Guess How Long This Took Me to Write?

It was no one less than the great French novelist Gustav Flaubert (of Madame Bovary fame) who wrote: “be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

With apologies to the monsieur, I’d like to suggest a corollary:
“Be regular and orderly in your newsletter, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

(Does anyone else hear someone rolling in his French grave?)

When I tell other business owners that it takes me an hour to write this article, a personal note (250 words, or more when I’m feeling chatty) and craft my canned social media posts for the week, I often hear:

“Are you kidding, Stella?!,” they cry. “It takes me 4 hours! Sometimes 6!”

The thing is, that is really hard to keep up.

It’s all about pacing in this game.

A slow + steady pace surely wins the race.

But at a certain point in this entrepreneurial game, you have to speed some things up.

It’s about priorities.

You know how I’m saying that you need to send a regular newsletter (or share some valuable content) every week (or every other week, if you are just starting out)… so that you can build relationships with the people on your list?

Well, if you make writing a newsletter a really tedious chore, you are shooting laser beams of “tedious chore” energy out into the eyeballs of the people you want to hire you.

I call it “the exasperation felt ‘round the world.”

The interwebs amplifies everything we do. Even if we feel like no one is watching you, they are.

And they are using a simple measuring stick: Do I want what this person has?

So if you toil and sweat for many joyless hours on crafting THE PERFECT ARTICLE for your blog + newsletter… we can feel it.

And most of us don’t want that kind of martyr perfection energy up in our grills (because we’re doing our darndest to empty our own reservoirs of it).

We want more human-ness. More love. More realness. Even if it isn’t perfect.

And we want the good ideas that make our lives richer.

Plus, we want people who are who they say they are.

People who follow through on what they say they are going to do.

So if you say “I will share my best ideas with you over time, so we can get to know each other and maybe work together someday”… and then you only send content once every couple months because “life happened” or “I got busy”…

…well, that signals how you would treat me as a paying client, doesn’t it?

Just sayin’.

If you want to win business from your mailing list, you have to make a commitment to them.

As my friend Rois’ mom says: “all relationships are a marriage.”

So, mama Stella sez: don’t put an opt-in box on your website UNLESS you are ready to tie the knot and commit wholeheartedly to your list.

And send them great content on a regular basis that they can use, whether they hire you or not.

THAT is what builds a reputation.

Showing up, again and again, and putting your devotion where your mouth is.

And if it’s taking you multiple hours to write an article (the same article) to post on your blog and send in your newsletter, something is wrong.

Get an egg timer. And start giving yourself ruthless writing deadlines (This just took me 25 minutes.)

Will some of your articles bomb? You bet. But don’t focus on that – focus on being consistent. Showing up, week in, week out. I’ve written a weekly article for more than 3 years (and if you think they’ve all been winners, you would be mistaken).

THIS is how you find your voice.

THIS is how you build your audience.

THIS is how you get your people to care.

Not by hoodwinking search engines or spending hours on social media.

By being a real human being with value to share… who keeps showing up, day after day, for the people you wish to serve.

And if you need help whittling your writing time down so that you can play THIS game, you know where to find me.