As you may have seen, we released the Prose theme for WordPress today, and in honor of that, we decided to switch Remarkable Communication over.

I’m really enjoying the new look, and I hope you are too! I wanted to return a bit more to the “earthy crunchy” look I had early on, but keeping a nice professional design.

Also, Prose has threaded comments built in, so we can reply to each other’s comments now! This one took me some time to get used to over on Copyblogger, but now I love it for the way it facilitates conversation and community.

And finally, a tip of my hat to the lovely Brian Gardner, my new business partner and all-around great dude, for staying up late with me last night to make the switch.

(By the way, if you want to see what the Prose theme looks like without additional styling, check out the demo. I actually love that ultra clean white and gray layout, it looks particularly good with a few bright images. But we also wanted to show how much you can change the look of the theme just with a custom header and a few color tweaks.)

I was past 40 before it occurred to me that I could really be an entrepreneur.

Even the word always seemed to carry so much stress.

Mortgaging your house to make payroll. (And then having the company die anyway.) Dumping an unfair workload onto your spouse. Broken promises to your kids.

And all this to feed an adrenaline addiction that, frankly, I don’t have. I don’t bungie jump, I don’t snowboard, and I didn’t think I had any desire to become an entrepreneur.

That was then, this is now

Looking back, I realize that it wasn’t having my own shop that scared me. It was all of the baggage I carried about the idea of an “entrepreneur.”

(Jason Fried of 37 Signals argues that we shouldn’t even use the word entrepreneur, that we should just call people “starters” instead. His book, Rework, is terrific, by the way.)

For most of my career, I let other people make the decisions because I figured they must know better than me. Maybe they had an MBA, or they earned a ton of dough, or they’d gone through that whole mortgaging the house to make payroll thing.

When I started blogging, I started to meet a different kind of entrepreneur.

Did they have stress?

Oh yeah, my new entrepreneurial friends had plenty of stress. Some days (or weeks) were anxious and crazy busy and they didn’t know where to go next.

A satisfying life isn’t one long soak in the tub. Challenge and growth are stressful, no two ways about it.

But they also had a lot of freedom. A lot more freedom than the more traditional entrepreneurs I knew.

They weren’t slaves to their business. They could ramp up or down, depending on their goals. Maybe because they were online, they were quicker to get help when they needed it — sometimes a coach, sometimes a VA, sometimes automation.

And they took breaks when they needed to. They put their relationships first. For the most part, they maintained their most important machine.

Now I don’t want to get into “Four-Hour Workweek” fantasy land. (In his book of that name, Tim Ferriss at one point spells out his office hours. Guess what — they add up to well more than four hours a day, never mind a week. The book is good, but don’t take the title literally.)

But entrepreneurship has changed. New tools, new ways to access markets, and new economic patterns have given us a lot more varied ways of making a living, even if we’re doing something traditional.

And education about how to make your business work is so much better (cheaper, easier to find, more comprehensive) than it was when I first started poking around on the SBA website trying to figure out how I could get started as a freelance copywriter.

We don’t have to choose any more between complicated/limited information (“First, sign a lease for $5000 a month”) and the sleazy-breezy “hey, get rich sitting at home in your underwear!” stuff.

My take on what holds businesses back

Looking back on what kept me in a day job for so long, I found what I call five lies of entrepreneurship. (OK, you could say “myths,” but let’s face it, “lies” is a better headline.)

These are five ideas that might once have been true, or they might have always been baloney. It doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that if any of these is holding you back today, they can all be reframed or just plain old ignored.

If you run a business today, these lies can still trip you up. They can keep you from expanding, from growing, from really enjoying your business, and from building a business that supports your life instead of eating it alive.

Here are the five lies I zeroed in on:

• That entrepreneurs are some kind of special breed of human being … that they’re “different” from you or me.
• That a business has to eat your life.
• That entrepreneurs have to be crazy risk-takers.
• That there’s a Right Way and a Wrong Way.
• That having your own business is all or nothing.

Naturally, I’m going to unpack each one of those for you, with what I’ve found in my own business (and in working with my friends) about how to get past them.

I’ve decided to deliver this along with my e-course on creating killer content marketing, because that’s the most powerful tool I’ve found to make a business work. (Especially if you’re like me, and selling isn’t your strong suit.)

To get the 5 Lies and 10 additional lessons on creating amazing content marketing, just enter your name and email address in the handy box below.

(Yes, this series is a warm-up to making you an offer, and I’ll expain that in the first message. No, I won’t spam you to death or make you nuts with endless pitches. And of course I will never share your name or email with anyone, ever.)

If you’re already on either of my email newsletters, you’ll get the series automatically, so no need to sign up for anything new.

And of course, if you decide it isn’t your thing, it’s two clicks to unsubscribe. No harm, no foul.

How about you?

