Archive for category: the Say It For You blog

“If you had only one sentence to get your message across, rather than 45 minutes,” executive speech coach Patricia Fripp asks each executive struggling to put together a powerful presentation, “What would you say?” There’s one “big idea” or premise that drives every book, every speech, every movie, Fripp explains.

As a ghost blogger and business blogging trainer, I ask business owners a similar question before planning their blog content: “If you had only 10-12 words to describe why you’re passionate about what you do and what you sell, what would those words be?”

At a recent meeting of the National Speakers Association of Indiana, Fripp suggested speakers create a map for each presentation.  I realized that creating just such a map could be a perfect strategy for blog content writers as well.

Start with a strong opening.  Fripp suggests beginning with the word “Every”, making a bold statement that the speech will go on to defend.

An  “Every” statement in a blog post might lead to useful information or to a refutation of that opening statement.

• Every time you choose a hairstyle out of a magazine…
• Every homeowner should use salt to soften the water.
• Every investment adviser is subject to state and federal regulation…

Next, says Fripp, comes the subject of the speech, that ‘big idea” or premise you’ll be presenting. Will you be reinforcing that opening line or showing why it represents a widely held misconception?  In the SEO marketing blog of one beauty salon, for example, the blog content writer explains the dangers of choosing a hairstyle that’s impractical for your hair’s texture, length, and health.

Third is the “how” or the “why”, making your position clear and enlisting readers’ buy-in.

A powerful ending rounds out an effective speech – or an effective blog post. “Remember,” cautions Fripp, “The first 30 seconds and the last 30 seconds will have the most impact on listeners.”

In offering business blogging help, I find that business owners are so tied up in manufacturing  and selling product and in serving customers’ needs, they forget how much help the right words can be.  When it comes to web-based communications, words, along with pictures, are a business’ only tools. With the help of a map, those word “tools” can have quite an impact!.

By blogging about blue lobsters’ failures, my productivity consultant friend Robby Slaughter bolstered the two premises behind the Say It For You blog tidbit challenge, while rather ingeniously proving the premise behind his own book, Failure: the Secret to Success.

The whole idea behind the Tidbit Challenge was that any unusual or little-known piece of information can be used by blog content writers to explain the company’s products, services, and special expertise.  Since, as a corporate blogging trainer, I find that the biggest fear business owners have when it comes to maintaining a company blog is the fear of running out of ideas. I was out to prove that ideas are all around us, ripe for the blogging.

As a ghost blogger offering business blogging assistance, I had a second premise behind the Tidbit Challenge.  Experience has taught me that business owners and professional practitioners are often too close to their own business to see things from their customers’ and clients’ point of view. “Teaching” the topic by relating it to an interesting, seemingly unrelated fact, actually helps owners gain new insights into their own business model and into their own clients’ needs. This “learning by teaching” effect happens whether it’s the owner doing the blog content writing him/herself, or whether it happens in the process of planning blog content with a professional writer being employed to provide content for an SEO marketing blog.

In “Blue Lobster Fail”, Robby Slaughter offers a fine example of both my premises, using the little-known fact that one in every four million lobsters is born with a rare genetic disease which turns  it blue, making it easier for predators to spot. That tidbit became the “trigger” for a blog post based on the premise behind Slaughter’s own productivity consulting work, namely that failure often turns out to be the secret of success.

Slaughter writes from the point of view of his readers (a tip everyone providing blog writing services should heed). “It may seem like a tough break to be totally different than everyone else,” Robby writes in emphathetic vein. “Your uniqueness may make it harder to hide from your enemies.” But since fisherman sell rarities like blue lobsters to aquariums, he concludes, it’s actually likely that a blue lobster will have a longer life than its more “normal” friends. 

Your corporate blogging for business will have a longer life if you’re constantly looking for tidbits of information to explain what you have to offer in new and different ways!