A friend of mine, known for his thought provoking, often amusing observations wrote this recently on twitter:  

“Green grass may be artificial.  Green grass may only appear to be greener.  Green grass may well be truly greener but inconsequential.”   

As usual, he struck a chord in me. 

We’ve all heard from childhood that “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence”… i.e. not YOUR side. 

Personally, I believe that even if the color is  artificial, or the real thing inconsequential, you can still greatly appreciate what you perceive, learn from it, and aspire to make your own grass green. 

(By the way, I love artificial grass.  Have you seen the new stuff?  It’s beautiful, looks surprisingly real, durable even for dogs, and feels great on bare feet.  It’s also pricey.  But we’ve used it in shoots, and I want some!  Sorry, had to toss that in.)

The truth is that all green grass, on your side or not, has some faded patches, some yellow and maybe some brown.  That’s actually desirable…some growth just needs to take place.  That may mean…

 -  a hefty dose of fertilizer, 

 -  pulling everything up and planting new seed,  

 -  finding totally new soil.   

In businesses, especially on the internet, the idea of “the grass is greener” is rampant.   Most of us continually chase after the next new “shiny thing” as my friend Lisa Angelettie put it.   Never really putting down roots on our marketing methods, we don’t wait long enough to see any results.  And then we skip off to the next method, and/or business, spend a bunch of cash, and hope that this will be the “magic” method. 

Part of the problem is, ( a really big part) is that we are such a microwave society:  60 seconds or less.  We expect magic.  This is the “grass is greener” syndrome; a back lash of living in a time when we can make everything happen now.  Or so we think.

It usually takes YEARS to build a business.   Restaurants take 5  years to make a profit, and might go out in 3.   Traditional retail brick and mortar businesses can take anywhere from 3 to 10 years to produce a profit, depending on the type of business.

Internet businesses can and do take off much quicker, but contrary to frequent hype, there is no magic button that you can push on your computer that will ensue a constant stream of dollars into your bank account.  It takes time and work, and I happen to see that as a good thing.

Why?  Because nothing in life is free.    It all comes with a price… either in time, energy or money.  A high price simply means that the thing worth pursuing is of great value. 

The good news is, everything you do for your marketing,

 - articles,

 - press releases,

 - videos,

 - blogs, and tweets, matters. 

Once you publish an article, it’s out there. The work is done.  You will continue to get leads from that one piece, if it has value for others, for months, even years.  You’ve planted some new seed.  Add to it with more, and you’ve fertilized, watered.

Another way to think of it is like buying a little piece of real estate in cyperspace.  You own it, and you can build on it.   

In your marketing, know there will be brown spots, just like in real grass.  (Glitches and setbacks)  That doesn’t mean you should quit or abandon it.  Unless the whole lawn is brown, keep going, watering and weeding; fertilizing.   If the whole lawn is brown from neglect or bad seed, re-evaluate, take action and change your direction.

We all want lovely, healthy green grass.  And the truth is, the color green is a reality, even if it’s not in our possession yet.

With a little work and focus, possibly change in direction, it doesn’t have to be out of our reach. 

I have a cat that bites me every time my hand gets near her head, sometimes daily. Her name is Gracie, and I put up with this because she is special, in that she’s been abused.

Gracie found us as an adult, hungry and cold. I saw her sleeping in a corner of the barn on the concrete floor. She seemed to be tame and very sweet, thin; obviously abandoned. The biting thing took me totally by surprise, and drew blood. But when you look closely, you can see she’s blind in one eye, and both ears look to be shaped by pinking shears. Small wonder. This had to have been done to her as a docile kitten, and it kills me.

So, I take my chances. Every day, Gracie rubs my knee as I kneel down to feed her. Staying glued to my leg, she looks up at me sweetly with her one eye, and purrs as I pet her back and stomach. But if I forget and get too close to her head, she gets me every time. And then she draws back and looks to say “Are you going to make me leave now?”

Like Gracie, we all such creatures of habit. While Gracie will probably never change, sometimes I think it’s just as hard for us humans. Ideas are introduced or episodes occur in childhood that we never forget. They replay over and over, even though we may not realize it. This affects how we think and who we chose to be around as adults.

So the question of the day is, what are you replaying in your head that is holding you back from your goals?

Was it your idea, or someone else’s? And, is it really the truth?

It’s interesting to me that one would not think of letting someone else come into their house with a big green garbage bag and dump it all over the living room floor.

Yet we let other’s “dump” into our brains, almost on a daily basis. I’m not necessarily talking about the wealth of people on the internet, although it certainly applies. This is a little more targeted, although it does include our internet friends.

The five people we interact with every single day, that are in our “circle” have the greatest influence on our success or lack of it. People we work with, we live with, we listen to, we visit.

