Back in the early months of the pandemic, I noticed how many normally productive people were saying things like,

“I cannot believe how hard it is to get literally anything done.”

Folks who had always been paragons of productive output were putting more and more things off, spending hours staring off into space, and discovering the magical world of mobile phone games.

Since this is pretty much my natural state, I figured I might be able to help. Over many years of having an inconvenient brain myself, I’ve learned a lot of strategies for coping with serious attention challenges.

If sustained attention is tricky for you, you know how useless advice like “Just buckle down and do it” is.

But there are ways to manage our attention, even when we’re on maximum Squirrel! mode.

I’m pulling some of those ideas together tomorrow for my newsletter, The Fierce. If you’re interested in techniques that work for those really stubborn focus challenges (including various forms of ADHD and other kinds of neurodiversity), make sure you’re signed up.

I’ll talk about:

• Ways to show up for an unappetizing task you’ve been putting off (maybe for years)
• Finding the balance between a predictable framework and a boring routine
• An insight from traditional mindfulness practice that can help you get back to work
• The 10-minute weekly habit that keeps me on track (and how I get myself to do it consistently)
• Techniques for making progress on the “important but not urgent” stuff, even if you think you’re a natural flake

Drop your details into the form below to get my weekly newsletter, as well as a nifty free report on becoming a more prolific writer.

See ya then.

Remember to check your email box and click that all-important confirmation link! Because spam sucks and I want to make sure I don’t send you anything you’re not into.

Photo by Włodzimierz Jaworski on Unsplash

The post How I keep getting “deep work” done — even when focus is a challenge appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

This week I wrapped up my Maven Content Flagship workshop with a session on how to talk yourself up — without wanting to hide in a cave.

Most writers and business owners I know feel that writing about themselves is one of the hardest tasks they face when they’re putting their content marketing together.

It just feels so … ugh.

In tomorrow’s issue of The Fierce, I’ll be talking about three reasons that comes up … and how we can disarm these and move forward.

I’ll talk about:

• What it means to be “arrogant”
• Why fear of criticism isn’t always a bad thing
• Why your “imposter syndrome” might just be a normal reaction to toxic gaslighting
• Ways you can structure your environment to improve your confidence
• Antidotes to the most common reasons we hate writing about ourselves

If you’re not on the list yet, you can drop your details below. Make sure to confirm your request, and check your spam filter — I’ve found the little buggers are great at capturing the messages we actually want to read.

The post Is it confidence or arrogance? Why it can be so hard to write about ourselves appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

It’s the middle of December, and we all know what that means.

It’s time to think about what we want next year to look like. (Could we have one that’s less trashy than this one? Please?)

I like to set goals. I like to think about my vision for my projects.

But those exercises can also be a recipe for beating yourself up and feeling like crap. So here are my suggestions for setting goals and intentions in a healthier way. This is a process I’ve done for many years, and it always leaves me energized and optimistic.

Note: This is an edit of a podcast I recorded a fair few years back. Michael Corley over on Twitter mentioned that he re-listens to it every year, so I thought it was worth refreshing and sharing!

https://twitter.com/MichaelCorleyNY/status/1471125832706007043

If you want the original audio version (complete with some info that’s out of date now), there’s a link at the bottom of this page.

Why we don’t reach our goals

This time of year, there are always a lot of pieces published about why we don’t reach goals — and the usual explanation is that we’re weak, we’re lazy, no one knows how to work any more, that kind of thing.

I’m going to call BS on that. These are almost always written from the peak of Mount Privilege. Maybe they apply sometimes, but most of the time, there’s a reason we’re not putting the effort in.

So sure, on a very basic level, if we don’t apply the basic inputs, then the output isn’t going to look the way we want.

But we also have to face the reality that sometimes, the work we put in is impeccable, but we still don’t get the result we want. That’s how the world works. If you are very privileged and all your stars have aligned since birth, you’ll be the one who tends to see the strongest relationship between input and output.

If you weren’t born with every advantage, there will be more bumps and curves in the road. Sometimes a whole lot of bumps and curves.

If this has been a bumpy or curvy time for you, first, let me say I see you and I recognize that a lot of folks’ roads are not smooth.

Second, the best tool I know for managing a crappy hand is the good old serenity prayer, widely adopted by the 12-Step movement:

Grant me the strength to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.

No matter what your situation, anywhere on the planet, this is what you have to work with — the arena of things you can actually change.

We can change our habits, we can change our behavior and activities, even if it’s hard as hell.

Making our own rules; accepting our own constraints

A lot of the time, we use our beginning-of-the-year goals mainly to make ourselves feel bad. I didn’t lose 30 pounds, I didn’t publish a bestselling book, I didn’t clear a million dollars with my business, whatever.

Now you guys know I’m all about making our own rules — I’m also all about getting real about our own constraints.

One person has three kids under five, another has six figures of student loans, another has something about your appearance that causes people to underestimate you. Your path is your path. No one else’s. That’s why I think it’s so important not to play another person’s game — because you didn’t inherit that person’s strengths or weaknesses or circumstances.

One very useful tool is to measure yourself against yourself. Not the person you went to college with, or your super-successful sister, or someone you think is a guru.