I’m planning on sending out the first message tomorrow, so while we’re waiting — how about you?

What’s the myth or lie about entrepreneurship that’s kept you from going as far as you could with your business?

Let us know about it in the comments!

(P.S.)

If you can’t see the form or you’re having any trouble signing up, just email me at sonia (at) remarcom (dot) com and I’ll get ya set up manually.

This is a guest post by Pamela Wilson

Last summer, in Boston for a few days on vacation, I wandered into a local mall.

I ended up in a store that specializes in soaps and bath-type products that look handmade, and have very basic packaging.

Here’s what happened.

It’s a little embarrassing, actually, because I know a lot about marketing and how it works, and I still fell for this approach.

The marketing process begins

When I entered the store, I was approached by a salesperson who asked if I needed help with anything. I deflected her offer, and continued to peruse the products. She asked if I’d visited the store before, and I said yes. (She established a connection).

I looked around at their soaps, which I had purchased before, but I didn’t see anything that looked appealing. Then I moved to the other side of the store, and the salesperson asked me if I was familiar with their skin care line. I said no, I wasn’t.

For the sake of the story, here’s an important detail. I’m in my forties, and my skin still gets oily. I even get the occasional pimple, much to my annoyance.

The salesperson asked me about my skin type. (Established a connection again). I told her about my oily skin, and she offered two solutions. One was a skin treatment with lavender that smelled great, but probably wouldn’t help my skin. The other was a treatment made with charcoal, which would absorb the oil on my face and clear my skin right up. (Established a connection once again, and made a promise).

So I bought it. It was jet black, and I couldn’t wait to try it.

You know where this is going, don’t you?

I returned to my hotel room with its snowy white towels. I splashed some water on my face, and proceeded to smear the scrub all over my skin. I rinsed it off, and looked up at my grey-streaked face in the mirror. I looked like a corpse!

I rinsed some more, and finally grabbed a towel to dry my face. I managed to get it all off (leaving the hotel towel grey). Once I finished rinsing out the towel with soap and water, I had to laugh.

I spent nearly $20 on a jar of charcoal paste to smear on my face. How did that happen?

It happened because that salesperson had been well trained to make a connection with everyone who wandered in to her store.

The salesperson:

• Established my level of familiarity with the products when she asked me if I’d been there before.
• Asked me what my specific problems were.
• Offered two solutions, one of which was clearly better.

By the time she offered me those products, they seemed like a personalized recommendation. I was sold!

I was so sold that I sauntered back to my hotel, soiled a snowy-white towel, made myself look dead and — by the way — still get the occasional pimple.

These are great lessons for all of us. When marketing is done right, it is a force to be reckoned with. It’s so powerful, it can push people to make irrational decisions.

As people who are trying to master marketing, it’s important to respect this power, remember to use it for good, and do our best to avoid selling people ridiculous products and services.

What do you to keep your marketing ethical, and assure that you can sleep at night? Let’s hear it in the comments.

About the Author: Pamela Wilson helps small business owners grow through the power of great design and marketing. She’s published a quick-start guide to creating great marketing materials, called “Five-Ingredient Design Recipes.”
Grab your free copy here!

Recently on the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint* forum, some folks were saying nice things about the space I’d created.

And I have to admit — I love it there. The members are generous and supportive, everyone is working their tails off and making progress like crazy. It’s exhilarating and warm and fuzzy all at the same time.

But here’s the thing.

I didn’t make it that way

You may know that I’m into visualizing one single, perfect customer for your business.

That means you figure out the perfect person that you want to do business with. Then you always speak directly, one-to-one, to that person. Your blog, your email, even a highway billboard should be written for that person and no one else.

I thought I understood how that worked. Basically, it activates your brain to perceive that person when you’re out and about. (Otherwise, trust me, she’ll be standing right in front of you and you won’t see her.)

It makes your communication feel more intimate, because you’re using the language of individual conversation rather than giving a speech to millions. And your conversational, intimate tone will make customers (particularly those who look like your perfect customer) feel really comfortable and welcome.

But there’s a part I didn’t get.

Your customers shape your business

Business decisions get made to solve problems and open up opportunities. Usually a lot more of the former than the latter.

When you don’t do any work to define your customer, you have to create a lot of policies and processes to deal with people you shouldn’t be dealing with in the first place.

• Time-wasters and energy vampires
• People who can’t afford your service or don’t get enough value from it, so they’re always battling you on price
• Negative people
• Mean people
• People whose personalities are incompatible with yours (maybe they’re flakes and you’re a stickler for detail, or vice versa)

You get the idea.

Some of them might be perfectly nice. But they’re not right for you. And when you have customers who aren’t right for you, they invariably become a gigantic pain in the ass.

When you know exactly who your customer is, you shape your product and service so it’s exactly what she wants, the way she wants it.

