Prepping for June’s Blog Challenge

It’s been quiet over here at https://writesynergiescopywriting.com
since I completed Connie Green’s 30-day blog challenge
earlier this month. But lots of things are
simmering on the back burner, so watch for the
feasts and creative explosions to come!

I was revisiting some of the posts a few days ago.
They still sound pretty good! I invite you over
to partake in the synergies that are growing!

There’s another 30-Day Blogging Challenge
coming up! For the entire
month of June, (1-30) there’s a group forming to
continue the blogging fun and business-building.

This time, Jeanette Cates is leading the group.
Go to http://twitter.com/JeanetteCates and search
for #blog30 or connect with her at
http://jeanettecates.com/what-makes-a-great-blog-challenge/
to join the blogging challenge.
Join the fun!
Plus: Today (5-28) Jeanette has “feature member profile”
of yours truly at the customized  member site for this
month’s blog challenge at http://meetourmembers.com/

(So, yes, you’d need to register to see my profile!)
Happy Blogging to All!

Blown Away Blog Challenge 30 of 30 The Peeps Edition

Blown Away 1: Todd
I didn’t even think about winning a contest when I used (some of) the social media tools I’ve gotten more comfortable with over the past month to spread the word about Todd Temaat‘s “Win Your Local Market” contest. He was looking to generate interest in his work and his upcoming training/membership program.

I was speechless when I heard I’d won his incredibly valuable grand prize of two months of his coaching for communicating all things local online. I literally couldn’t even process the news. Thank you Todd. I look forward to participating in your magical process. And, I think it’s sometimes tough for local market-focused people to “get” all that they can actually do with social media. Many are in the beginning stages, and the steps of your contest might have seemed daunting for someone not already somewhere in the stream already.

Blown Away 2 – ??

Can’t even count all the pleasures and friendships that have grown up over the past month from #blog30 community that grew up around the 30 Day blogging challenge. Of course, to start, there’s the incomparable Connie Ragan Green herself, the woman who convened, gathered, and offered the #blog30 group a “home base” throughout. She’s an inspiring, self-made empire builder who wants to help others build lots of other empires!

Then I connected with writing maven Debra Marrs who started the #blog30 challenge. It worked so well that she got so busy with clients that she didn’t finish. Her encouragement out of the starting gate really fueled me in those early days when I didn’t “know” anyone else. (We’d met through Christina Hills’ Web Site Creation Workshop.)

Can’t even say where to begin to thank all the remarkable people I’ve shared the past month with. Some I’ve gotten to know better than others, but each of you is remarkable, as a person, entrepreneur, and a creator. Thank you. I look forward to staying connected and deepening the conversations as we proceed onward. Hope to see some of you on the June #blog30 under the guidance of Dr. Jeannette Cates.

When in Southern California, I know I have a second home with Melanie Kissell and all the love from the Solo Mompreneur crew. Her heart is bigger than the state of California.

When headed to the East coast, to South Carolina, there’s storyteller and businesswoman extraordinaire, Jeanne Kolenda. Jeanne’s stories are alchemical transformations of everyday life to something  more. She’s partnered in biz with Sue White (on Twitter as @WhiteSue )

Greetings to Terrie Wurzbacher in San Antonio, a warm-hearted doc sharing the wisdom from universal laws at getunstuckllc.com.

My new go-to techXpert: @MyWebGal, Deb Augur, in Washington state.

Heather Bestel in Scotland shows us all how to move from mad dash to organised simplicity with great warmth and charm.

New friends, resources, experts, supporters — Many thanks to all who commented, retweeted, posted, and generally spread the great energy as part of the #blog30  including

Martha Giffen, online maven extraordinaire.

Marcia Hoeck, for all things breakthrough for your  business.

Geoff Hoff, writer’s writer w/ a theatrical flair.

Piotr Krzyzek on marketing and social media.

With gratitude to Annette Nack for her part in the 30 Day blog challenge.

Get fit with 50 and Fit founder, Kazi

Meet Vernon Harleston on The High Road

Find all things health with the All-health expert Robert Britt

Get happy with Happiness Guru Evelyn Roberts Brooks

Where to go for innovation ideas? Innovation Expert Steve Sponseller

Thanks to Gwen Tanner who is inspiring me to reshape my offerings in her role as  @ecoursemaster.

