Lessons

Lesson Info

The BYS Writing Strategy

A mat and trina matter trina come on down oh tammy sorry tar it said trina but tammy yes good here you go see for you seed for you tammy now let's go on to exercises fifteen c and then fifteen f fifteen c first so you're going to need to go to that there you go fifteen c that's flying through the apple like that fifteen c so you can see as matt was going through there's tons and tons of exercises in the app that I'm just picking out specific ones toe highlight specific points so that we can look at some of the things we need to do and I'm choosing this one specifically just to look at how you create an article yeah why not let's look at how you create an article now what I've done here is I've organized it so you first look at the subject you know what's the subject matter then you look a tte topics because there's lots of different topics underneath a particular subject then you look at key words that are popular now this is not just for seo purpose is not just for search engine optim...

ization but those keywords will help influence what you're writing about how you're writing it how you're titling it makes sense so yes if it does and then you might start to put together some sort of attention grabbing title this is one way to start one simple way to start and you can't come over the attention grabbing title right away. Five you'll do the working title and you'll come up with it later. This particular section on writing has a lot of really interesting exercises because that this of this chapter, I mean, this chapter and book yourself salad really is in large part about how to write the articles, but what I want you to look at most specifically when a highlight in this is that you're going to look at a subject, and then you'll see all the different topics that you could actually create. And this is, if you wanna be a blogger, you need to come up with tons and tons of contents were so how do we come up with content? Well, here we go, let's, fix subject let's, pick a subject for you, man. Okay, uh, it's a solution selling solution selling is an overall subject, so let's, look at selling as a sub. Selling is the subject, and then we're going to find different topics underneath. Selling that we can write about makes sense. So one of them may be a solution selling what might be another topic that you could write on that relates to selling, presenting yourself for an interview, presenting herself for an interview, there's a particular topic underneath the subject of selling yourself what else? Anything else come to my rating a proposal for an interview writing a proposal for an interview because you need to sell yourself with this proposal excellent anything else come to my aa lot of things reading a resume that cells yeah I mean boom boom boom this is just a few this is what twenty five seconds maybe tops we did that and now what keywords might be popular for one of those particular topics s o if you're taking resumes maybe you know hiring manager would be a popular one great. Anything else? Um the applicant tracking system uh good yes except president ways would be a good one, right? I mean, you know in the title could be resumes resumes resumes there you go right? So that's something to think about you got some keywords and now you might want to create some sort of title based on number yesterday we did they're certain types of titles that sell any particular title come to mind for you on that topic um I don't know if this is the best one but I just wrote an article that was how to write a resume that gets you hired simple not fancy simple but that's what I'm looking for I want it I need to write a resume that gets me hired great there's an article now you're going to use some of the other exercises in this chapter to bang out that article you bang out another when you bang in another when you bang out another one and as long as each one has one main point that is relevant that they could do something with you got a good article. Good. What about you, tammy let's do one of you was having a subject for you? Overwhelmed, overwhelmed, great subject. All right, tammy is the gal a call when you're overwhelmed by it all? What? My some topics be clearing out clearing out like stuff hearing everything okay, yeah, you have to clear out in order to be able to see so you interested in clearing out could have twenty different are right. If you could have clearing out, I break it down into family work, finances exact letter stuff like exactly. So now there's a whole bunch of topics in there. Any other topics come to mind from overwhelm, restarting. Sometimes you just got a call it and start over, huh? Restarting. Good, excellent, I think probably assessment to be able to assess where you're at assessing yourself great topic right there and acceptance maybe in acceptance another great topic that even could be a subject of its in of itself. But you could do acceptance as it relates to overwhelm and what we're doing here is coming up with a whole bunch of different ideas for different topics and then we're gonna choose which one we want to do now, which one we want to do later. And I think it's a great idea for those of you who are going to right a lot of content toe actually plan a writing schedule. You should have seen this project plan that jocelyn put together for this book because I had obviously done most of my work before she came in. I wrote the book well, most of this work on this book was done by her, so she had to really organize how she didn't get all of this stuff done in the length of time we had, which was not a lot. It was a four months or something. Three months felt like four to me felt like two weeks to her, but she had three months to do all of the illustrations and to work together to do all of the edit because remember how much texas that's extraordinary, and she was doing that while also doing other work in her business. I know that if you could see the audience, their mouths so that's pretty extraordinary, but without that schedule. Without that, she knew exactly what she is going to be producing bye when and then she adjusted that as she went through based on the real world experience but at least she started with a particular plan and then you know, within two weeks three weeks, four weeks, five weeks she had a better idea how long different things would take and then she got faster and faster and faster with it once she got into the routine and we really knew how it was going to work what we were doing so once we got through I guess the first four chapters there was really a really good strong rhythm going but why did it happen without a calendar of course we made this commitment to my publisher's tohave it by certain date and they already paid