“Well, you know that’ll never work…”
“Total waste of time.”
“No one’s doing that…”
“It’s always been done this way.”
“You can’t…”
“It’s not…”

This can be family members, a spouse, boss, co-workers, friends, anyone else we consistently let into our daily world.

One of the things I love about the internet is chancing to meet bright, interesting people.

Comments and conversation that challenge you to think and explore, make you laugh or smile…that’s the sort we need to be around, follow, interact with and learn from.

On the other hand, people who churn out a constant negative stream on the internet or in real life need to be pulled back from. Even well meaning family.

Now we all know this, but when you’re actually in the situation, it’s hard to do.

If you are what you think about…wouldn’t it be best to surround yourself with those that challenge you in a positive way, and cause you to become the best version of yourself?

So the next question is, is the “habit” you currently have worthy of you and your goals? Has it held you up or pushed you forward? Do you hit the replay button simply because it’s familiar and easy?

A new habit takes at least 60 days to become engrained in us. If we are going to make excellence a habit, we have to guard closely where we go and who we listen to and who we allow in our living room.

So change the tape, and change the people if you have to …

“Of course it will work.”
“Excellent use of my time…”
“I’ll blaze a trail …”
“Let’s try something new…”
“I’m ready…”
“It absolutely is…”

Your goals are worth it, and so are you!

In part one, we talked about “the secret” to writing.  Now that you know that writing is a skill that can be learned, let’s start.

Let me make one disclaimer first, because I know several “gifted” writers.  And they can lead you to places you might not go otherwise, almost without your realizing it.  (When did you last read something that you had trouble putting down?) These talented people go on and become professional authors, and we are so grateful that they do.

What I’m talking about here is not to minimize that talent, when I say writing is a “skill.”

For our purposes, however, which is to market, there is a difference.

You don’t have to be a professional author and be working on “your book”  to become a professional marketer who writes articles for marketing….that’s the difference.  Professional authors write based on experiences, or research of their choice.  Professional marketers write based on keywords that they want to rank for; their audience’s choice.

As a professional marketer, you will always be “writing” something.  An ad for pay-per-click, (short) ads for ezines (long) articles, posts, tweets, auto-responders, headlines, and, once you get going, sales letters which can be turned into a landing page.  And then, of course, there are your bio lines.

With some practice, you will be amazed at how quickly all your marketing tasks go, and you will be better able to outsource when you need to. You will know what you’re looking for.

Now you still may be thinking that you don’t know what to say, even if you had a keyword, or topic.  And that’s ok. 

Here’s a tip I learned:  if you can talk to others, you can write articles and share your expertise with others.  It can be like having a conversation. 

So in thinking about what your audience is asking, and what you could say back to them, break it down in steps.  Like this:

1) What does you audience want to know?   What did you want to know when you first learned about your subject?

2)  Take that question, shorten it, and do a keyword search.  Look at your numbers.  Then branch off.  (more about the how-tos of this later.)  The google wonder wheel is great for this, and it’s free.

3) Create your first draft with questions and answers based on the keyword.

4) Break that up into Intro, Body and Close. 

A friend of mine put it this way:   “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. (opening)  Then tell them.  (body)  Then, tell them what you told them.  (close)

A little simplistic, but easy to remember. 

5) Create your title, in the form of a question.  You don’t have to always do this, but a question will generate answers in your mind. It actually helps you keep going…you might find yourself adding more to your body.

Later, you’ll start creating your title sooner…but for starting out, it sometimes causes a shut down.  The object is to keep moving.  Keep writing.  It will come to you.

Writing is not as hard as most people think…it’s simply a process of looking at it differently,  then breaking it down in steps.

Remember, you don’t have to be a professional to do this; you are already an expert in something.  If you’re not an expert at what you’d like to be, read up on it.  Ask your questions, then write about what you’ve learned.  

 In marketing, writing is a skill that can be learned, and like all skills, it gets better with practice.

I’m not the writer in the family.  Far from it.

My sister was always the one. She was always busy reading, reading, reading, writing, writing, writing. 

Now, it is her chosen profession.  She tells me she’s always “writing” in her head.  When she sits down at her computer, the words just come. Not so with me.

I didn’t have that talent. I was always too busy looking at pictures, photographs, and drawing them.

Charcoal, or a paint brush.  That was my medium of choice. 

So when I realized that to make this marketing business work and work well, I’d have to learn to write, I said “forget it.”  I might as well go back to styling full time. 

Only, certain reasons wouldn’t allow those 18 hour days anymore. Like wanting to have kids.  And, wanting to lie on a beach somewhere while my business “ran” itself.