Kudos to Helen Raptoplous an energetic proponent of Moving your Business Forward: Action Habits that Matter Most.

Acknowledging Janet Eisenbise from Coach4LifeChange, sharing insights with grace and wisdom.

Oh, my.  Loving apologies for omissions and those I haven’t caught up with this time. Let’s connect in the follow-on #blog30–coming in June and hosted by Dr. Jeannette Cates! And it will use the same twitter #blog30 hashtag! Thanks to everyone for your support!!

Copywriting: The Case of the Missing Keyword — Blog Challenge Post 26

Copywriting. There. I said it. It’s part of the name of this site. It’s a valuable keyword. But it’s practically invisible, rarely written about here. What gives?

In post 25, defining Write Synergies, I said I’d address the case of this missing keyword—copywriting. I started with Write Synergies, but tacking on a popular keyword seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

On my longer marketing journey from starting this site (and even before) to now, I’ve come to realize that copywriting is a tool. It remains an important tool if you want to connect with your community, your niche market.  Copywriting helps you tell the story of your product or service in a way that connects to your people.  You identify the obstacles and challenges they are facing, then proceed to engage them in a process of understanding and accepting your offer — what will solve the problem or help them overcome the obstacle — the thing that’s most present and painful relating to your topic. (And if you’re like most of my ideal clients, you’ll add lots of value and transformations along the way, what those clients need but didn’t know they could even dream of asking for.)

The old definition of copywriting was “Salesmanship in print.” You’ll still find that traditional kind of copywriting around: hard sell sales letters, fear-based mailings, screen after screen of online letters, flashing buttons and arrows, an urgency that feels false and forced. “Salesmanship” is changing even as the jaded, cynical and info-overloaded world of people out there surfing, texting, tweeting, are finally realizing they are hungry for something else, something different, something more nourishing to both body and soul.

For those of us calling ourselves soul-preneurs, conscious creators, authors, writers, artists, healers, those in conscious business or soft sell marketing or mindful service providers and messengers with a message of change, hope and transformation, we are the ones committed to contributing and serving our communities.  For us, that kind of copywriting doesn’t ring true. Our people are looking for a genuine connection. In the old regime, authenticity and genuine connection are in short supply.  Our people hunger for our authenticity to touch their hearts. We know it, yet all that seems to be available are the old tools.

My writing journey and client interactions have indicated that copywriting, as a tool for outer expression, is best partnered with an inner journey first.  Many of the posts at Write Synergies Copywriting set the stage and make the case for the importance of that inner journey, what I sometimes call your creative or marketing vision quest. In fact, if you’ve followed along the 30 Day Blogging Challenge, you’ve joined me on an inner journey here.

While I’ve said very little about copywriting, it’s not because copywriting is not important. Rather, it’s because for those of us who bring the fire and passion of service and contribution and leadership to our work, copywriting, at least in the old sense, is necessary but not sufficient.

Some of my clients don’t even like it that I have copywriting as part of the name of my site. “That sells you short. It doesn’t get close to all you do!” they cry. But it is a piece of what I do. Crazy as it sounds, the big vision at WriteSynergiesCopywriting is to literally redefine the model and best practices for what copywriting really means. Copywriting, by the way, is but one of the many pieces of magic I do with words. The point I emphasize to all my clients is the crucial role that the inner journey plays, even in a seemingly straightforward process like copywriting.

Part of the magic, in doing this inner Write Synergies work with clients (and before getting to the copywriting per se) is that we excavate each client’s inner voice. We uncover the vision at the heart of her purpose, why she is here, why she is called to share her message.  We tap into the deepest level of authenticity that he is willing and able to bring to forth at the present moment. Who knows? Maybe in the next iteration, we will go deeper.

Copywriting is a tool, a powerful tool. During its heyday in the 20th Century, it convinced us we needed things that we didn’t even know we needed.  (Maybe, as it turns out, we really didn’t need them…) Now in this paradigm-changing moment, we reshape the old tools to the new world. We reconfigure the tools to serve the highest purpose that we can manifest in our work and creations. The new reforged tools are malleable partners with you (more synergies magic!) to communicate the highest message, the conscious and mindful path that your project, venture or creation offers to your tribe. We are in the midst of a transformative and visionary moment. I urge you to reforge the tools at hand using the heat and fire drawn from your inner journey first.