us for that commitment so we had to get it done by that the problem with the block that's yours is you know, what's the commitment I mean if you only wrote one this month I mean what's going to happen unless you already have a big audience and you've been writing all the time in the near old one then they'll yell at you and then we'll get you to write so what kind of constraint can you create for yourself that will force you to write at the frequency that you need to write you know, once a week or three times a week however you going to do it you can write every single day if you write this much you don't you know you could write once a week if you write this much you create your own style on the block and the more frequently you right generally the more people pay attention but if your style is too right you know that's a longer content heavy things research based white paper type stuff then you'll do it that way. So what it's a constraint that you might create in order to get your make sure that you do that right? Just putting it in your calendar that's a start now of course we can still ignore what's in our calendar because we're the ones looking at it. Yeah, well I was saying could also schedule it has to be published on the block and you have to add it up before that time yeah, so you can have it all pre uh program now the other thing you do you can come up with the subject of the title for each one and you can put you can post three the next three months of block posts and you publish them all on the same day but it says this post will come on this day get ready for it it's coming this post will come on this day get ready for it it's come and antonio's going yeah, right on you like that one but now you've made a commitment that's public awesome, right? Who might do that? Raise your hand if you would so eat I like it. Very nice. Good. Nice work, guys. Now I want to go on and look at fifteen f fifteen f why you jumped at that. A lot of people writing right now in terms of schedule frequency. Now some people say let's post quanta week some people say three times a week what have you found out? Of course your career where you get more, more bang for your buck. Well, if you're primarily going to be a blogger that's your number one strategy you should write it today if you can or you know he's working day at least that's your primary strategy. If you want to be a big blogger and get lots of followers, you write as much as you possibly can because that's what they're looking for but it's not necessary at this point in my career, I sort of right for my block when I feel like it that's not a great strategy, but is now a primary marketing strategy. And then when I write, I then send it out to my subscribers and say, hey, I wrote a new post here it is, then they all go over there then they share that through the social sites so there's uh, there's a process that occurs as a result of the posts, so I'm not just promoting it, you know, on the post on the block for people who subscribe to the block I'm getting around to more places, but that's not my primary way of marketing is one of the things I do, and at this point I decided I'd do it when I want, but I try to do at least two a month, so you got to decide what you make firm commitments to and what you do when you have time totally fair to do that. I think as long as you don't start a blogged and post so infrequently that people don't take you seriously there's difference, you could spend the next, you know, three months reading opposed today from my block, and you wouldn't run out because there's a lot of their from over time, so nobody's going to go there and feel like there's, nothing to read, but if you start a blogger and you write, like once every you start, like once a month, once a week, and then you go once a month and all seems like once every three months, and then you know, it's every christmas that's not going to spiral out of confidence because consistency demonstrates credibility in consistency inspires confidence, so if you're going to be a blogger, then make sure you block but you can also set expectations you say here's my blogged I write when I feel like it but I don't always right you know you can say it's a most of my time I spend with my clients I'm not a professional blogger I'm a right but from time to time I will right here and I hope you enjoy what I write you said the expectation and nobody thinks that you made a commitment in fulfill it makes sense makes allows since I love that you made that point that consistency right I wrote this down demonstrates credibility I think a lot of times people think about that that home run hitter of its fifty home runs one year but he disappeared a few years later but they forget about that guy that gets on base and as a high on base percentage is on base regularly yeah you never I mean that's what you want if you put together a baseball team I want way of nine guys in the field right baseball team so I think you guys online concretely if I'm wrong I actually played baseball I'm just old now and don't yeah so you want eight guys who are playing who can hit a single and get on base every single time they're up and you're happy to have a home run hitter or clean a cleanup hitter but you if you could if your choice was nine uh guys who could get on base every single time or a couple cleanup hitters couple home run hitters you take those nine guys didn't get on base every single time because those big home run hitters we're going to hit once in a while, then a slum, you know? They're not consistent in the same way that some types of hitters are, so I'm going with this analogy for a while I don't really need to because I think you get my point but it's that consistency that is really, really very attractive in any kind of player and you guys are business players, okay, you have the next one are you at fifteen? Alright, so I just put this one in here just to demonstrate to you how many different exercises there are for writing. So this is an exercise specifically to write the conclusion and I often write the conclusion before I write the article because then I know what to put in the article. Not always. Sometimes I just whatever happens and then if I like it I added a few times then already conclusion, but sometimes if I'm being very strategic about the writing, write the conclusion because I'm choosing before I write the body what it's going to be about? Some people might do that with the introduction I like to do the conclusion a lot of novelists who write you know murder mysteries and things like that they write the ending first and then they have to get there it's pretty interesting so on this one first might look a key phrases from the introduction what key phrases would you use to introduce this