So I had felt no choice.  I dug my heels in and secretly hoped I could bribe my sister into doing a lot of it for me.  She did help me a lot in the beginning.  And I started to learn a few things. 

My sister wrote on things like “how to write” and “getting started,” what to do if you get stuck;” things like that.  Probably because I complained so much.  :-)  But as I read over what she wrote for me, I started to follow the steps myself.  That’s when I discovered a secret.

This “secret” put a totally different perspective on staring at that blank screen.  Which, up until now, I had done on a daily basis.  

And, to get out of staring at the blank screen, I concentrated on other types of marketing.  But everything I did, even videos, seemed to point back at writing. (a good video needs some sort of script or point list.)

I looked at outsourcing.  Now that seemed like a plan.

Only, because I didn’t know very much about writing, and /or what I should be writing about, I spent a lot of money, and got these “articles” that weren’t all that great.  I could have done them. (!) 

They were stuffed with keywords alright, but they really didn’t “say” anything.   Nothing, that wasn’t common knowledge about network marketing, even from my limited perspective.

Now let me just say that there are some great people and companies out there that are excellent at what they do; they will gladly write for you.

And sometimes that’s the way to go. Outsourcing can be a wonderful thing, especially (for instance) when you’re working on your business but still have your job.  Or, when your business takes off and your time becomes very limited.

But the truth is, you still should know about this skill.

Notice I said “skill.”   Because it is one.

And because it’s a skill, it can be learned.

Now, maybe you’re thinking that you don’t want to.   (I can hear those wheels turning… 

Let me ask you this: how much more beneficial to you if you were to actually break through this wall and learn this new skill called writing?  You will see it show up in your business (translate: bank account) over and over. 

Now you know the secret. 

Why?  Because writing is a skill that will be used again and again in your marketing:  blogging, emails, press releases, sales letters (for your web site), ads, and of course, article marketing. 

And the best part is, you can learn this new skill, just like I did.  Next time, I’ll show you how. 

P.S. What struggles are you having or did you have with writing?

One of the things that I hear often from well-meaning folks who want to use low-cost marketing methods is “I’d love to do article marketing. But I can’t write…”

Although this is a task that can be outsourced, it’s much more beneficial to you if you actually break through this wall,  because writing is a skill that will be used over and over in your marketing:  blogging, emails, press releases, sales letters (for your web site), ads, and of course, article marketing.

And because it’s a skill, it can be learned.

Here is a simple 3-step formula for writing anything.

So, first, do some keyword research.  This will give you marvelous ideas.

Here is the difference between writing a novel to be published, and writing an article for marketing purposes; you want to know what people are searching for.

Do a search for “free key-word tools.” Use the tools to find what popular searches are being done. Choose several, and then narrow it down.  For instance, you might choose “Social Media Marketing,” then narrow down to one or two types.

Second, ask yourself what problems did you have when you (for instance) started your business?  This is a very easy way to narrow down your topics.  Then formulate that in “things to do” and “things not to do.”

Now you are ready to begin.    

Third, start writing in sections:  Articles basically have 4 parts:

   1) Title

   2) Introduction .

   3) Body

   4) Close

The Title is important. This is your headline and must entice your audience to continue reading. Keep it simple, and use a question that evokes curiosity, or a statement that strikes a chord.   You can also use the “tips” or “how to” title.  (”5 Ways To Get Great Traffic Quickly.”)

The Introduction will tell your audience 2 things:   what you are going to tell them, and why it’s important.  Write this out very simply at first.  What is the problem they are having?  What is the solution?

The Body is where you actually tell them how to solve the problem.  You can easily do this by making a list.

For example, if your title is “5 Ways to Get Great Traffic Quickly,” make out a list, 1 to 5, and simply fill in the blanks. 

You can do the same thing with “things not to do,” such as “3 Things to Avoid When Starting an Online Business.”  Write down those 3 things.  You can combine “things to do” and “things not to do” in the same article, or just use one.  Save the other for your second article.

This is a great way to start.

The Close will be a short summary of what you just told your readers, and a call to action. What is it you want your audience to do?  Again, don’t over complicate your message, and end on a positive note.

And you’re done.

Here’s a tip:  Break it up, and use short paragraphs or it will be too hard to read.

Remember people are busy, and they are skimming, so keep it simple and conversational.  This will make it easier for you as well!

Writing is not as hard as most people think…it’s simply a process of breaking it down in steps.

 And you don’t have to be a professional to do this.  In return for learning this skill, you will get lots of quality, free traffic to your site.  Which is your goal, right?

Start writing!

 P.S.  Leave me a comment and let me know if this was helpful, and what struggles you are having.  I’m sure I’ve had the same ones…we’ll talk about it.