So you’re not creating that business. She is.

Honestly, it’s kinda spooky.

The problem with appealing to bottom-feeders

You may know that I’ve gained a little notoriety making fun of the “yellow highlighter” internet marketers.

It’s not that I think they’re bad guys, or crooks. (Ok, some of them are crooks, but some are 100% straight shooters.)

I just don’t like the way their customers have shaped their businesses.

They pitch to the lowest common denominator, to the “get rich quick” business opportunity junkie who has no faith in himself. That customer is always looking for a magic pill. He only responds to a “fast money, no work” message, and that ends up shaping the marketing and the business.

Some of the yellow highlighter guys are actually terrific teachers. But their message gets messed up because they’re going for a problematic customer.

The distinction between connection and marketing gets fuzzy

Naomi and Mark had a really interesting call last week that touched on the times in our business when we’re creating connection, and how that can be at odds with the times when we’re selling something.

I won’t say the boundary ever completely dissolves. There is a difference.

But when you’ve uncovered who your exact perfect person is and then you shape the business around what she cares about, selling really does become a form of connection.

And there’s another side to it — you don’t kill yourself building extraneous stuff that doesn’t really float her boat. (In other words, stuff that won’t create a connection or sell.)

You’re making an offer of help, rather than “asking for the sale.” You don’t need to out-yell the Sham-Wow guy, because the product itself is doing the shouting for you:

I’m the perfect product! I’m exactly what you’ve been looking for! I’m going to help you and make your life better and you’re going to be so glad we found each other. Buy me, you gorgeous perfect customer, you!

When connection and selling come together, even though it’s a lot of work, it doesn’t feel like work. It feels completely absorbing and interesting and you wish you had more hours in the day so you could do more of it.

Anyway, that’s how I see it. How about you? Had any moments where a customer shaped your business, your practice, your service? (Could be either in a good way or a bad.) Let us know about it in the comments.

I recently got an email from someone whose comments aren’t going through on that other blog I write for.

I let him know that the spam plugin Akismet was probably snagging them, and he responded to let me know that was a “piss poor” answer.

Apparently I should dig through the tens of thousands of spam messages to find his comments. Which, given the tone of his email, I’m sure were constructive and insightful.

No one owes you their attention

Are your ads being blocked by spam blockers? Sorry, web visitors don’t accept your premise that they’re obliged to read ads on your site.

Not getting the comments or retweets you want on your blog posts? Your readers voted with their response (or lack of response) — while they may have enjoyed your content, it didn’t move them to take action.

Not getting personal attention from that individual you admire? It bites (and trust me, I’ve been right there with you), but you simply haven’t done anything remarkable enough to snag their attention. Not yet.

(Another possibility is that you just haven’t given things enough time.)

Good manners help. A lot

There is one proven way to capture attention — throw a tantrum. It works brilliantly.

Say some nasty things about that guru and you’ll pop up in his Google alerts. You may very well give him heartburn for a couple of days. If you’re obnoxious enough, your name could certainly stick in his mind.

But since you are not three and the guru is presumably not your parent, an ugly tantrum doesn’t do anything to get you what you actually want, which is positive attention.

Almost everyone who contacts me is lovely and polite. But of course, which messages do I remember the most vividly? The ones who tell me my answers are piss poor, or call me various kinds of names.

My patience for these evaporated maybe six months ago. And my kid taught me long ago not to reward tantrums.

Attention is not magic fairy dust

This may seem a little snarky, but it isn’t meant that way.

Something I’ve noticed at conferences and other venues is that we all have a tendency to think that if we can just get five minutes in front of that super successful person (or that person whose outlook we think is really cool), everything is going to go differently.

I got really lucky when I started this blog.

My very first commenter was Seth Godin. (As Brian enjoys pointing out, the blog at that point was something of a shrine to Seth. He showed up to give a friendly word.)

A few months later, I even managed to entice him to link to me, by writing a thoughtful post about a book he’d just published. That post got a ton of traffic for about a week, more traffic than I could ever have dreamed of getting at the time.

What would be different if those two things hadn’t happened?

What if Godin had never commented on the blog, and had never gone on to send me a link?

What would change about the way I run my business? About the timing of when I was able to quit the day job? About the number of spots in my courses that I’m able to sell? About my cash flow or monthly revenue? About how much I enjoy what I do?

Zero.

No choirs of angels came to appoint me with success. No doors swung open to lead me to fame and wealth.

It wasn’t my “lucky break.” It wasn’t a break. It was just some attention from one smart guy.

Mostly, what I got out of it was encouragement. Which is valuable. It was damned exciting to get that attention from someone I admire so much, and it gave me great pleasure.

But encouragement from a “brush with a guru” lasts for a few weeks. Maybe a month.

You know what’s lasted for years now, with no signs of waning?

