Unstick your Blog: Six Step Strategy to get back in Writing Flow

blog 2015

11 May

Let me tell you a story of John. He is an experienced sales manager at a large IT company and wanted to make the next step in his career to being on the senior management board. He also had aspirations to be on some Advisory Boards to set him up for later in life when he could have paid board positions. Being a down to earth guy it wasn't in his nature to self promote, so he came to see me to do it for him!

I love promoting talented people like John and immediately went about creating a leader brand profile for him. First I went through our Understand process to articulate his brand and clarify what he was happy revealing. Secondly we created some brand assets with awesome photography and biography so we could move into the Build phase and create his LinkedIn profile and personal website. The final step was to teach him how to Leverage his new profile to attract his goals with regular blogging. That's when the trouble began and I had to pull out my Six best strategies to get him unstuck...

You see John is a busy guy, like most leaders, and spends more time leading his team, pursuing his sporting challenges and with his family, than on his own profile. He didn't have the focus and systems in place to keep his blog regular, build up his profile as a leader and start the e-ttraction process. (e-ttraction is Social Stars patented digital attraction system). He needed to spend time each week connecting to people who can give him what he wants and sharing valuable content so they understand his unique skills and experience.

John was stuck. He didn't know how to start each week with his content and connections. Consequently his profile failed to get off the ground and he wasn't attracting his goals. It's such a shame to see all that quality work and investment of time and money go to waste. It reminds me of friends who sign up for a gym membership but never go and wonder why they don't loose weight! Unfortunately this situation is common. So common I have had to created a specific coaching package to keep clients working on their brands and achieving their goals. Here is my process to get unstuck and get you blogging again. (If you are one of my delinquent clients, call me!)

Here are the Six Strategies to get Unstuck

1) INTENTION

Without setting an intent nothing happens. John wanted to get to his goals, but hadn't set a clear intention to do the work required to get him there. This requires you to not just think about doing the action, but focusing significant energy (the e in e-ttraction) focussing on the goal. You have to really WANT to do it, not just casually think about it. Visualise yourself doing it and what steps are required to get achieve it. I suggest scheduling time in your diary to do the planning and work.

The second step in intention is to focus on what you want to talk about. This is where most people get stuck. I sat with John for 30 minutes and created over 10x new blog topics - that's one every 3 minutes! How? Start with the broad categories your blog is about. There should be more than one but less than five. For John it was Leadership, Communication and Team Dynamics. More than enough real estate here to blog for years.

2) ATTENTION

Once you set the clear intent to blog, have time scheduled and your categories sorted, it's time to create specific topics. I helped John create so many topics in a short period of time by focusing his awareness of all the opportunities in his daily work life. Each day John held meetings with his team, coached individuals, saw clients and found new ways to do things better. All of these related to his blog categories. Once he saw that you only need one insight to create a blog he could see that each day he had 10x new ideas for blogs!

I suggest you keep a log of blog ideas on your phone notes. I have inspiration at the strangest times, on the way to work, consulting with clients and sleeping! Write them down and you can go back and revisit them when during your scheduled blog time.

3) ACTION

Time to write! I asked John when he feels most energised, most clear in his thinking. He likes to bike ride and often does this early in the morning and feels fresh after. My advice was to think of a blog topic before his ride and get cracking on it straight after his ride. Turn off his phone and email and just focus for 60 minutes on the task. Within this time you should be able to write a full blog of 300 - 500 words.

4) REACTION

Once it is written and sent out to the world to review, it's a nervous wait to see if anyone reads it! My preferred strategy is to send it out and not check it till the next day when most people have had a chance to see it. There is nothing more motivating for a blogger than having readers appreciated their work! Once John saw that people actually read his work and liked it, it motivates you to do the next one.

5) ATTRACTION

The blogging process is just that a process. Your first blogs are not going to be your finest work. I told John just to get the first few out there as there is no such thing as perfection - only procrastination. A blog unpublished is no blog at all to your audience. Press publish! Once you write the first few and get into your flow you will start to find it easier and be less self conscious.