and you could do it again you could do this the opposite way if you want you could start with the introduction but what key phrases might you used to introduce this? What key points would you put in the body that you would need to um uh re articulate in the conclusion what the reader could do with the info that's got to go in the conclusion that's the point of the of the article and they start to write out this conclusion you're of course going to do another draft of that conclusion after you write the actual article but this way you know it's going in and you khun make sure that you cover all those points in the actual article itself you like that one it seems actually started with merrily yeah from one and um she said she came up to me I beg you just you got you got you gotta hear this idea like ok and um she said you should do a call guaranteed sex friday's friday like oh that's awesome what what's the number on it's gonna be a nooner so anyway so anything neuter a nooner at noon oh you know call others of those two things are not not jelling for you but the other thing then which I want to thank you for is one of the most profound things I've heard lately was oprah was talking interviewing brainy brown who I love eight million hits on her ted talk about shame and so she did a follow up interview with oprah and she sent out a tweet asking people to respond what is the thing that made them the most vulnerable and you know what the number one thing wass what men husbands asking their wife for sex number one that was the midday that made them the most vulnerable maiden name and the most vulgar yes that was a number one tweet back or answer to and from my practice I know that's true that's surprising it isthe by the way remind me I've done some consulting with a new site that is about relationships yes and they're looking for a relationship coach is so just remind me afterwards to make the introduction okay absolutely thirty you're welcome so that has been sitting back in my mind thinking you know uh I've got to do something with this because it's it's it's so sad you know this is the way men connect with their women women please please please please understand this ok yeah so okay good so can we give him a round of applause? Thank you so much, guys uh, okay, so, johnson, is there anything you'd like to share this point about writing and using visual thinking or visual exercises to help you write anything you want to share that it's so come on down, so you're a little bit more in the light? Sure, um, you know, as michael said, there are I think this is the chapter that has the most visual worksheet exercises in it. Um, and there was a little bit of pushback, I think, from the publisher trying to get us to squeeze it down, and and we just looked at it and said, no, you know, the audience really needs thes because it helps you sort of think through what you need to say and organize your thoughts in a way that sort of progresses and builds upon itself. S so we really fought hard to keep all of the visual exercises that we have in the book just because we knew that they would be so helpful to you really went to bat for that. So I hope you'll find that they do help you, especially if you're someone who really wants to write. But, you know, sort of struggles with what to say, and is what I'm saying relevant, um, so the exercises are really just there to help you pull the right things out of you and organize it so that when you do right it just flows it just it's it's easier than you thought it would be and writing like anything use this skill and if you practice you'll generally get better so even if you're not writing on a block every day you're not writing articles every day for publication but you want to improve your writing just write a paragraph or two a day on anything that comes to your mind that's what I started doing I hadn't written in years not in the kind of significant way just for regular work type stuff and I had to you know see if I could write in a way that would be um relevant to the people that I wanted to serve and on I looked back and my writing and I see that it's improved because of the practice because I do more of it so you know, I also remember that you don't need to write a lot to make it good sometimes to me the most impressive writers who can say the most with the fewest words that's not me but I like reading writers who can do that that's what I said now let's cut some words let's put some pictures and same thing with speakers you know if you could say a lot in three minutes that's pretty impressive any questions? Yes matt so I have ah partner who is kind of in charge of doing the website he knows about seo he does the block posts and um we've had some talks about you know, this is kind of the brand we want to get through it's hard he has might have a different voice than than I do kind of the public face of the company and I just wondered if you had any experience with that how you would navigate that sure it needs to be your voice so either you do the first draft and then he soups it up for seo where he does the first draft gives it to you and then you rewrite it in your voice or you find a ghost writer who can write in your voice because good ghost writers could do that that's that's the skill that they develop and um either way I think which way do you think would work better in your relationship? He doesn't first then you go through it or you do it first then he goes through it I think both could work we'll have to experiment with both yeah that's really interesting is a good question and it's very important to know this that people often ask me do you do your social media to someone else do your social media and as I said I don't spend all my day and social media but when I do it it's me when some things out so that I do I don't understand how you can have someone else do it I can understand how you could have someone else you know, schedule things that you've written in front right in the word document then they deal with actually, you know, posting it all fine. I get that I can get someone else sharing articles for you or something. I get that. But if it's opinion related he's got to be your voice got you and I think that's really, really important I just want to, uh seems like your face then you're the one making the human connection so maybe that's a little bit more natural to you, so when you look at, you know, the natural abilities of both of you, certainly he brings a lot to the table, but if that's sort of your strength, then he should relinquish that to you knowing that that's what's best for the company magarri says I have four years of posts. Can I re post some of them again from four years ago and beyond? Yeah, sure, I think you should do it and say that this is