Most gurus are full of shit a great deal of the time. I’m full of shit a great deal of the time. The difference is that I try to be transparent with you about that, and present possibilities instead of pronouncements. I’m figuring it out one day at a time just like you are, and if I have something I’ve found useful, I let you know about it.

So, measure yourself against yourself. That means that part of goal-setting is getting real about where you are right now.

How much do you have in the bank? How much do you weigh? How fit are you — in other words, how fast can you run or how much weight can you lift or whatever you think might be useful to measure.

The most important “ingredient” for healthy change

In my experience, the absolute non-negotiable ingredient for healthy change is to be able to be both realistic and compassionate with yourself.

The more you beat yourself up and call yourself fat or ugly or a loser, the harder it is to make healthy change. You might be able to make some kind of temporary radical change, but it nearly always pushes you in an unhealthy direction. So you trade some extra pounds for an eating disorder, for example. Or you make some kind of huge change that you can’t sustain, and you end up even more angry with yourself, plus you’re in a worse hole than the one you started with.

Now a lot of advice-giving type people completely disagree with me on this. They’re all about shouting at you and calling you weak, and telling you you have to hate yourself to make positive changes. All I can say is, I’ve almost never seen this work, and sometimes when it seems from the outside like it’s working, when you dig deeper you find a lot of self-hatred or misery.

That’s my bias, and you can experiment with it or not — you’ll know if this feels right to you.

Let’s talk vision and goal-setting

So, if the foundation of smart goal setting is getting real with yourself, without kicking yourself, that’s Step One, right? So this week, you take a look at where you are.

Let’s say you want more traffic to your web site, since that’s something that’s not too emotionally loaded. This week, you get into your Google Analytics, you look at your email open and click rates, what have you.

If you have nothing like that set up to measure, then that’s your first action — to make that happen by the end of the week. It’s one of those things that isn’t as hard as we make it out to be. Before you do it it feels like Everest, but once you get it implemented, you realize it’s actually not hard.

Once you know your numbers, you can start to come up with some goals that make sense. If you have 100 visitors a day, in quarter one you can try to bump that up to, say, 125. Percentage-wise that’s a lot, and if you have 10,000 visitors, 12,500 is probably going to be harder to get to. So make it make sense for where you are.

When you’re setting goals, think carefully about what you want to measure. So, digging into our traffic goal, do we really want more visitors to our site — or do we want more email subscribers? What do you want to get out of it? Usually the email subscriber number will get you better results. So give some thought to what you want and why, and try to sketch that out, again by the end of this week.

Once you have a rough idea of what you want, I want you to get into your calendar. Outlook, Gmail, ICal, paper calendar, I don’t care. But start to put your goals into future dates on your calendar, so you can look at them regularly, and see your progress.

Decide how far in advance you want to run this goal. Do you want to improve your goal over the whole year? Then put something in your calendar every month, to check your progress. Every quarter, schedule some time to look more deeply at the numbers and adjust your strategy if you need to.

The vision thing

Vision and goals go together — the vision is just a snapshot of what things will look like when individual goals get accomplished.

I do find it valuable to take a half hour or so to sit down with a text file or a paper notebook and describe:

What will it look like when you get there?

What will the numbers be? What will your living room look like? How’s your relationship with your family look? How about your health? What kind of colleagues will you work with? How will those relationships feel?

What’s it going to be like when you get to where you’re going?

Then (compassionately), look at where things are today. Document them. Not with an attitude of “I’m such a loser,” but with curiosity and friendliness. “Hm, today I’m living in a crappy tiny apartment and not talking to anyone in my family. Where I’m headed is a nice two-bedroom with great natural light, and having a happy phone call with my dad and my sister once a week.”

Just notice it.

Then put your notes away (where you can find them), and schedule the next review. This is a good one to do quarterly along with your goal review.

I didn’t make this up, it’s sometimes called the Pivotal Technique. I’ve found it very useful. Perhaps you will as well.

Give yourself some grace for the coming year

We’re just coming off our second Really Hard Year, and the new one will probably have its share of tough spots. Give yourself credit for what you do, and some grace for what you’re still wrestling with. You aren’t alone.

See you in the new year!

If you get my weekly newsletter, The Fierce, I’m going to be taking the next two weeks off to focus on some deeper projects. And if you don’t get it — you totally should! It’s all about moving forward with ambitious goals, without destroying your peace or turning into a creep. Just drop your details in the box below, click the link in the email to confirm you actually want it, and we’ll get you set up.

While you’re waiting for the next edition, I’ll shoot you a copy of my ebook on what prolific content writers do differently, and how you can get tons more writing done.

Oh yeah, and here’s a link to the original podcast version: Vision and Goal-Setting for Your Digital Business (2016)

Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash

The post Working on your vision and goals for 2022 — without punching yourself in the face appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

I caught the Marvel movie The Eternals for the second time on Thanksgiving Day. I found it a genuinely interesting look at how different people respond to faith, and what happens when there’s more to your belief system than you originally understood.

I’m not going to talk about religious faith today — that’s personal to you, and not for me or anyone else to comment on.

