Yearly Archives: 2011

Is your website a dinosaur?

Published December 27, 2011

Has your website become an artifact?

There’s a curious phenomenon when it comes to websites.

At some point, your business outgrows your website. Maybe your target market has changed. Or the way you’ve worked with clients have shifted. Or your offers and programs have been totally redone.

But your website remains the same. An artifact of an earlier time in your business. Dinosaur bones.

When you find yourself in this boat, one of two things typically happen.

One, you bravely blaze ahead into writing new pages (but then your perfectionism flares up and you eddy out into a cycle of endless revisions, rewrites, and agony over …

Posted in brand + message, content, marketing

Why your desk needs a spittoon.

Published December 20, 2011

Why not create a spittoon for your inner critic?

Dear Stella, I want to write like you. But I just sound so stiff and boring. What do I do?

Right now, your marketing doesn’t really sound like you, does it?

And maybe, until you and I started hanging out together, you didn’t even know that your marketing COULD sound like you. And sell like hotcakes. But more than that: that it was even POSSIBLE to write marketing that was INSPIRING.

It is possible, you know.

But if that’s the path you intend to walk, be prepared.

Be prepared for the voices that tell you: “You suck at this.”

“This …

Posted in copywriting, how to be, how to write

What’s your jellyfish?

Published December 13, 2011

What’s your jellyfish?

It was 78 degrees in the Atlantic ocean on Sunday, and I was pretending to be tough.

My companions had decided they were gonna spring the extra 5 bucks for wetsuits.

Not me.

Never mind that I was covered in goose bumps.

It was a wet, windy ride out to the reef, after all. But I’ve been running every day for 4 weeks and—I’ll admit it—I was rocking my bikini.

Dangit! My people are from Minnesota! My uncle was a deep sea diver in Alaska! Why on earth would I need a wetsuit?!

Thankfully, the still small voice within has …

Posted in copywriting, how to be, how to sell

If I see more of this, I will scream.

Published December 5, 2011

Take the cork off your truth

Alright, faithful reader. We’re about to get UNCIVILIZED up in here.

Stella’s about to get UNCORKED.

Grab your bucket of popcorn and sense of schadenfreude.

I just got a Facebook message from a woman I adore. She does INCREDIBLE work in the world. She is an AMAZING person. I would drag myself over hot coals in a swimsuit to help her succeed.

But not only that. She has an AWESOME personality. This woman lights up the room. She’s running one of those businesses where her clients seek HER out.

But when I read her message, I was crestfallen.

Totally …

Posted in copywriting, how to be, how to sell, marketing

Why my postman is sexier than Angelina.

Published November 29, 2011

Angelina Jolie is one hot tamale. Your postman, Stella? How can your postman be sexier than THAT?!

Ah, my little liebchen.

This is what we call in the business: a trick of the eye.

To Stella, consistency and value are sexier than sporadic asskickery.

And while my postman has been bringing me junk circulars lately, he also brings me cards, notes, news, packages, and goodwill from people I love and care about.

Angelina doesn’t. She just has those incredible lips.

My point is: there’s eye candy… and then there’s what we know we can count on.

And so it is …

Posted in copywriting, how to be, how to sell, marketing