Encouragement and support from friends and peers. Folks like Naomi and Dave and Jon and Charlie. (If I start trying to name everyone on that list, we’ll be here until December, so just realize that this is a small subset.)

Some of them started before I did, some after. None of them lives on Mount Olympus. We were just folks trying to figure out how to do business and blogging.

That’s all the gurus are as well. They don’t have a magic new flavor of success dust that they can offer you.

When they do give you their best advice, it’ll be boring

• Work really hard.
• Be yourself.
• Do a better job on the fundamentals.
• Give before you ask.
• Don’t give up.

Yawn, right?

But that’s the only advice they can give you. It’s the best advice they have. That’s why it’s a cliché. There’s not some secret guru advice that they’re holding back.

What’s the law of anti-attraction?

If there’s a quality that will repel the attention, the connection, and the success you want, it’s an attitude of entitlement.

The person you admire so much, both personally and professionally? Loathes an attitude of entitlement. Without knowing anything else about that person, I can tell you this with perfect certainty.

(If you want more evidence, check out this excellent compilation from Tamar Weinberg about how to get an influencer’s attention.)

I’m certainly not saying you don’t deserve the best

You absolutely deserve the best. You’re amazing.

If you work hard and are true to yourself and do a better job on the fundamentals and give before you ask and don’t give up, I have complete confidence that you will receive the best.

None of us gets the goodies because we’re born talented. (I’m writing a lesson for my free e-course about Carol Dweck’s work on the fixed versus the growth mindset, which I think plays a major part in this. Expect much more about this in the future, because I think it’s one of the few actual magic secret keys to success. In the mean time, pick up her book Mindset, or at least check out her site.)

So don’t worry so much about whether or not you innately “deserve” anything, good or bad. Instead, get obsessed with making yourself better, making your projects more remarkable, becoming more skilled, doing better work, serving more people in a more profound way.

And be too damned stubborn to quit.

How about you, any amazing examples of entitlement mentality that you’ve run into recently? If you share them in the comments, I promise to wince in sympathy.

Remember in the old cartoons, when Bugs Bunny fell off a 90-story building and then emerged shaking his head with a funny little rattle?

That’s kind of what I feel like.

So yes, I am still alive! I want to let you guys know a) all the insanity I’ve been up to, b) some of the insanity I have planned, and c) a couple of things I’ve learned from it all.

I’m going to try to counter my usual impulse to write a 3000-word post (and put off posting anything any longer), and instead I’ll give you the best birds-eye view I can now, and then over the next couple of weeks I can share some thoughts with you about what’s been working, what’s been insane, and things you might try for yourself.

Too many launches

Late last year I had three projects that I was pouring everything I had into. Those three projects all came to fruition, which has been both amazing and scary.

The first was the Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter over on Copyblogger. I’d been pestering Brian for awhile about adding an email newsletter, and he finally told me to shut up and do it already. (He didn’t actually say shut up, he’s quite a nice person.)

As you may know if you subscribe to one of my newsletters, I have a teeny tiny tendency to overdo it on these. I basically try to deliver a cubic ton of value, which means they’re no small effort to put together.

But the great thing is, once they’re created, they’re created. Put the work in up front and you’ll keep gaining the benefit from it. (Unlike a blog, which needs ongoing feeding.)

This one has 10 lessons written so far of the 20 I have planned. I’ve gotten a lot of really nice feedback on it, which is good, because I put a hell of a lot into it.

The second was to finally create the membership web site I outlined when I first joined the Teaching Sells program in late 2007. I launched that in December last year, the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint. This program is so, so dear to my heart. The first 250 beta members have been so smart, so supportive, and best of all, they’re actually USING THE MATERIAL AND MAKING PROGRESS.

I’m working out the last of the site’s kinks and my own process glitches now, and I expect to re-open it in a month or so. If you’d like notification of when it opens up, you can sign up for that here. Don’t worry, I won’t plague you with email. Not only do I try never to do that, but I’ve also got too much other stuff to do.

The third project was this “little idea” I had to create a private forum around the principles of the “Third Tribe.” In other words, of taking the best from the more traditional internet marketing “gurus” (solid direct response technique, a willingness to go ahead and ask for the sale, focus on conversion) and from the more kumbaya social media types (respect for audience, focus on communication, development of great relationships that go both directions).

Brian, as it turns out, doesn’t do little ideas. It’s just not how his brain works. So before we know it, we had Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan as business partners, we had the amazing Tony Clark (who built Teaching Sells) coding the site, and we had . . . well . . . a whole ton of customers for Inside the Third Tribe.

Passionate, engaged customers. Who were talking and creating and partnering and moving. It’s exhilarating and intimidating and kind of like giving birth to Godzilla. A really chatty, ambitious, friendly Godzilla.