But I am going to talk about the ways in which blind faith can play a part in digital business, and how to keep our eyes open about that.

The difference between a hero and a cult leader

Authority is one of those cornerstone business ideas, particularly in the content-driven internet.

We wrote a lot about it on Copyblogger, and we even ran a successful private community called Authority.

But we all know that authority can be useful, and it can also be toxic.

Someone who has put the hours in to learn about their topic can be a wonderful teacher. They’ve worked for the authority to teach on that topic.

And teachers are important. If you want to learn how to, say, build out a successful content marketing strategy, or knit a sweater, or teach your dog to come when they’re called, a good teacher will help you learn those things faster and get a better result.

But we’ve all seen this, too:

The most authoritative-seeming person is not always the one who knows what they’re talking about.

At their worst, the scammy authorities use manipulative and creepy tactics to position themselves as the only ones who can save you. (Because you’re so broken that they’re the only ones up to the job.)

The bummer flip side to that coin is that some of the folks who are incredible teachers and could really help you out are hesitant to put their case strongly, precisely because they don’t want to overrepresent their knowledge.

And the third side of this metaphorical three-sided coin is that often, we respond more to the confident message than we do to the quieter, more nuanced message.

When we’re nervous or uncomfortable (and nearly everyone running a business is both, at least some of the time), it’s very comforting to find someone who seems to have it all dialed.

Three things to look for

Rather than bang on about all the crummy people who teach digital business, I want to talk about three traits that I look for when I pick up a course or coaching program, or when I make a recommendation for one.

#1: I look for teachers who are curious

Rather than presenting themselves as the fount of all business knowledge, they talk about what they’re exploring and ways they’ve changed their mind … recently.

I want a teacher who’s still growing and learning, not necessarily one who perfected a “system” decades ago and keeps grinding it out.

#2: I look for teachers who prioritize our autonomy

A good teacher is looking for ways you can flourish on your own, rather than trying to tie you into a dependent relationship.

Partly, this shows up in teachers who respect your fundamental autonomy, rather than seeing you as a cog in their system. Ecosystems are wonderful; codependence is not.

#3: I look for teachers who embrace imperfection

When a teacher is too glossy and weaves their eighteen-figure-launch numbers at us every five seconds, I start to wonder how much they really understand about the hard parts of business.

I also wonder if they’re being … 100% candid.

The thing is, it’s always a matter of balance. It’s hard to place confidence in a teacher who’s a never-ending train wreck and talks endlessly about their struggles.

But a good teacher knows how to embrace their role as the Designated Grownup without making themselves into an infallible superhero.

Three teachers I really like

I thought it might be useful to point to three business teachers I happen to really like. This is a very partial list, but these are three folks who have impressed me recently with great advice, delivered with humility and perspective.

They’re also all people I consider friends, just so that’s on the table.

Pamela Slim

I’ve known Pam for ages, after meeting her at South by Southwest when our kiddos were very teeny. I really admire her for the way she navigates leadership and humility, leading with confidence without sliding into the infallible superhero thing.

Pamela has a lot of wisdom to teach, both for digital and brick-and-mortar businesses. She always approaches her topics with curiosity and a desire to know more. She has a new book out called The Widest Net that I’m enjoying a lot. She’s also going to be teaching courses on Maven in the coming year — I’m looking forward to checking those out as well.

Heather Thorkelson

You might not know Heather (yet), because she spends a lot more time running businesses than she does creating content. (I’m working on her!)

Heather runs polar expeditions, which means she runs the kind of business that kills people if you don’t do an excellent job. She also coaches established entrepreneurs, and she has a terrific book out called No Plan B.

Heather is another example of a teacher and coach who’s constantly pursuing her curiosity — about business, about the people she works with, and about the world in general.

As it happens, Heather’s also got a workshop coming up on Maven, all about streamlining (or, um, creating) your business systems. I’m on the wait list for that one.

Pamela Wilson

I’ve known Pamela (not Pam) for a really long time, and I was lucky enough to work with her as a colleague for a time at Copyblogger.

Pamela’s a deeply systematic thinker, and she excels at taking complicated topics and breaking them down into manageable chunks. She’s written three books that help you do that — two for content strategy and one for business confidence. She also runs coaching programs and has a cool new YouTube channel.

It’s a little weird that I know two powerhouses named Pamela, but there you have it.

(I haven’t mentioned my two business partners because I want to talk them up another day. And there are also a kajillion other great people I also haven’t mentioned. The complete list of folks I think are really good would take you at least a month to get through. But I’ll be talking more about them in later issues.)

Usually, superheroes turn out to just be people

The Eternals movie told a story of mythical figures like Athena, Gilgamesh, Mercury and others who turn out to be flawed, and who have their own complicated relationships with their gods and heroes.

The person you deeply admire has their own stuff to work on. They have blind spots, and they don’t always get it right.

The more humility and curiosity they (and you) can bring to the work, the more helpful they can be as teachers.

Want more like this?

Today is a sample edition of my newsletter, The Fierce. It comes out every Friday (or Saturday, depending on your time zone). It’s where I share links, ideas, and advice that I’m finding useful.