There are plenty of practical tools and many great teachers. I was inspired to write about my own “missing keyword” when I read this post by my colleague Connie Ragan Green, the brilliant and diligent teacher who convened this 30 day blogging challenge. It seems keywords are a challenge for many of us.

For practical, hands-on insights around keywords for your tribe, check out Connie’s post: http://ebookwritingandmarketingsecrets.com/free-keyword-research-how-to-use-keywords-to-build-your-internet-business/#comment-4427

Hey #blog30: We are sprinting to the finish line. It’s been a blast!

How Self Awareness Connects to Owning Your Greatness — Blogging Challenge Post 18

As you go through the process of awakening self awareness, you might ask, “What does this have to do with owning the gifts and greatness I came here to give?”  The exercise of awakening self-awareness as outlined in the previous post did not specifically tie back to the process of owning your greatness.

So where does that come in?

Usually our gifts are hiding in plain sight. Everyone else can see them, but we can’t. We are the fish in water. What does water mean to a fish? It is a given. So, too, our gifts are invisible to us because they are so integral to how and who we are.

We yearn to share our gifts, but we sense they are hidden. So there’s this yearning to express the hidden gifts. We don’t even realize that we can’t help but express them. We have been expressing our deepest gifts (and purpose) every living moment without even being cognizant of it.

So I recommend using this awakening self awareness process to listen to the yearning of our gifts to be heard and brought out into the world.  For all we know, the gifts are hidden. Why?  Because we are not conscious, not aware of how we are expressing those gifts. This process helps bring our gifts and greatness to our conscious attention, thereby healing the yearning.

The free guidebook with meditation — available for no charge when you sign up with your name and email  in the box at the very top of the right sidebar –  goes into more detail on this aspect of awakening self awareness.  The guide/workbook offers perspectives and exercises specifically around using our self awareness exercises for listening to the inner yearning to express our gifts, owning that yearning, healing it, and finally  taking steps to mindfully own and express our gifts and greatness in the work we do in the world.

It’s all there — the gifts, the greatness, the purposeful vision — patiently waiting for us to awaken to what is with us, within us, and has been with us our entire lifetime.

Post #18 in the 30 day blogging challenge from Connie Ragan Green.  Follow us on Twitter #blog3o

Content Plus Community Blog Challenge Post 15

In Connie Ragan Green’s 30-day blog challenge, the level of commitment, knowledge, and overall good vibes of all the participants  is simply stunning. So much so that I have created a new category of links on my sidebar. Check out the “Tips from my Colleagues” on the sidebar. You’ll find links to specific articles overflowing with insights and practical tools and tips. It’s an ongoing project, so check back regularly.

To connect with me on Twitter:

@bobbyemiddendor

From the river of Tweets earlier this week, I came across this message from @iandavidchapman who retweeted from @problogger 140 Characters and the Swing to Longer Form Content
My take on the conversation: Community+Content=Twitter&FB+blog.  The basis for an online business is community plus content. And yes, content may also include products, either our own or affiliates, and ideally both. Actually community plus content isn’t a bad model for non-virtual businesses as well: The “content” is your expertise about the products and services offered.

Darren Rowse @problogger concluded his post saying, “Short Form content is powerful in driving traffic to and building conversation and community around your longer form content.”

The community of us gathered in response to Connie’s 30-day blogging challenge is seeing this principle at work. The challenge is not only about creating 30 days of content, but also about getting in the habit of creating content. What I’ve observed after sporadically posting on my blog for just over a year: It’s deflating to just whistle into the void. And that is the amazing piece of this blogging challenge, because the third part of it is stepping into a flow of making connections, which we are doing via Twitter and also via Facebook and the Facebook Networked Blogs application.

There are just an amazing number of ways and places to connect, so it’s a challenge to keep all the pieces straight. And it’s so delicious to connect into a conversation with real people who are doing high-integrity work online, learning and supporting each other in the 30 day blog challenge. There’s great diversity of expertise, yet each colleague speaks with authenticity and authority. Check it out on Twitter at #blog30.

Writing Your Inner Journey–Blog Challenge Post 14

I came across marketing expert and coach, Tara Kachaturoff, on Connie Ragan Green’s 30-day blog challenge.  Her post today, “Marketing Your Book – The strategy may be in “why” you wrote your book,”  suggests that authors and would-be authors look at the reasons why writing a book was important in the first place. Tara explains, “You can often find hints of marketing strategies that might be a good fit.”

