Are you a business owner or a writer? It’s completely possible to be both, especially if you have a writing or marketing based business. However for most people it’s one or the other. If you went into business to make a product or offer a service that’s nothing to do with writing, the idea of a workshop that focuses on writing blogs could seem like a complete nightmare. A room full of people picking your writing to bits? No thanks! Of course, there are services and workshops that are designed to provide critiques. They’re mostly for writers. Here’s why my workshops don’t.
My workshops aren’t for writers
There are lots of workshops out there that are designed for writers. They’re for people who want to write for a living or get published. Go along to one of those and there’s a general assumption that you’re already quite good at writing but you want to get better.
Mine aren’t like that. I work with business owners who may never have written a blog or a piece of marketing content in their lives. My workshops are designed to get you writing something so you can improve it over time. Progress over perfection.
Your writing is your own
Well *duh* (slaps own forehead for such stupidity). Of course. Everyone’s writing is their own. Professional writers use lots of different copywriting techniques, but you’re probably not interested in them. If you were, you’d be writing for a living already. When you create your own blog it’s your voice and your audience that matters. If you work with a professional writer we’ll get to know you and your business first then apply our own techniques to producing content for you.
The beauty of writing your own blog is that it lets your customers hear your voice. It might need some tweaks to make it more effective but a group workshop probably isn’t the place for that. Even if all the other people in the room are in the same industry as you, they won’t have exactly the same message or audience. What you need to communicate is unique to you.
The follow up
My workshops are designed to let you create a plan for your first blog. You leave with a framework then write your blog later. That’s the time for feedback. Everyone who comes to my workshops can send me their finished blog and I’ll provide some feedback then.
The main reason I do this is because everyone who comes to my workshops arrives with a blank page. Workshops that are designed to critique writing will usually ask you to come along with something you’ve already written. Either that or it’s a weekend retreat where you can create something new and get feedback on the following day. I’m only asking for half a day out of your life so I’ll email you some notes afterwards instead.
Would you like to come to a workshop that gets you writing a business blog without picking your work to bits? You can find out more about my upcoming workshops by completing the form below to sign up to my mailing list.
Trying something new can be a bit scary. You hear all these people who say ‘what have you got to lose?’ and ‘you get more confident when you try scary things’. (
Do you need a blogging workshop? How do you begin to decide? How do you decide what training you need in your business? Or, to put it more accurately, how do you decide what you actually need when you’ve been bombarded with an endless stream of adverts and emails telling you why this course is the one you absolutely have to have. The minute you joined that Facebook group for small business owners or changed your employment profile to ‘self-employed’ or ‘owner’, your card was marked.
I’ve been to a few different conferences during my working life and they’ve all taught me something different. The biggest benefit is that I’ve become more discerning about the ones I attend. The drive to behave like a business owner and only invest where it’s warranted gets stronger every day. In terms of attitude I think I went from one extreme to the other – either ‘I mustn’t spend any money’ or ‘I’m going to spend everything I have spare – it’s probably worth it.’ I soon realised that ‘probably worth it’ didn’t cut it. Now I’m somewhere between the two. I have to consider whether it’s worth my time and the money I’m spending on it. So, here are a few of my conference experiences so you can think about what you get out of a conference – hopefully I’ll save you from making some of the mistakes I did.
I know, I know – brainstorming is such a corporate word you’re probably squirming already. However, I’m afraid to say that it’s the best I have for this particular subject. ‘Putting your heads together’ and ‘having a strategy session’ where you ‘think outside the box’ are equally bad as potential entries in buzzword bingo and ‘coming up with new ideas’ is just a bit pedestrian. I quite like brain dumping but that means something a bit different for me. So, what am I on about? If you aren’t already using brainstorming in your business it’s probably time to start. Call it whatever you like, it’s the perfect way to boost your business.
You know that you need a content strategy which aligns with your goals (and if you don’t read my last two blogs 
Believe it or not, there are those who think that people who talk about strategy are out of touch with their clients’ lives. They probably think that a strategy is created somewhere off in cloud cuckoo land. I disagree. You can use whatever word you like for it, but a strategy is basically a plan. You’ll probably have seen a meme that says something like “a goal is a dream with a deadline”. If you have a goal, you need a plan to make it happen. That’s all a strategy is. So the question is, does your strategy match your goals? If not, here’s how to make it happen.
I’ve found that there are two types of business owner. The ones who love strategy and planning and actively seek out tools to help and, well, the other kind. To be fair even they could be split into two camps. People who know they need a strategy but just can’t quite bring themselves to do it and the ones who would happily wing it forever. Ultimately, guess which businesses have greater success long term? Yep, the ones with a plan. So why do you need a content marketing strategy? It’s an important piece of the overall puzzle. Here’s why.