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- Is The Red Pen Syndrome Killing Your Sales?
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- Work-Life Balance: Do You Fill Up All of Your Tanks?
| Is The Red Pen Syndrome Killing Your Sales? Posted: 29 Apr 2012 08:00 AM PDT
Entrepreneurs and business owners are open minded to fast-paced change. They're brimming with ideas that they're bursting to communicate, and most of all, they have something that can improve the lives of others. Watching that inspiration turn into words that attract the right people and then turn those people into paying customers for the business is a pretty cool sight to see. From selling a coaching spot, an eBook or even a conference launch generating $50,000 in revenue, those handpicked words do a powerful job. But every now and then I see a business self-sabotage those results, and lose time and money simply because of the red pen. What is the red pen syndrome? The red pen syndrome is where a business owner reads her copy through the eyes of an editor, and not as one of her customers. She may feel a strong temptation to reach for a red pen, just as her schoolteacher used to, and go to work crossing out words, highlighting possible hyphens and making suggestions for semi-colons. When gripped by this syndrome, she is looking at the copy as though it were prose rather than a sales or lead generating tool. As a result, she loses sight of her customer's hopes and dreams and instead buddies up with grammar rules and proper punctuation. What causes it? The red pen syndrome is driven by fear and understandably so. When you write sales copy you want to put your best foot forward. You want it to be compelling, to be neat, to be without spelling mistakes. This is after all a representative of your brand and your business. It has to be right. So making changes to your copywriting feels good. It feels like you are getting further along, and it gives you a good sense of being productive. But this is the dangerous part of the symptom. No copy that you write is going to come out of the gate perfect. You are going to need to get out your pen and make changes so that your copy sells. However the red pen syndrome is not about helping you make changes that improve your copy. It kills it instead. How does it kill your copy? The red pen syndrome is about creating changes that have little to no effect on achieving the goals of your sales letter or web content, which is to generate leads or to make sales. As a result it kills your content and your sales in 2 main ways:
It wastes time If you are spending time using unnecessary grammar and punctuation rules to consistently change the copy without necessarily changing the core message, the unique selling point or the call to action, there's a high probability that you are spending time on things that have no impact on the outcome of your copywriting. Copywriting is about talking to your customer's fears and their hopes. It is about painting a compelling picture of their dreams to evoke desire. It is about making them relate to your message and feel enough emotion to compel them to take action. You should be spending time on getting that right, spend time on research, different story angles and finding persuasive testimonials. If you've been moving a full stop or a comma around for the 17th time, this isn't going to help you get more sales. And the more time your sales page stays in your top drawer, rather than living out there for your customers to read, you're missing out on possible sales. It stifles your copy The insidious danger of the red pen syndrome is the initial comfort it brings to writers. It brings rules. And there is safety in rules – we've been brought up to be rewarded by staying within the rules we learned about writing in school. Unfortunately, copywriting breaks most of these rules. For example copywriting is about writing in a conversational tone, matching the voice of your reader so that they feel connected to you and are receptive to your message or offer. The rules you learned at school did not have this same goal. And if you studied academic writing past high school you then were rewarded for making your writing as hard to read as possible, with the longest, fanciest words and sentences. Which does not make for the kind of copy that compels your customers to buy from you. How do you know if you're suffering from red pen syndrome? If you have a tendency to review your copy for the first time with a pen in hand, you might have the red pen syndrome. If you find yourself spending hours trying to work out how to use a semi colon, you probably have the red pen syndrome (hint, save time, take out the semi colon if you're not sure and make 2 sentences instead of 1). If you find yourself delaying a launch because you can't decide if "while" sounds better than "whilst" you definitely have the red pen syndrome. If you ask someone who is not your ideal target market to review your copy and then spend hours implementing all of their changes the red pen syndrome is spreading. How do you crush it? Beating the red pen syndrome is not about rushing copy or putting out poor work, it's about focusing on the areas that are going to get you the most results, and for the most part, swapping around the punctuation or a sentence isn't going to achieve this. If you find yourself in this painfully busy limbo between writing and publishing (and selling!) try the following steps to break the habit: Ask what you're afraid of This syndrome is induced by fear and provides you comfort. If you're stuck at this stage, ask yourself if the changes are really necessary or if you're simply nervous about putting it live. That is a valid concern, but the red pen syndrome wont' help you. The only way to conquer it is to get it out there, test the results and make appropriate changes. Remember your goal Your goal is to make sales and generate leads and action from your reader. It is not to pass the scrutiny of your high school English teacher. I was in love with my English teacher and I would never let him see what I write for a living. Remember you can change it You know what happens if you put your content live and it doesn't quite work? You change it and do it again. Nothing is set in stone, you have the power to change any of your content and you will not be struck down by lightning. What's more, if you put it out there and test it against another piece of copy, you'll be making informed changes rather than trying to write in the dark so to speak. If you have a message or a product that people need to hear, don't let the red pen stop you. What about you? Have you suffered from the syndrome? What stops you putting your copy live and what tips do you have to overcome this? Let me know in the comments below! Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Gastonmag |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT PRWeb is an online press release distribution service that gives anyone the chance to get the attention of major media outlets for their products, services, or organization. |
| Work-Life Balance: Do You Fill Up All of Your Tanks? Posted: 29 Apr 2012 02:00 AM PDT
Perhaps your current job only fills up one of your "tanks." This does not mean that your job is something that won't work for you – it just means you have to recognize that you are multifaceted and complex, and you may need to seek work or activities outside of your day job to really "fill up your tank." It's a hard sell to find a job that is everything you want it to be – a creative engine, an artistic place, filled with challenging problems, a place where you have oodles of responsibility, something that balances your athletic needs, a place of rest and relaxation. Often, we're afflicted with a "grass is greener" approach (also known as job envy) when we think that other jobs are more fulfilling. In reality, they probably offer certain areas of satisfaction – but may leave you craving other outlets. For me, I find my day job fills me up about 50% – more or less during any given week, depending on the projects and the level of responsibility I have. After struggling with a corporate job for the first year, I realized that I can't expect my job to fulfill all of my needs as a person – and more importantly, that it's up to me to find other activities and tasks that satisfy my irks and quirks. I love the creativity, challenge, and artistic components of being a landscape architect. However, I also crave person-to-person interaction, thoughtful reflective writing, and (to others) inordinate amounts of athletic exercise. Sitting at a desk all day long, for example, does not give me the active, athletic outlet that I'm looking for. (not to worry: I'm already campaigning for a walking workstation at my office). Making my job something I love requires some extra effort – and for me, a strategy. My main strategy for making my job something that I love is to fill up my other tanks so that I can go back to my job each day fulfilled. (Suffice it to say, writing is also one of my favorite extracurricular activities). The good news about having a 50% job? You're already at 50%! Also, looking critically at what your job IS (here's to looking at the positives!) and identifying what your job is NOT – can help you figure out what type of jobs and work make you happy. Discovering what you don't like about your job reveals a lot about you as a person: it tells you what else you need to be satisfied. It teaches you the direction to take your current job, whether or not you should leave your job for something more fulfilling, and how to add activities to your life that help balance out your needs. It's our task to look elsewhere for the rest of our "life fuel." |
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What is work-life balance, anyways? Jenny Blake (author of | You are subscribed to email updates from Upmarket To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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