Be relevant
– Write to help your readership. Make sure that their lives are richer for reading your blog.
– Use headers to break up the text. Make it easy for a busy reader to navigate.
L is for LONG GAME
– Get to know your customers’ pain points and answer their questions through your blogs.
– It takes time to write something worth reading. Your efforts will pay off in the end.
– Spend as long as you can making your blog a fast and easy read. Lists are great!
O is for ‘OH!’
– What can you share that has the ‘Oh!’ factor? The ‘Who knew?’ I’m talking about a precious nugget of information that you are going to give away for free. A trade secret that saves both time and money. It’s best not to give away too much, but important to give real value.
– Original content has the ‘Oh’ factor too. Creative, interesting, valuable and helpful content that keeps people on your site for longer can also help your blog posts show up higher in search results. Each blog post you create on the same topic adds to your site’s total SEO credibility.
G is for GOOGLE
– Of all the readers of your blog, Google will share it the most. You decide the extent to which Google promotes your blog to other (more human) readers.
– Remember that what you are writing is a signpost to your products/services. Include FAQs and keywords for SEO.
– Share your content on social media every time you post a new blog.
– Google likes it if you add links to your blog posts, back links too.
– Add images and/or videos. Remember that not all of your readers will find your posts on your blog. Many people will find you through social media or content curation platforms. This means that the title of the posts and the media aspects within the post are all important.
So, there you have it, some little tips to get you going. So here’s my challenge to you. Write 12 blogs. One for each month. That could become 12 very short chapters of an E-Book. 12 well-written stories, insights, value-added content that will add to the outsourced blog content you are producing. Don’t write in the third person – change it to the first person – these are your insights. By mixing it up, you will gain new followers and more engagement. When you have 12 you have a year’s worth of blog material. It’s really simple if you schedule some time to make it happen.
You might want to write a book, but if you write a blog and give snapshots of the wider picture you’ll find out if the audience you are addressing would actually read it.
You’ll get feedback on your content via social posting and people’s comments become another way of engaging your email database rather than endless offers and click funnels.
So, set some time aside, and remember, a book started life as an idea that became a word, a sentence, a paragraph and then a chapter or ten. A book can also start life as a blog.
So, if you are trying to find the time to deliver a book, start with a blog and know that your dream is at your fingertips.