And that was the last anyone heard from me

Well not really. You probably know that the best place to keep up with me has been over on Copyblogger, where I’m senior editor and doing my darnest to do really good work and keep the blog as amazing as ever.

But I just plain old haven’t been able to find the time or creative energy to write for Remarkable Communication, or for my own wonderful newsletter, which has been a labor of love for me since I started this whole wacky journey.

Now that the dust has settled a little from my Three Giant Projects, fixing that is next on my list.

Regroup and refocus

So my next tasks are:

1. Reconnect with this blog and my list, and remind myself how much enjoyment I have always taken from writing for both of those.
2. Get smarter about sharing some of my tasks, so I can preserve bandwidth for what I love to do.
3. Start riffing here on some of the more personal elements of my Business Adventure that don’t fit at Copyblogger, and that you may find interesting or enlightening.

Along the way you will have opportunities to make purchases of various products should you so desire. If you’ve been with me awhile, you know that I’m 100% cool whether you buy anything or not. My main interest is the conversations, and the financial part tends to work itself out.

OK, I seriously need to stop writing now so I can get this posted. I’m really looking forward to catching up more with you soon.

Yes, it’s a guest post! My friend and all-around wise dude Charlie Gilkey graciously offered me this guest post as a way to rouse Remarkable Communication gently from its slumber.

This is the second part of the How To Blog Like Shakespeare series from Charlie Gilkey. Check out How To Write For New Readers if you missed Part 1.

Regular readers are familiar with you and your content, so they’re already keyed into how you write and what you’re about. They’re also likely to be your friends, fans, champions, and customers.

The fact that they’re familiar with what you’re up to, though, can also make it more difficult to write for them. They might have already learned some of the stuff you’ve written for your new readers, so the way you write for your new readers won’t provide a lot of value to them. While they may have some favored themes and topics, to keep their attention, you’ll have to provide them something new.

The challenge, then, is to write about the same themes and topics while adding some novelty to them. Think about this as if you were putting on a concert: your fans love to hear your old songs, but if you play the same songs the same way every time, it’ll get old. However, if you play the old song in a slightly different way, they’ll be interested and entertained all over again. Lastly, if you play a bunch of songs they don’t know, they’ll be a bit confused and maybe a little frustrated.

Here are some ways to write content that remains fresh, informative, and valuable for your regular readers:

Explain Things In A New Way

As bloggers, we have a tendency to think that once we write about something, we don’t need to come back to it again because it’s old and uninteresting. After all, if we said it once, why do we need to say it again?

What we forget, though, is that we have readers who may not have read it the first time, and, even if they did, they might need to hear it again.

Explaining things in a new way is a win-win for both the blogger and the reader. By trying to explain it in a new way, we spur the creative process and make the old and uninteresting into the new and interesting. For other readers, it’s a chance to read it the first time or learn it anew.

Metaphors and analogies are your friend here. A picture is worth a thousand words, and metaphors are like conceptual pictures. Analogies are helpful because, if you do it right, you take people from one thing they already know to something that they don’t. The more cognitive maps and reinforcers people have, the more likely it is that they’ll integrate your content into their experience and habits.

Keep Them In The Know

You can only blog about the same themes and topics for so long before everybody gets tired of it. One of the most valuable things you can do for your readers is to be a source of new ideas and conversations. Most people don’t have the time or interest to do a lot of reading and research, and, if you’re already doing it, you have a rich opportunity to keep them in the know without having to come up with new content all by yourself.

If you can find a way to integrate those new ideas into the topics on your blog, then you’re showing three things: 1) the content on your blog has general applications, 2) other people are interested in things that you’re interested in (this gives your ideas increased validity), and 3) you’re someone who’s keeping up with what’s going on.

If you’re learning, growing, and sharing valuable information with them, then they’ll want to keep up with you so that they can learn and grow with you. Having some structure to your blog is a good thing, but you don’t want so much structure that it becomes static and boring. Balancing creating and consuming is a sure way to keep regular readers happy, as your content will be sustainably fresh, informative, and helpful.

Make It Personal

One of the major differences between new readers and regular readers is that regular readers are actually interested in you, whereas new readers are mostly interested in your content. That said, one way you can write for regular readers is to show more of who you are in your posts.

If you have a personal story that’s relevant to your blog, then share it. “Relevance” here is broadly construed: a story that helps your readers get to know you is relevant because it’s informative and interesting. At the same time, a mundane story about what you ate this morning is not relevant. A story could also be relevant because it helps show a point better than a less tangible explanation.

The trick to making your content personal is to make the content about your readers and not about you. If there’s too much “you” and not enough “them,” it’ll come off as narcissistic. As long as your readers are getting something out of your personal content, you’re good to go.

Alternatively, you can also make it personal by writing in a way that’s uniquely you. Think about your favorite bloggers here: you can probably identify their writing style in just a few sentences because the way they write is so unique. It takes time to find your own voice, but it’s well worth the effort.