She concludes, saying,  “I believe there is value in taking time to explore your original intentions as you may find some highly aligned and inspirational strategies that are perfect for you!”

Tara’s insights are right on the money. What she opens the door to here is the deep dive, what I call the “inner journey.”  In particular for conscious creators, visionaries, thought leaders, and paradigm-changing authors, writers, messengers, healers, and soul-preneurs, this sort of reflection creates the foundational inner work that strengthens the creator and the project. But why, you may ask, does that matter?

What I have discovered and observed over my time in corporate book publishing and a decade-long self-employment journey helping all kinds of clients with their words,  is that all the fantastic outer stuff is great.  But using those juicy marketing tools alone can result in “bright shiny object syndrome” without the foundational grounding of this inner journey.  Both creator and creation become like a tree without roots, and just as unlikely to thrive.

Think about it. Without examining your underlying motivations, your vision, aspirations, and goals, without the inner clarity that comes  from envisioning your path and ultimate destination (or at least the next few steps), then you risk traveling the road that old saying describes: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Ideally this inner work and inner journey takes place before the book is published.  But as Tara observes, it can be powerful at any point in the process. I like to point out the importance of this by saying “the inner journey IS the journey.”

Safe travels to all!

Post 14 in the 30 day blogging challenge. Follow the great collegiality on Twitter at #blog30.

Synchronicities Are No Accident–Blog Challenge Post 10

I sent the following quote from James Redfield, along with more words of encouragement, to a client. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she reported that she was — just that day — at a particularly low point on her project. “Your words themselves are heartening,” she told me.

As James Redfield observes:
“We’re all in place to do something of great magnitude and courage.  It does
not have to be anything of wide scope, or even something that a lot of
people know about. It’s about touching the lives of people who cross our
path.”
–James Redfield
Author of Celestine Prophecy

Connie Ragan Green’s 30 Day Blog Challenge has put me into a space of engaging in conversations with brand-new friends and fellow travelers that I am meeting in the virtual worlds, toggling between my blog, their blogs, tweeting, retweeting, connecting to Networked Blogs Ap on Facebook, and posting to Facebook and Linked In. Whew. So many ways to connect! This blog challenge is all about trusting that those who will benefit and resonate from my words of inspiration and encouragement will find their way into this particular circle.

Just like in the classes and group coaching I’ve put myself into over the years, and as my friend Alan Hickman says, “The perfect people show up. Whoever is supposed to be there, shows up.”  (Alan is co-author, with Jan Stringer,  BEE-ing Attraction: What Love Has to Do with Business and Marketing . ) So from these classes, workshops, and even the blogging challenge, I’m discovering that the most amazing connections have resulted — seemingly by accident.

Such synchronicity is not an accident!

It is no accident that you have come upon this right now. To reiterate Mr. Redfield, “It’s about touching the lives of people who cross our path.” Put another way, (it’s spring after all, with new gardens and young growth,) it’s a matter of blooming where you are planted.

May you enjoy these 30 days and more of discovering that the just-right people cross your path — those who will enjoy the blooming of your gifts and the greatness of your project and venture.

Follow the fun on Twitter at #blog30. We’re 1/3 of the way there!

The New Follow Friday Round-Up — Blog Challenge Day 7 Post 8

Heart-based, community-building mentors and coaches: all people worth paying attention to. On Twitter, it’s called Follow Friday, or #FF. These are a few of the people on my list–for starters anyway!

Connie Ragan Green’s 30-Day Blogging Challenge has gotten me to step deeper into the fast rushing river that is Twitter.  So in addition to doing the posts, I am tweeting them out — finding ways to let people in the social media universe know about the content I am creating. So, my first #FF (or “Follow Friday”–It’s a twitter thang) recommendation is Connie Ragan Green.  #FF  @ConnieGreen

I met Connie in 2008 at Judith and Jim’s Bridging Heart and Marketing Conference for soft sell marketers. As founders of the Soft Sell Marketers Association, Judith and Jim are on my #FF list too. Their association offers exceptional value. And I want to highlight Judith and Jim’s tagline: They say “It’s all in the connection.”  This rings a resonant bell with me!  #FF  @JudithandJim  (and hugs!)