This is where the real fun begins! You can start weaving into your blogs the opportunities you want to attract. For instance John could start writing about his leadership learnings would be helpful on an Advisory Board and his interest in helping small businesses grow. This will start to position his interest in this goal and his readers can refer opportunities to him.

6) ETTRACTION

Once you are in flow and blogging regularly you will start seeing the e-ttraction process working. The people you have connected to will become attentive to your brand and goals. People start referring you for the opportunities you are seeking and it will seem effortless. This is the final stage and is a beautiful thing. The key is to get started now with step 1.

If you would like help getting your blogging back in flow, click here and let's see if we can get you unstuck.

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Andrew Forde-ttractionwebsites

Andrew Ford

Marketing expert Andrew Ford, the founder of Social Star, has discovered the secret of ‘Powerful Branding’. With a fire for unleashing people’s inner brand and developing business models to generate profit from an individual’s passions, Andrew leverages ground-breaking digital and social media marketing techniques to create digital strategies for clients to attract maximum opportunities. Having established a strong name for himself in the field, Andrew blends traditional business techniques with now-necessary tools for entrepreneurs to achieve scale, quality, and influence in their niche. Andrew’s comprehensive business background and qualifications consist of a Bachelor of Business (Marketing) (RMIT 2003), a Graduate Certificate in Management (MBA Executive Program, University of Sydney 2005), and a Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (Swinburne University 2011). Continually on the cutting edge of his own education, Andrew has tested his marketing theories in forums such as the BCG Business Strategy Competition, which he won in 2005 against all Victorian MBA schools, and the Venture Cup Business Plan Competition (Swinburne University 2003), which he won in the Masters category. With experience working at Hewlett-Packard, Sensis (Telstra) and IBM, Andrew also has mentored dozens of junior staffs to help them achieve their professional goals. Meeting and influencing high-profile public figures helped Andrew to realise just how many professionals require more understanding and control of their public brands or appearance, and need help with the skills to use the many amazing free tools at their disposal to generate success. At Social Star, Andrew consults with clients to uncover their personal brand – both where it is today and where it can be tomorrow – and refine and define how that should be displayed in social media in order to attract their perfect target audience. Andrew mentors his clients to rapidly grow their business’ audiences, resulting in larger potential client bases and higher revenue. Applying formulas that integrate over twenty years of Andrew’s business experience and fifteen years of formal business education, Social Star specialises in building clarity and velocity for clients’ brands using the ‘Understand, Build and Leverage’ methodology. ‘Having a Personal Business enables people to have an authentic, congruent connection with their valued clients and partners, using their brand as the bridge,’ says Andrew. ‘I’m highly driven to work with the new breed of entrepreneurs and small business owners – people who have a passion for making the world a better place. Traditional business models are stepping aside as people follow their innermost dreams and my role is to see them operate within their values while creating wealth. Some people think you have to sacrifice what you love to be successful in your business, yet it is actually the opposite. Follow your passion and success will come.’ Lecturing at Swinburne University from 2009 to 2011 on brand dynamics and digital marketing, presenting at numerous conferences, and consulting to hundreds of clients, Andrew has seen his philosophy work that if you follow your unique path, based on your skills, experience, values and goals, you will automatically attract the opportunities you desire and achieve the success you deserve. Living his mantra, Andrew has created a successful business and attracts high-profile clients including musicians, athletes, authors, models, entrepreneurs, professionals and small business owners, helping them find their ‘why’ in their business and fulfilment in their lives. Business for Andrew is more than work, it’s personal. Running a personal business means that he is able to fulfil all of his values rather than separating his life from work. It supports his two boys while providing social opportunities, educational development, fitness opportunities, spiritual fulfilment and many valuable friendships. Social Star has now become the vehicle for Andrew to crystallise his mission in the world, to help people love what they do, supporting his ‘why’, that if more people loved what they did, the world would be a better place.

http://www.andrewford.com.au/