Show That They’re Part of the Conversation

Responding to comments is an easy way to engage readers, but some of your regular readers will start leaving really good comments that are worth more than a response in the comment section.

When this happens, write a post that responds to that comment and be clear that it was that reader’s comment that promoted the post. Link to their blog or Twitter profile while you’re at it.

Aside from encouraging people to leave comments, this also shows your regular readers that they are part of the conversation and have insightful things to say. When you do this, your blog moves from being a one-way conversation to a forum for discussing ideas, and you become more than a blogger to them — you become a person that they can talk to and interact with.

Before you write this off as me being a kumbaya blogger, remember that people are likely to share a post that they’re featured in with their audience. They may even extend the conversation on their blog, which gets you an additional link and more readers. The more people identify with you and your blog, the more likely they are to share your blog with others. Never underestimate the power of having a community around your blog.

Ever wonder why musicians have parts of their show where they encourage people to sing along or clap? It changes the feel of the concert so that it’s not so much about the musician as it is about the music. You can and should do the same thing on your blog.

Regular Readers Are The Backbone of Your Tribe

Though your regular readers make up a small fraction of the numbers you see on your feedcounters, they are the people who leave comments, grok and share your content, and purchase your products and services.

And even the ones who don’t interact with you are lurking in the background and might one day say hi at a conference or click to buy a product.

In short, regular readers are the ones that most of us get up in the morning to write for, even if it can be a little more challenging at times.

While it’s highly likely that Shakespeare had regular attendees to his plays, the Bard’s “regular readers” were the people who had enough education and sophistication to understand the cultural context in which he was writing. Part of the suspense of Julius Ceasar for his regular readers was seeing how Brutus fell — they already knew it would happen, so it took some art on the part of Shakepeare to make the story interesting. This is where our challenge is the same as his when it comes to regular readers: we have to take what they already know and make it interesting. But we have write in such a way that people who aren’t familiar with the background can also follow the conversation.

Sonia’s also very good at writing for regular readers. I’ve been a regular reader of her posts here and on Copyblogger for years, and every time I read a new post I learn something new.

For instance, I recently completed one of her free e-courses, and while it was a great refresher course for me, her ninth piece in the “Email and Content Marketing” course spurred some creative ideas about how to get people outside of my audience to sign up for my newsletter. By explaining email and content marketing from this broader perspective, she taught me something new and incredibly useful despite the fact that I’ve been a fanboy for a good while now.

In the next part of this series (to be aired on my blog, Productive Flourishing), we’ll see what experts are looking for and discuss ways to write for them.

Action Steps

• Find one of your older pillar posts and explain it in a new way.
• Write about the current topics in your field or about a popular book.
• Tell a personal story that explains or supplements something you talk about
• Find a good opportunity to write a post in response to a good comment from a reader

About the Author: Charlie Gilkey writes about meaningful action, creativity, and entrepreneurship at Productive Flourishing. Follow him on Twitter to get more of him without having to read monolithic posts.

I’ve been spending more time lately teaching folks who are new to marketing, and I’m finding it really fascinating.

The same themes come up again and again. These are people who had an interesting idea for a product to sell or a service to market, but they run up against a horrid scary intimidating wall: marketing.

(And even scarier, its evil twin, selling.)

It seems impossibly hard. It seems like something for “other people.” It seems like they’d need a personality transplant to make it work for them.

And I totally get this, because I used to feel exactly the same way.

I only ever drifted into marketing because I was drawn to writing, and so when someone needed help with a marketing task, they tapped me on the shoulder.

I wasn’t that into marketing (I’m the worst salesperson in the history of the human race), but I was into communication, and hanging out with customers, and answering questions, and making the product work better for them.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that all that stuff was marketing.

To quote Keanu, Whoa.

Two resources to make it easier

If marketing seems horrible and hard for you, I’ve got two things coming up that I think will make it easier.

The first is a free five-part series on What Makes Marketing Hard. I’m going to be delivering it by email to everyone who’s signed up for my free content class, so if you’re already getting that (or the marketing tool kit), you’ll be in good shape.

If you’re not signed up for it, it’s a pretty great class (if I do say so myself) and I think you’ll get a lot out of it. The main focus is email newsletters, but the information is also very usable for bloggers and other content marketers.

Sign up for the free content class right here.

A new Sonia-style marketing course

The second resource will be a brand new marketing course that I’m creating.