I’m taking a course with Molly Gordon, founder of the Shaboom County community, to learn the process to finding clients who fit just right. Molly is a #FF resource. Totally outstanding.  Molly’s coaching is bringing us to a foundation and structure for listening for the words of clients who fit just right (or in my case, “write,”).  Molly, like the other folks I so appreciate, really walks her talk over on Twitter   @Shaboom  (and elsewhere too!)

I learned about the Chris Brogan’s latest post from @ToddTemaat who had created his own #FF blog post at his interesting site, http://www.winyourlocalmarket.com.  Todd, you might be interested in a Facebook group all about shopping local: Over on FB I just became a fan of the 3/50 Project. (They’re at the350project.net)

It was such a good idea that Chris Brogan introduced @ his blog.  It inspired Todd in his first #FF round-up today on his blog. Todd reported that he heard about it from @HelenRappy.  Scope out the original inspiration:   http://www.chrisbrogan.com/turn-twitters-follow-friday-in-blog-traffic/   So #FF love to all of you, and it’s so much fun playing together in this social media river and on #blog30

There’s additional thanks to Molly Gordon  @Shaboom  who retweeted this link (below) to an inspiring piece from Anne LaMott. I mentioned her book, Bird by Bird in blog post #6. So it’s synchroninstic to see a link to one of her recent essays today — well, it’s just this amazingly connected universe that we are playing in.

http://www.sunset.com/travel/anne-lamott-how-to-find-time-00418000067331/

Trying to get a little bit ahead on 30 days of blogging challenge, so it’s post 8 on day 7. #blog30

When Synergies Happen– Blog Challenge Day 5

Riffing off Debra Marrs‘ great blog post series (for #blog30)  about writers and procrastination, I noted:

I just realized that procrastination is rather like the shadow side of synergies. Instead of creating results greater than the sum of the parts, it’s not creating anything at all. (AKA stuck.)

What I’m noticing:  taking up Connie Ragan Green’s 30 day blogging  challenge, plus

–everything is connected. It’s  all conspiring to move me to a completely new place — a much bigger and more visible place.  All these connections are building, one on the other, and they are creating immense synergies between the book, the marketing, the clients, and the audience, and doing it all simultaneously.

This is the power and excitement of synergies. All these pieces of learning and being mentored are clicking together in a brand-new way to generate results greater than the sum of the parts.  It helps to be as intentional as possible and then just step into the flow and take action. But more than all the learning situations I’ve stepped into, it’s the 30 Day Blogging Challenge that is making such a difference. It’s giving me a container for sharing the insights and opening the space for new communities and interactions.

You might also want to stop by Debra’s blog for another installment about procrastination — a seriously crazy way to start your day that makes granola look really good.

Push the Reset Button–Day 3 Blog Challenge

The Write Synergies Guru, Bobbye 6.1, finds herself scheduled to appear on Nina Price’s Blog Talk Radio Show, Push the Reset Button, on Saturday, April 17 at 11 AM Central.

Nina Price calls it “reset.” It’s that after-40 moment when the opportunity or the challenge is to recreate and reinvent oneself for enjoying the new half of life.  Nina is host of Push the Reset Button on Blog Talk Radio. Through a couple of different connections, I find myself scheduled for an interview on her show on Saturday morning.

I’m coming out of the closet on the book I’m working on, the one whose content is supposed to be unfolding right here as part of the blog challenge. That is, Write Synergies: Creating the Map for Your Journey.  [anyway, that’s the current iteration!]

And in the interview, we’re also going to talk about my various reinventions of myself, what I call Bobbye 6.1, along with the Sanskrit Factor, Interdisciplinary Arts, and how writing can be a perfect companion for finding the vision and the inner gifts waiting to be expressed. Writing is also the key to bringing that inner vision quest out into the world. The key to constant reinvention is continually learning, creating, and trusting your own inner connections. As the Write Synergies Guru, I share how to use the writing process to become your own guru and live your legacy so you don’t die with the dream and vision stuck inside.

Nina has posted the show description and my bio at her page on Blog Talk Radio. I hope you will log onto Blog Talk Radio on Saturday  at 11AM central time for a dose of reset and reinvention with yours truly.

Signing off on #blog30, day 3 of Connie Ragan Green’s Blog Challenge!