If you aren’t already on the list to get The Fierce, you can drop your details below.

I’ll also give you instant access to my special report on ways to become a more prolific content writer and creator. Because just about all good things in digital business start by creating excellent content.

Hope to see you there!

The post Faith, Superheroes, and Digital Business appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

What’s cooler than an authority website?

There’s a word that comes up a lot when people talk about strong, business-building content: Flagship.

You can build flagship content, and you can even build out an entire flagship site.

But you know what’s even better than that?

A mothership.

What’s a mothership website?

A mothership is a website that serves as your content home base on the web. But that’s just the start of it.

It can also fly around the universe (well, your universe) and discover things. It’s big enough to invite people to. It’s interesting enough that people will seek you out.

It’s a vehicle that doesn’t just sustain you, it’s equipped for adventure and discovery.

A mothership is bigger, bolder, and just cooler than a flagship.

Every mothership website is different.

• One person’s mothership is a sleek client-finding machine that plays Chemical Brothers all day long.
• Another person’s is on a mission to spread peace, love, understanding and improved voter registration throughout the galaxy.
• And another’s is building an intergalactic empire of awesome, with sharp-looking uniforms and a business model made of solid vibranium.

Your mothership, your rules.

But I do propose one guideline:

To be a mothership, you need to embrace your version of epic.

It doesn’t necessarily need to be flashy or fancy. Some motherships are small and funky.

But a mothership is bigger than you are.

It’s got space for gatherings — whether they’re dance parties or intergalactic diplomatic talks.

Let me walk you through a few of the components — which might look familiar if you’ve been hanging out with me for awhile.

Your mothership values

To be cool enough to qualify as a mothership, you have to build on real values.

It’s not just about being big. Facebook might be big, but it doesn’t get to be a mothership. (More like the Evil Empire.)

Copyblogger, for example, is built on the values of autonomy and the integrity of excellence. Unlike many sites that teach digital business and marketing skills, they’ve never tried to be anyone’s guru.

And when I coined the First Rule of Copyblogger, it wasn’t “join our cult because we have the only correct answers for your business.”

It was, “You do not publish content that sucks.”

For just a few more examples,

• Pamela Slim’s mothership is based on social responsibility and ethical ambition.
• BlackFreelance is built at an intersection of autonomy and antiracism.
• Slow Business Adventure is built on a Nordic blend of collective action and a love for nature.

Those are a couple of the motherships in my personal federation of planets … and I’m sure you have your own favorites.

If there’s a site or business you would consider a mothership, take a look and see if you can figure out what values they’re building on.

And think about the values you want to build on. As long as it’s a concept (or two) that you care deeply about, it will work.

Your mothership expertise

It’s good to care about values, but it’s also important to help people with what they care about.

Part of your mothership’s mission is to help your audience get something they want.

You might help small businesses find better customers. You might help new parents improve their physical fitness. You might help dog owners create a great relationship with their pets.

There’s an almost infinite number of missions. But you always find them at this intersection:

A group of people with a desire for change, and your own expertise in delivering that change.

There are a lot of ways your mission can fail:

• You haven’t drawn a big enough crowd (yet), so no one can see what you’re doing
• You don’t have the skill to facilitate the change you promise
• The people who can see you don’t want the change you’re offering them
• Your mission confuses the people you’re talking to
• You’re too shy to talk about your mission, so you’re hoping people will just see it for themselves

The great news is, every one of those can be fixed.

Mothership missions can also evolve and change over time. You do usually need to work on them one at a time, but you’re not stuck with the one you had last year, or even last month.

Your mothership personality

One business I know hires a DJ for their digital events. (That DJ is ShammyDee, and I can 1000% recommend him for physical or virtual gigs. He brings a ton of joy and fabulous energy.)

Slow Business Adventure sets out reindeer hides on the benches around their speaker stage … which was built (sustainably, of course) outdoors, right on the fjord.

Andrea Vahl’s mothership has always been influenced by her love of standup comedy and improv. Wigs, fabulous costumes and pink feather boas are just part of her everyday world.

As the captain of your mothership, you set the vibe. You might be upright (maybe even a little prissy) like Jean-Luc Picard. Or funky and fabulous like George Clinton.

(I found out that Parliament front man George Clinton was a Star Trek fan, which is where he originally came up with the concept for the album Mothership Connection. Awesome.)

The universe is a big place, and there’s lots of room for different kinds of motherships. Don’t feel like yours needs to fit into a particular “professional” personality.

If everything else is running on all cylinders, a mothership can still work if it’s boring … but it makes their mission harder.

People would rather connect with personality and flavor than a Borg Cube of Bland.

An invitation to join me in building the next mothership

Remarkable Communication has always been fairly small and funky. More Millennium Falcon than Starship Enterprise.

And as we all know, the Millennium Falcon is a wonderful place, even if it has a few rusty corners.

But over the past few years, I’ve started to see the need for a new mothership that has more room and a wider mission.

One that’s a combination of dance party, an Occupy the Universe protest, and The Zócalo from Babylon 5 — a lively marketplace where tons of different folks come together to get the things they need.