I’m still hammering out details, but here’s what I know now:

• It’s going to be CHEAP, but only for the first group of students. You’ll be my beta-testers to refine the course and make it absolutely perfect as time goes on.
• It’s going to get EXPENSIVE later. I’m modeling it on Teaching Sells, which started out at $97 per quarter (when I signed up), and now goes for about $1600, with the price climbing each time the course is released. The price goes up because new content gets added and the format keeps improving, making it ever more valuable. That’s going to be my model here.
• Charter members will get lifetime access at the original CHEAP price, so those of you who are ready to sign up now will get a killer deal.
• It’s going to be a step-by-step blueprint, showing you exactly how to put together a marketing system that works for you and your business.
• It’s going to include a members-only community forum, so you can ask questions, share problems, and get answers from me and from your peers.
• It’s going to focus on marketing that is fun, reasonably easy to implement, and that respects you and your customers. Nothing yukky or creepy, because I hate that stuff as much as you do. I might actually hate it even more than you do.
• It’s called the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint.

What to do next

If you think something like this would be valuable for you, sign up for the free content class and you’ll get all the details. Plus you’ll get the five new lessons I’m putting together on “What Makes Marketing Hard,” and a free lesson or two from the paid course.

Sign up for the free content course & bonus good stuff

Those of you who are already on my lists know that, while I do make an offer every once in awhile, my email lists have tons of great free material and zero high-pressure sales squeezing.

Of course, if you’re not digging it, just unsubscribe. It takes maybe 15 seconds and I won’t mind a bit. (And obviously, I don’t ever share my email list with anyone or use it for any evil purposes. I hate spam with a fiery passion, and I know you do too.)

What makes marketing hard for you?

I’ve got my own list based on the folks I’ve been coaching, teaching, and talking with. But I’d love to hear yours.

What makes marketing hard for you? What is it about marketing you hate, or you think you’d hate if you tried it? What’s scary? Creepy? Just plain intimidating?

Let me know in the comments, and I’ll try to find some answers to make it easier for you.

Flickr Creative Commons image by cpt.spock

If you’re doing any social media marketing at all, you know the drill. It’s all about showing up. Being your authentic self. Showing that you’re a trustworthy human being, making a connection, reaching out one-to-one.

The cornerstone idea of this blog is that if you can create more remarkable relationships with your customers, you’ll have a more remarkable business.

It’s fun and it works and it’s a great model. But it does have a significant downside.

How am I ever going to get anything done?

The problem with putting so much you into your business is that there’s a finite amount of you.

A couple of years ago, I asked Chris Brogan at a conference how he manages it.

He didn’t need me to elaborate, he knew exactly what I meant. Following tens of thousands on Twitter, making himself amazingly available for questions and conversations around the web, writing great blog posts then following through in the comment conversation, writing a terrific book. Plus he has, you know, a job. And two young kids.

“I sleep about four hours a night,” he said with a smile. A tired smile.

Since then, I think he’s developed some more techniques for being able to make remarkable connections without killing himself. (I really hope so, anyway.) And he’s a particularly energetic, passionate guy, which helps a lot.

I can’t make Chris’s way work. I need plenty of sleep (and time to work out, and creative noodling time) to function. So here are my thoughts on how to manage the demands of the social web with the need to get things done.

You can’t be everywhere

I’m on Twitter and Copyblogger. A few times a month I post here, because I love the culture and community that’s distinctly “Remarkable Communication.”

That’s it.

Once in a blue moon I get onto Facebook to see friends, but I don’t use it professionally. I never venture into public forums any more, too many trolls. My Squidoo lenses are neglected, but luckily, they tend to take pretty good care of themselves. I have a LinkedIn account that I never use.

MySpace? Get real.

Pick one or two platforms (one of which you should own, like a blog or a great email newsletter). Do your best work for them.

If you create remarkable work in just one or two places, others will share your message far and wide. Mediocre work spread out over a dozen sites is mostly wasted effort.

My most important tool

The most important tool on my desk isn’t my laptop, my complicated GTD-based next action list, my phone (on which I spend more time than I like), or even my fancy fountain pen collection.

It’s my timer.

I work in 50-minute chunks, followed by 10 minutes of goof time.

The goof time is really important when you’re doing creative, difficult work. Your brain needs time to play and rest and have a good time, or it won’t work for you when you need it. Sometimes I knit, sometimes I hang out with the cat, sometimes I just walk in circles. Under no circumstances do I do anything productive.

My social media connection time is also on a timer. Twitter is confined to specific times of day, and no more than 10 minutes at a run. I usually answer email in 20-minute chunks.

I don’t have enough follow-up time in my day. I do the best I can with the time I have, and sometimes I drop the ball.

It’s 2009. Our lives are insanely complex, and our social obligations get overwhelming. We drop the ball. If you’re not doing heart surgery or managing a nuclear power plant, you’re allowed to drop the ball.

Bad as I feel when I don’t get back to someone, I’ve also realized that I can spend my energy feeling like a terrible person, or I can spend my energy helping as many people as I can. The latter doesn’t just feel better, it also makes a lot more sense.