a post from four years ago and you might have seen it, so here you go back from the archives exactly, okay, you know, like a best blast in the past or best of right best of syria's would be great. Um but just I would I would suggest I would I would I would I wouldn't post it as if it's new I think that's it right also because it is not necessarily for now but search engines don't like to see the same post showing up again and again and again they just see that um uh is irrelevant you know, on the same site too because each post you right on the block is its own page. Okay that's good. So let's go over to jocelyn's illustration. Yes, so we talked about to optional strategies under the three the first was the speaking strategy in the writing strategy and is michael introduced them? He noted that there were several things that sort of apply to both um and so I captured some of those things in the middle here but he's talking about basically you can either find key people too invite you to their audience or you khun invite people to your own and and that becomes sort of an asset that you have and so that's captured right here you can own that audience. Um we also talked about practise, practise, practise it doesn't happen overnight and then awful the hierarchy of associations groups that you can connect with and be in front of two share what it is you want to share with them so I thought that was that was really good and impactful. Um, when it came to the writing strategy, we went through some exercise is talking about how you sort of get to that point of starting with your subject, getting to the topics, what are the key words? And then those attention grabbing title so you can kind of see how one thing sort of leads to another. It builds upon each other, and you start to see the brain storming sort happening in your mind. So that's the idea there, but with everything this comes up often in the book yourself salad system, they always have something to invite people to offer, um, so it's affected in all of these strategies, I think in some way or another, and, um, I also kind of captured the funny little hat thing you have to wear funny hat, you know, to start a club or a group or anything like that, although you could, um and then we just kind of brainstorms and different ideas, different groups that you could create if you were moving into that always have something to invite people to offer. Um, the other thing, the big takeaway I took here, wass consistency demonstrates credibility, so when you're writing, you don't just want toe throw something out there and then never say anything ever again you want to kind of be consistent about it and make sure that you have a schedule and a plan something that you commit tio it's great, really nice. Thank you. And then as a reminder the same exercise we did for speaking identifying places we want to speak and the decision maker decision makers at those places that we'd like to reach and then putting them in our list of twenty we do for writing I would like to write for this publication this easing this influencer and who are the decision makers and how do I get to them and put them on the list of twenty? Simple is that the key is it needs to be a daily activity just like your networking direct out reaching referrals take few minutes a day. This maybe takes a few more minutes a day, but this is the steroids right? This is the horsepower it really ramps things up so you'll do half hour hour might include research as well as reach out. It might include some material development on your part video written material and certainly for writing that's goingto require a certain amount of time when you go and give speeches. The time is usually when you're giving this speech is getting their doing it going home, showering, shaving those kind of things, any questions before we move on yes, just a quick follow up question and that is from hourly in france can we write or speak with another professional? Maybe someone in the gang of five or would it be too confused for people? And I'm not sure if they're talking about having guessed bloggers are actually happening either for yeah I mean, guest bloggers were great writing on other people's blocks great writing an article together great um uh an animal icky and who's one of my book yourself salad certified coaches actually elite level coach as well she and I did an article together for choice magazine and it got her name on the byline in a in a you know, the primary feature article and she did the writer on that article she wanted to get there. She said, hey, can we do this together and maybe then we can get it you know published I said sure is great so that's that kind of collaboration is wonderful for people who are busy they need some help. Yeah um and it doesn't have to be in my exact voice because it's we did it together but the material is that we wrote about is related to and comes from book yourself solid because that's now her area of expertise is well speaking wonderful way to start there's a very speaking with somebody else is a very different dynamic and not everybody is going to be a great collaborator with you on stage so that's something that you are going to want to tread lightly into to make sure that you guys know how you'll work together and actually rehearse how you'd work together but it's a wonderful way to present people often like it it means you probably need to develop a little less content for that speech because you're now sharing that responsibility and you guys can also both promote it and it's interesting sometimes the decision makers that other place oh it's this sort of tag team thing organisations in the fitness industry have been asking my girlfriend and I present together because we're both pretty well known for our own thing and they like this idea and we're like, well, that's either the start of something remarkable or the beginning of the end so way did it once um and she decided you okay, you just talk and then next time we'll do it again I'll say okay, you just talk so we'll see but those kind of things are often very attractive, so I like the idea a lot I think it's great I did that once with victoria labalme, the woman I mentioned earlier who you should check out is a phenomenal speaker I did that a few times with how make number who I mentioned the other day a partner of mine we would do these speeches on project management, and each one of us brought a different element to the speech. He brought more expertise and project management. And I brought more entertainment. And this was at the beginning of my career. So it was a great way for me. Teo, give these kind of speeches, get involved, uh, you know. And then I spoke on the things that were easy for me and were relevant to the audience.