In other words, a place to hang out, buy a few things, learn stuff, support each other, and smash a little racist patriarchy.

Let’s get your mothership site built out … this year

Starting in the next week or so, I’m leading a workshop that will help you get your own mothership built before Christmas.

You’ll get the critical pieces put together, get support and accountability while you’re working on the hard parts, and have something you feel good about bringing people to.

(To be ultra clear: This is about the navigation and the words, not about the tech. It’s intended for people who have a site that they want to take to a higher level of awesome. But your site can be pretty bare bones, and we’re still going to get you to a really good place.)

And while you build your mothership, I’ll be building right alongside you.

So as we’re talking about the critical pages that need to be on your mothership site, and what to put there, I’ll be adding them to my own.

It’s going to be practical, it’s going to be intensely productive, and it’s going to be a ton of fun.

Drop your details below if you want to know when we open the doors.

I have every intention of teaching this workshop once or twice a year in the future. But the opportunity to build and launch the next mothership with me is for this time only.

Be part of that journey with me, and get your own site ready for some interstellar excellence.

Update: We’ll be opening the new version of this program in November, 2022

Photo by the blowup on Unsplash

The post Beyond the Authority Website: Build Your Content Mothership appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

Websites are great. Except when they aren’t.

Way back in the day, when my son was just a toddler, I was stuck in a job that made me cranky and miserable.

I had a weird skill set (“content marketing” wasn’t a thing people really understood back then) and finding another office gig wasn’t happening.

So I made one of those decisions that seems small at the time, and ends up being actually life-changing.

I started this website.

I had no idea what I was really doing, so I started it on the wrong platform, wrote the wrong content, and it looked terrible.

But over time I fixed the clunky parts, and started to add functionality and improve the design and content strategy.

This site got me freelance writing clients, which let me out of my toxic job. It got me business relationships and friendships that led to great new projects. It got me some excellent speaking gigs. It was a springboard for an amazing little community.

And, you know, it also led to me eventually becoming a partner over on that Copyblogger site. So that was pretty cool.

The toddler is now over six feet tall (around 185 cm.), and a lot has changed.

Lots of us have some kind of blog or website now.

And there are a whole bunch of new tools that give us better-looking, highly functional sites that plug more effortlessly into systems like email subscription services and membership community software.

But a lot of us still don’t have sites we’re proud of. And there are a couple of reasons:

#1: Working on websites is overwhelming

There’s so much we could be doing. So what should we be doing?

How do we prioritize?

The real world answer is, usually, we do what feels comfortable, and then we do some more of that, and then we do a lot more of that.

For writers, that often means lots of content, and not a lot of strategy.

For non-writers, it can mean a week spent fiddling around with brand colors and rearranging the navigation, until we get bored and just stop being able to look at it.

Alternately we might put something up on a simplified platform like Squarespace. The great advantage is that it will look decent and function at an acceptable minimum level.

“Acceptable” and “minimum” aren’t where you want to end up. But they’re totally decent starting points.

#2: Creative energy is in limited supply

We all have limits on our creative energy. We can boost this in the short run, but we need our creative focus for client work, day jobs, relationships, and just making a decent life.

So often, when we feel like we need more time, or better time management, what we actually need is more creative focus — uninterrupted time to think about what we’re doing and actually do it.

Choosing to spend that energy on your website can be a tough one to stick with. Particularly because of factor #3:

#3: It doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere

If your timelines and email box are like mine, there’s an endless rain of suggestions for things to publish on your website.

If you’ve ever gotten caught up in following one piece of advice, then another, then a different one, you know how this story ends:

You don’t, in fact, get anywhere.

• You have some content published, but it doesn’t seem to actually do anything to move your goals along.
• You have an email list, but no one signs up.
• You built it, and no one came.

There are some really good solutions to these problems, but they’re hard to see when you’re running through the rainstorm of random ideas.

How to fix it

There are a few things you need to do if you want to take the site you have and turn it into the site you want.

First, you have to get out of the rainstorm of random.

You can start by finding a model that looks like it will suit your goals. You may want to get a course that will walk you through the key steps. (I have one of those coming up, if that sounds like something you want to check out.)

The longer you stay in the universe of a million possibilities, the less motivated you’ll be to actually move in one direction.

Second, you have to give yourself a finite set of projects and a deadline to get them done. “Make the website better” isn’t a project. It isn’t even a goal. It’s a recipe for frustration.

And third, you have to get into an environment that supports creative work. Set yourself up with what you know you need to succeed.

This generally involves freedom from distractions and an environment you associate with getting good work done. If you need your special creative focus music or a cup of tea from your magical productivity cup, make that happen.

I can help with those …

If you’d like to actually make this happen in 2021, I have a resource that I think will help you a lot.

I’ll be teaching a cohort-based course (I’ll be trying out the Maven platform) that’s all about improving and “de-clunking” your website.

We’re going to be taking a fixed set of key tasks (including some of the ones that can be really discouraging to work on alone), and tackling them together.

We’ll put special focus on tasks that have more than their share of “Ugh” — like writing a good About page, or coming up with a solid calendar of things you want to write about.

