Conscious Businesses Get Results with Words

Conscious businesses, even more so than other ventures, have a commitment to bringing heart to marketing messages and soul to business. These words play a critical role as they carry the essence of your business story.

Do your writing and business communications lack impact and pizazz? If your written messages are not getting attention, if your words are not moving your customers, clients, or employees to take the actions you are spurring them on to, if your results are suffering, then maybe it’s time for a messaging makeover.

Words are powerful. The right written words, even if just a 140 character tweet, can nurture existing relationships with clients, introduce your business values to prospectors (people looking for the types of products or services you offer),  and move people to take action to get to know you a little better.

While you might not get every one of those benefits from a single blog post or Twitter tweet, your communications are an ongoing affair that, like your relationships with your customers, require regular cultivation for long-term business success and results. In fact, cultivating your messages and nurturing your client relationships are two sides of the same coin. They are inextricably related.

Clear, focused, and articulate written communications are the foundation stones on which powerful businesses grow. You, as chief messaging officer, whether owner, CEO, or marketing leader, know the difference that the right words can make. But…
*Do you have the time?
*Do you have a trusted writing partner?
* … Someone who can download all your insights and polish them up to best serve your business, provide solutions to your customers, and expand your own inner development all at the same time?

There’s a greatness in the gifts you and your business are here to share and the service you provide to your perfect audience or tribe. The right words can build bridges between your vision that you are striving to achieve and the people you are here to serve.

If you’d like to consider a messaging makeover with a proven bridge-builder, then contact me directly at jasbjm (at) earthlink (dot) net to open a dialogue.

Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru

Writing as Healing — Blog Challenge Post 27

Several years ago, two separate teachers informed me that I was a healer. “But I’m a writer,” I said. “And without a doubt, you’re a healer,” they both insisted. I was surprised. At least in this lifetime, I’ve stayed as far away from the healing arts as I possibly could, except when I insisted on natural, unmedicated childbirth with midwives. Twice. I credited my long-time meditation teachers, Rosita and Sandy at Arche International, with giving me the inner knowledge and training to make such feats possible. Them and the Bradley Method.

I have come to define healing in the broad terms my teachers must have meant. We are all healers at some level. It is that underlying healing intention that I uncover and magnify with my perfect clients, both in our conversations and in writing projects.  The transformational visionaries determined to shift this hinge-historical moment in a positive direction — the conscious creators, heart-based venturers, soul-preneurs, soft sell marketers, the healing visionaries and authors with intentions on a planetary or systemic level — are indeed weaving the healing with every word they (we) publish and client they (we) interact with.

My colleague in the 30-day blog challenge, Kazi (on Twitter as  @50andFit) recently wrote about entrepreneurship as path to self-healing. It’s a post full of common sense and practical tips. Kazi said, “…ensure you get the personal outer and inner cultivation you need to remain healthy and on top of your game. Your attention, time, energy and creativity are all aspects of your Chi. Your Chi is your very life force. It is the very basis of your health, wealth and wisdom.  If you allow your chi to diminish, you allow your life to diminish.”

Like Kazi, I advise care of the life force, the Chi. For my tribe, writing is the very means for that inner and outer cultivation and balancing of Chi. Writing is a way of strengthening the inner, of mining the inner gold of your own thoughts and feelings, many times discovering what you think and feel as you write. One client (who never really liked writing much even from school days) reported that she discovered things about herself that she never knew when she put herself into the process of writing.

From this inner cultivation and strengthening comes the outer development and presentations of our messages and our creations. The outer manifestation of our creation and its outreach message are all the stronger by being forged from the inner fires first.

Words and writing are the tools for the personal inner healing journey. They are metaphysical and alchemical agents of change. They are also the tools for manifesting written creations (books, blogs, brochures, articles, e-courses, even tweets); and they are the raw materials that go into creating the message that will then connect to the people who need to hear it.

Remember: Your creation, book, project, or venture cannot begin to do its healing of the heart of the world until it is out there, full and strong. YOU have to be a strong enough vessel from the inside out, without cracks, to bring your creation all the way into the world. You have to be healed and strong enough to go on helping it grow into the full flowering of the message and healing it is here to do.

Oh, yes. Words are powerful. One colleague recently received a serious wounding by words. Others came in and used words, attempting to mitigate and transform the pain, using their love in words as healing. Writing is healing when healing and wholeness are the intentions.

#Blog30 on Twitter.

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!