The Sacred Two

I’ve made a commitment to carve out two hours a day, five days a week, for my most important work. (They’re actually two 50-minute chunks, per the above.)

Right now, that includes content creation for the membership site I’m building (I think that’s my first official public notice!), content for my email classes, writing for Remarkable Communication, and moving forward two on two other nifty projects I’m launching this fall.

There are other commitments I’ve made that are very important to me. Deadlines to hit, projects promised, email to answer. All of that is important. But it’s not sacred. Those two hours spent on my core projects are sacred.

Most of the time, they’re the first two work hours of my day. But if I need to take an important call or hit an early deadline, they might get shifted. What matters most is that they get done. 10 hours a week.

How do you do it?

I think this problem is nearly universal, at least for the community around this blog.

So how are you handling it? What are your favorite techniques to make social connections (on or off the web) without the social element eating your entire life?

I’d love to hear about it. Let me know in the comments?

Flickr Creative Commons image by realSMILEY

I have a friend who’s creating a business.

Actually, I have lots of friends who are creating businesses. And this is a story that reflects many of their journeys. One person inspired this particular story, but her story is the story of many people I know.

She got an idea she was passionate about. She collected great advice. She worked out a plan. She dreamed big. She found her courage. She leapt.

You know that expression “leap and the net will appear?” The net didn’t appear. In fact, it looked like it was the floor that was going to appear. Quickly.

She thought fast, she adjusted course, and she reconfigured the plan with a new component: continuing to work some hours at her day job.

”I guess I’m just not a badass”

I sensed that my friend was second-guessing herself. Maybe even feeling like a bit of a wimp.

And I realized that I had played a part in her perceptions. Not just me, but all the folks who do what I do. The cheerleaders for self employment. The champions of solopreneurship. The ones who work hard to give you tools to make the leap on your own.

She was comparing herself to our “fearlessness,” our battle cries.

Sometimes we forget to acknowledge something.

Some days, it’s hard

The whole reason we have battle cries is because sometimes it’s hard. You notice there’s no such thing as a battle cry for enjoying an ice cream sundae.

When you’re on your own, cash flow can be insanely tricky, even if you’re doing well. The 10 things you were sure would work don’t work. The next 10 things do work, but not as well as you wished they would.

And it’s taking a lot of time and energy to refine them. And just when you’re feeling good, you pay estimated taxes and suddenly you’re broke again. And your COBRA provider drops you for a bogus reason right in the middle of your insane busiest week.

It’s fun, too. It’s exhilarating and you feel amazingly alive. The rewards are real. But some days it’s hard. And some days it’s scary.

It’s your journey

I’m reading Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents right now, which is terrific. One of things that resonates for me is his idea of treating your life as a game.

You create the game. And you make the rules.

When folks like me exhort you to get way outside your comfort zone, we’re trying to liberate you from your fears. But not all fear is unhealthy. One of my favorite Naomi sayings is, “Absence of fear is not courage. Absence of fear is mental illness.”

Make your own rules. Build your own safety net. Build quadruple safety nets if you want to. I’m the sole breadwinner in my family and I have a mortgage and a four-year-old. You’d better believe I had a whole bunch of contingency plans before I went out on my own.

And yeah, I felt wimpy for taking so long. But looking behind me, I’m very glad I did it the way I did.

It’s not lame to have a day job

I loved many things about my day job, one of the nicest being that I knew exactly how my mortgage and health insurance were going to get paid for.

But the longer I was there, the harder it was to ignore some key facts.

1. I’m really not cut out to work in a company bigger than about five people.
2. My job looked like it was going to disappear in the next round of layoffs, so I was very in tune with the reality that day jobs don’t equal security.
3. Working harder and putting more passion in didn’t get me any greater results. In fact, it just got on the nerves of many of the senior executives.
4. I’d built a strong foundation to go solo, with the blog, the email newsletter, and the wonderful professional relationships I’d nurtured.
5. The economy was in a perfect place to support the kind of work I wanted to do on my own. That meant that I would be able to help a lot more people by devoting more time to my own thing.

None of that means I think day jobs are evil. That one I had just stopped being suitable for me.

Trust yourself

The biggest issue when you transition from employment to entrepreneurship is that you make all of your own decisions.

That’s the part you can start doing today. You can decide how big a role (if any) you want your business to play in your life. You can decide that making $300 a month is just perfect for you right now, and enjoy building that success.

If it takes you 5 years to get there, who cares? It’s your game. It’s your vision. You get to build it the way you want to.

You can make up the rules of your game. You can define what it means to win. And if the rules aren’t working for you, you can change them.

That’s the fun part of all this, and any of us can do it. You’re wise enough to make wonderful decisions for your own life. So go for it. I’m cheering you on.

Let us know in the comments what rules you’re writing these days for your own game. How are they working for you?