And we’ll do it over just a few weeks of focused effort.

A “cohort-based course” is something of a cross between a course and group coaching. We harness the power and energy of a small group to power through the hard parts. And I’ll be on hand to help you out if you ever feel stuck or demotivated.

If you want a site you’re proud of, and you’d like to have it before Christmas, be sure I’ve got your email address. (You can drop it below.)

And be sure to swing by on Friday, because I’m going to talk about the specifics of what a “really good website” actually looks like.

That’s informed by my 10 years as a partner with Copyblogger, as well as my own experience as a freelancer, public speaker, business owner, and even (though I’m not a huge fan of the term) a thought leader.

I’m looking forward to seeing you then!

Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash

The post 3 Reasons We Get Stuck with Websites We Don’t Love appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

The other day I ran across this quote:

“The key, if you want to build habits that last, is to join a group where the desired behavior is the normal behavior.”

– James Clear

I like Clear’s work, and I like this quote.

But.

In my opinion, it’s really important to put this quote in the right context. Because if the context is unhealthy, this idea can actually do a lot more harm than good.

If I were editing this quote, I’d make it something like,

” … to join a group with healthy values and boundaries, where the desired behavior is the normal behavior.”

Because if you join a group with disordered or unhealthy thinking … you’re going to normalize that. And that’s not good.

I’m sure, since you’re a human being, you’ve noticed how often there’s something we want to do differently, but we find ourselves getting stuck in bad habits and self-blame loops.

The larger group (our family, our school, our community, whatever) tells us to behave differently. But we don’t. And then we hide it, because the group wouldn’t approve.

When this becomes a pattern, it solidifies into shame. And chronic, toxic shame is really bad for you.

It’s also incredibly unhelpful for behavior change.

Shame creates a failure loop

A lot of our longtime not-so-great habits got started with a shame trigger.

1. We do the Bad Thing.
2. We get the message from our group that the Bad Thing is Bad.
3. We avoid thinking about it, because we don’t want to be a Bad person.

Now we have a little dark place in our thinking. A spot we just turn our eyes away from.

Which makes it easier to,

4. Do the Bad Thing again.

Sometimes the bad thing is actually bad. Sometimes it’s just bad in excess. So it could be smoking, not-so-nutritious food, sexuality, racism, conflict … just about anything that can be harmful.

For many, many folks, one of their chronic Bad Things is procrastination. People who don’t suffer from it think it’s a lightweight problem … but it really ain’t.

The Shame Failure Loop can last a lifetime. And it creates the illusion that it’s impossible to do things any differently.

Because with each cycle, we become more convinced that we actually are Bad, at our core.

The difference between shame and accountability

Accountability uses our social natures to keep us doing good things. That’s what James Clear is talking about, and it’s wonderful! Healthy group norms lead to healthy and beneficial behavior.

Shame causes our social natures to hide the truth when our actions go against our own values or the values of our community.

Shame creates dark corners where nothing good happens.

A very mild version of this is when you get really mad at yourself because you haven’t made progress on a project. Then you spend all morning getting on Facebook. Like you Just. Promised. Yourself. You. Wouldn’t. Do.

Yelling at yourself didn’t keep you off Facebook. In fact, it kept you from really staying awake to what you needed to do.

Again and again, when I see someone in a Shame Failure Loop, I see phrases like,

“I swear I don’t even get how I got here.”

That’s why I keep banging the drum about how unhelpful the advice is to “kick your ass” (or pay someone to kick it for you) to keep you moving forward.

It sometimes jars you out of the Shame Failure Loop for a moment. But it doesn’t take long to get right back to being stuck in the Loop … and blaming yourself for it.

I hereby give you permission to just let that go.

My friend Josh Hillis does a lot of work with detoxing people from the shame-based culture around fitness and body weight. Here’s his summation of the research on supporting better health:

“It turns out that it’s actually as simple as:

• Group support
• Creating effective habits
• Disrupting ineffective habits
• Creating an environment that increases exercise
• Creating an environment that increases healthy eating

“People do more work and get more results with positive support and basic habits.”
– Josh Hillis, RE: That new article going around about fat shaming being such a great idea….

We might be able to help you with that

I promise I didn’t steal the idea of our Creative Fierce community from Josh. But he and I do see human nature in very similar ways.

So our community of content creators, writers, and business owners probably won’t cause you to lose weight. But we did build it to include:

• Group support
• Creating effective habits
• Disrupting ineffective habits
• Creating an environment that increases focused work
• Creating an environment that increases self care
• Creating an environment that supports us in making a positive change in the world

The goal is to get you into a supportive framework for doing your best work, doing it consistently, and fostering balanced growth.

That growth, by the way, isn’t just financial. It’s also in your own well-being and the health of the world around you.

And absolutely no ass kicking involved.

Update, September 2021

We’ve been running Creative Fierce for almost a year now, and we’ve learned so much about what really works to help people sustain their creative output.

The group is closed to new members at the moment, but we’ll be opening up with a special workshop in October. If you’re on the email list, you’ll be notified when we’re ready for our next cohort.

I don’t send a billion messages about it, because that’s annoying. But I will let you know what the program includes, what you can expect it to do for you, and how to join the next cohort if you think it would benefit you.

Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash

This post was originally published in August, 2020 and has been updated in September, 2021.

The post The Crucial Difference between Shame and Accountability appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

It frustrates me when people use expressions like, “It’s just business” to justify gross behavior.

Because business problems are pretty much all “human being problems.”

(Business being made up of people, and all.)

In tomorrow’s issue of The Fierce, I’m going to look at one of the Great Big Drivers of human behavior. Much like fire, the internet, or Szechuan chili crisp, it’s a tool that can be used for good or for ill.

Understanding it — and using it compassionately — will help you become a better human being. It will also help you be a much, much better business person.

If you aren’t already getting my messages, drop your details in the box below and check your in-box for the confirmation. (You’ll also get instant access to my report on how to get a lot more writing done.)

Looking forward to talking more tomorrow …

Image via Giphy

The post Why it’s never “just business” appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

Real talk: In the early days of any content project, there’s a certain amount of “throw all of it against the wall and see what sticks.”

You can do all the planning in the world. Planning is fantastic. But it isn’t until you start publishing that you find out what works, what doesn’t, and what needs a good tweak.

This is where the “make money while sitting on the couch in your y-fronts playing Super Mario 3D World” advice goes wrong.

One of the biggest hurdles on the road to that time on your couch is figuring out what works. And there’s no real short cut to that.

Every combination is different

Your combination of audience and VEP (values, expertise, and personality) are unique to you.

You can have two sites that look very similar from the outside, but they perform completely differently. And the same individual will make different buying decisions on one site over another.

There are two major variables at work:

1. Who shows up
2. How they interact with your VEP

It’s probably pretty clear that your values, expertise, and personality can influence a visitor to do things like sign up for your email list or make a purchase.

But your VEP also plays a key role in who shows up in the first place.

Send the wrong signals, attract the wrong audience

One of content’s most important roles is to act as an audience beacon — attracting the people who can and will take action with your project.

If you’re attracting folks who aren’t suited to your goals, your beacon needs some adjusting.

Here are a few signs that you’re attracting the wrong crowd for what you’re trying to do:

#1: They can’t afford you

Sometimes, this is a problem with your persuasion technique — you haven’t clearly conveyed the value of what you’re selling, so your audience is holding off for now.

But if you consistently get messages from folks who truly seem held back by finances, you may need to do a better job communicating where you are in the pricing ecosystem of your topic.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen clients and students who want to “help struggling nonprofits,” and then struggle themselves because no one in their audience can spend any cash.

The answer isn’t “sell harder.” Contrary to what some Dudebro marketers will tell you, some people actually don’t have the money.

(On Tuesday, I’ll be sending an email about what to do if you want to help folks who are short of funds, but you’re getting a little tired of being broke yourself. There’s actually a good answer to this, and it isn’t “get heartless.”)

When you’re running a business, create content for customers, not just people interested in your subject matter. And don’t be afraid to communicate your pricing level.

#2: They stomp all over your boundaries

If you have an “Oh, hell no” category, and those folks keep slipping in, you haven’t talked about it enough.

If you’re serious about keeping white supremacists, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, and the like out of your community, don’t be shy about that. Speak up. (More than once.)

In fact, one of the lovely things about being more overtly political is that fewer of those people show up with nonsense to wreck your peace.

Rachel Rodgers’ has a question in the FAQ on her sales page, to the tune of, “Can I join if I love to say All Lives Matter?”

And the answer is, “No.”

Figure out what you want to say No to. Communicate it clearly.

In business or in life, no one will respect boundaries if you don’t draw them clearly, and restate them as often as needed.

#3: What they need ain’t what you got

Again, you may be able to work with this and adapt to what your audience is asking for.

But if they need kindergarten-level help and you’re best suited to working with masters and near-masters, you need to adjust your message to speak to folks with more complex problems.

If you’re a dietician who helps people recover from the physical and emotional damage of dieting, there’s not much you’ll be able to do with an audience still chasing that One Perfect Diet.

Speak to the ones who want, need, and are ready for what you offer.

It’s always a matter of speaking more clearly

When the wrong folks for your project show up consistently, it’s a sure sign that you need to clarify your message.

If you’re expensive, say so. If there’s something you find intolerable, let your audience know that you won’t be tolerating it. (And then … don’t.) And talk a lot about the problems you do solve, and virtually never about the problems you don’t.

This week’s SummerOfStrategy tips

This week in the Summer of Strategy emails, I’ll be sending some quick tips on:

• Discovering the right content formats for the audience you want to build
• Ways to filter out the people who aren’t appropriate for your project
• Using values to build a healthy boundary around your work
• Why you’re probably wrong about your audience’s real problems — and how to fix that fast
• When it’s time to start thinking about amplifying your message with ads

If you aren’t getting the Summer of Strategy messages, you can fix that by dropping your information into the box below. I’ll also send you instant access to my special report on 7 Thing Prolific Writers Do Differently — so you can start implementing the advice you’re getting.

See you there.

Don’t forget to confirm your subscription! Look for an email that says “Important: Confirm your subscription” and click the pink “Confirm Your Email” box you see there.

