I’d like to plant a seed…

You don’t need to work with people who are fearful of investing in themselves, who are “beginners,” who don’t know what they want, or who grumble about your prices. You are the one who signals who you work with — and who you don’t. Take the lead. Trust in the notion of “client attraction”… and learn to write.

It’s your writing that attracts and connects with more sophisticated clients. Clients who work hard, pay on time and tell their people about you.

And it’s the habit of writing — regularly, joyously, and without attachment to outcome — that will help you find and hone your clear, concise, “gotta have it” message. When you’ve got that, you’re no longer a commodity competing on price. You become an experience that people hunt for, delight to discover, and hire because they have the sense you’ve been talking to them all along.

That’s what we help you do here. Welcome to the neighborhood. Stay in touch and get to know me by putting your name and email in the box up there on the right.

Keep up the good work,

- Stella O.

Henry David Thoreau Was Right

Published January 22, 2013

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.”

Dude.

Henry David Thoreau was right.

One of the things that plagues business owners who are crafting their own copy, be it web copy, emails, or sales pages, is our crazy need to throw everything we’ve got at our audience (in the hopes that SOMETHING will convince them to hire us).

Let’s call this the “everything but the …

Posted in copywriting, how to be, how to write

8 Ways Copy is Different From Other Writing.

Published January 15, 2013

News flash! The writing skills you learned in school don’t prepare you to write copy (copy = “words that sell”).

Before we go any further, there are two important distinctions you need to know:

1) Copywriting is different than regular writing.

2) Copywriting is different from content.

Let’s look at the second one first. Content writing is more like regular writing – think editorial or magazine article. The goal is to inform your reader of something that’s useful, say, how to make better food choices when their blood sugar is low or 3 places to meet …

Posted in copywriting, how to be, how to write

3 secrets to get in the mood to write hot copy

Published January 8, 2013

Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable?

We ended the year with a plea not to be a copywriting zombie.

So it’s only fair that we start the New Year off with the right tone.

I’m talking Marvin Gaye, people. Barry White. Gnarls Barkley.

Whatever gets you in the mood.

As last year wrapped up, I noticed that my clients and colleagues had writing projects they were focused on.

And some of them actually admitted to me that they were enjoying the process.

A few of them even mentioned that it was a treat to write.

Now, this is really, really good news. And so I …

Posted in business, copywriting, how to be, how to write

How NOT to write copy like a zombie

Published December 26, 2012

Don’t be a copywriting zombie. Find YOUR voice.

Happy holidays, superstars!

As a special tribute to the end of the year, this article is about zombies.

Copywriting zombies.

You know who they are.

You get their emails.

You go to their sales pages.

You may actually even LIKE the person, and trust that they are doing good work.

But the way they write about that work sounds like the zombies wrote it.

When zombies write copy, they use a rigid formula.

They don’t express real emotion.

They just hunt for brains to manipulate.

Examples of copywriting zombies at work:

“Are you OVERWHELMED by getting your kids out the …

Posted in business, how to write, marketing, marketing online

5 sales writing archetypes that make NO money

Published December 18, 2012

In these parts, we talk about messaging, and we talk about writing copy, and we talk about how to do it in a way that works AND stands out as meaningful in a marketplace of hype and hot air.

But I’ve been mostly silent about the ways I watch business owners sabotage their own results in their writing.

Until now.

See, there are some archetypes when it comes to writing copy (copy = “words that sell”). I share them because you may notice that some of them feel rather familiar to you. If that’s the case, there’s a prescription for …

Posted in business, how to write, marketing, marketing online