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

The post 3 signs your content is attracting the wrong audience appeared first on Remarkable Communication.

As you’re assembling the pieces of your content marketing program, I’ve often heard the question,

When’s the right time to start an email list?

And the answer is pretty much the same as the timing for planting a tree.

The best time was 10 years ago. The second-best time is today.

via GIPHY

In fact, if you don’t have anything in place at all yet to publish content (no blog, no podcast, no social media following, etc.) it’s smart to get your email list started before those things are in place.

Why?

Because you want to be able to capture the sustained attention of everyone who runs across your work and thinks they’d like to know more.

Now, if you’re publishing some content but you don’t have a list yet, trust me, you aren’t alone. But this coming week would be a fabulous time to either launch your email list or improve the one you already have.

For now, if you haven’t started a list but you’d like to, here are a few things to look for in your email provider.

1. Don’t try to do this yourself

Unless you’re an email expert, let the pros handle this for you. There are many excellent providers who will help manage things like deliverability and your reputation with email hosts, as well as providing you with smart tools to get your messages to the right people at the right time.

I happen to like ConvertKit (and they don’t pay me to say that) because it strikes a good balance — it’s easy to use, but it has a powerful feature set. They’re also friendly to commercial projects (some email services are not), and their support is good.

There are other fine services out there, so if you’re happy with the one you have, I suggest you keep using it until you have a strong reason to switch.

2. The cost should scale with your business and your audience size

If your audience is still small, look for a provider that has a free starter account or something very moderately priced.

Email marketing is known for its exceptional ROI (return on investment), so don’t worry about paying something for it. But you don’t need complex and expensive automation services before you have a large audience and an offer that converts to put in front of them.

3. Make sure they have some automation and segmentation tools

These features might not be in a free starter plan, and that’s reasonable.

But once you’re paying something to send email to your audience, at a minimum, your provider should be able to send messages based on your subscribers’ behavior, like clicking a link.

That’s how I can offer the ability for folks on my email list to switch from daily strategy messages to a weekly one. And that helps me make sure I’m respecting your inbox and your time, and not flooding you with messages that aren’t right for you today.

If your email list is about pets, automation lets you send more messages about dogs to folks who click on articles about dogs, and more messages about hamsters to the folks who click on those messages.

You also want the ability to construct sequences that can be delivered over time when people do something like subscribe to a list or click a link. Again, that lets you offer relevant, useful strings of messages just for the people who will benefit from them.

Now: balance content and offers

There are two ways to go wrong with an email list. You can do nothing but pitch, which is irritating and erodes trust. Or you can do nothing but educate, which means you never discover which members of your audience are ready to progress to a more advanced solution.

If you have a decent-sized audience but no revenue, this is the perfect time to turn that around. Look for a way to make a small but valuable offer, and get it in front of folks frequently.

Here’s one example: At Copyblogger, we offered a one-page checklist of things to check before publishing content. I recorded a short, focused audio lesson to walk through the checklist, and we sold that pairing for $7.

That gave us a list of buyers, which was a subset of our list of readers. (Of course, we loved our readers, too.)

And folks who have bought one product and found it valuable are much more likely to go on to pick up something that solves a bigger problem.

This is sometimes taught as a psychological persuasion “trick,” but that’s the wrong way to look at it. You aren’t tricking anyone, you’re demonstrating that you can be trusted to provide value for money.

If you like, you can absolutely create this offer when you first launch your email list. You may only get one or two sales a month, and you might not even get that. But it’s excellent practice for packaging and delivering paid work as your list grows.

What’s the difference between an email list and a newsletter, anyway?

These are often used roughly interchangeably. From my point of view, newsletters look a lot like print publications. They’re delivered on a predictable schedule, in a consistent format, and their main focus is delivering value to readers. They can include promotion, or they may be a paid product in themselves, or both.

My weekly email, The Fierce, is a newsletter. The daily notes I’m sending this summer for the #SummerOfStrategy could be described more as a project or campaign from my list. (“Wild hair” would also be an apt description.)

At the end of the day? It doesn’t really make much difference what you call it. Just keep an eye on the balance between content and offers that I mentioned above.

Action steps

• If you don’t have an email list yet, start looking at providers. Find out who your friends are using, and who powers your own favorite email newsletters.
• If you do have an email list, are you making offers regularly? If not, start brainstorming a few ideas along that “$7 product” line.
• Not sure what messages to send? Compile a curated list of any content you published the previous week, plus additional resources or links you found useful.
• Look back over your VEP, particularly your “E” (expertise). Think about audience problems you might solve with your email list. We’ll be looking more closely at that the day after tomorrow.

Want lots more support and strategies for your content-driven business?

Our premium community, Creative Fierce, offers tons of resources and premium education to help you create amazing content and use it to get the results you want.

Join us for workshops on strategy, creativity, productivity — as well as implementation sessions that will give you the time and space to actually do the work that will make the difference.

Click here for all the information on Creative Fierce.

Photo by Davide Baraldi on Unsplash

The post What’s the best time to start an email list or newsletter? appeared first on Remarkable Communication.