I have close to 6 years expereince selling face to face with a customer. I understand I must first provide value and gain rapport before transitioning to a sale. I'm a fluent speaker and coach people in the niche I'm trying to market.

When it comes to writing I'm having a rough time cutting the cake.

To give you an idea of my personality, most of my life revolves around structure. I keep to-do lists, and note cards in my pocket for reminders and "notes" I think of during the day. I tack these to my wall, desk, monitor, mirrors and more. When I write, I'm comfortable with short concice bits.

For example, this post started like thisI'm constantly building guides for myself to follow, it's just the way my mind works. It's been very hard to turn off "structure note taking" and use my "sales approach" in what I write.

I started an ECourse with an idea, I defined the 5 parts and then started to break down each part with sub-topics. I have an auto responder set up to send out email every few days directing the lead back to the next section of my course. In there I promote affiliate products subtlely through my "lesson".

My difficulties come when I try to fill in more content to the course. I'm just not as fluent writing as I am speaking. You can see I've keep myself busy studing and slowly putting things into practice. Now I'm stuck.

Here's an example...
Last night a good buddy of mine came by for a 'consult', if you will, about an area my niche focuses on. We talked for close to three hours. This morning when I tried to write about the material we covered I drew a blank. This happens consistantly.

Can anyone suggest a direction I should take to help with this writing block? A technique for getting thoughs to paper? General comments?

A tape recorder.

Record yourself, find those points where you are "in the flow." Then transcribe.

Hi SuperDave,

Nothing wrong with structure. Many people who never get started can't even create a basic outline of what they want to do so you're already one step ahead.

I have the same challenge. I'm always looking for opportunities that I'd be interested in doing. When I find it I usually spend so much time drilling into the details I forget to take notes. Luckily I have a very good memory.

Here's some thoughts.

1. John gave some excellent advice. Record everything. Then hire someone on elance to transcribe for you, that's not your job. Easy to justify, pay $50-100 and make $5000+.

2. Record your coaching sessions. Let them know it's part of the deal or if they balk then cut them a break on their tuition. Same thing, transcribe and/or put on CD and sell them. It's preferable to do this in an area that your market hesitates to do or it answers one of their objections.

3. Give a presentation and video tape it. Have it transcribed completely and/or in outline form for a workbook. Another product to sell.

4. Have a conversation with a friend whom you have no problem talking about all the details. Again, record it.

Best wishes.

Dave,

There's nothing wrong with structure.

Your post doesn't reflect any difficulty with writing. Maybe your writer's block is reflective of anxiety about what others will think rather than your actual writing ability. You can clearly write.

Using a tape recorder is an excellent idea. However, if you really want to break through the block, here is a suggestion:

Take advantage of writing in short, manageable bits.

This is how you do it. Each night, write for 15 minutes. Time yourself. Keep typing for the entire 15 minutes. You shouldn't stop at all.

Here's where your need for structure comes into play. Take one point in your outline and focus only on that point. Then, turn off the computer screen and just type. Don't watch the words appear on the screen because you'll judge what you see. Don't edit yourself. Type everything that comes to mind. Everything. (You'll edit later.) Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar. Just type.

This is called freewriting. Surprisingly, your best ideas will surface when you're just typing ideas and not worrying about anything else.

Go back later and edit your work, but don't do it right away. When you edit, read your work aloud to hear the cadence of what you've written. As you read aloud, you'll probably think of something you'd like to add to what you've written. Add it then. You'll get new ideas each time you edit. It's a layering process.

Think of writing as a puzzle. Each time you freewrite, you'll add another piece to the picture. While each piece will mean nothing by itself, if you practice patience and tenacity your work will evolve, and you'll move past the writer's block.

Here's an essay that talks about the writing process:

http://wserver.crc.losrios.edu/~morales/Readings/Murray,%20Donald%20-%20The%20Makers%20Eye.pdf

It's not about copywriting, just writing in general. I hope this helps.

I really have no words to describe how thankful I am for your reply.

Deb, I brought up free writing with my roommate and as it turns out he has over two years formal instruction for writing. Funny how things happen like that, everything coming together at once! Anyway he and I discussed free writing and the effect it can have on creating a document fairly quickly.

This reply is my first attempt at free writing.

As he and I were talking about the process I had one of those "ah ha" moments that you get every so often. The light bulb went off and I understood where I got caught up with writing.

It all boils down to this: I'm have a habit of editing and correcting while I write. One or two sentences at a time and then re-read and edit. What stuck out out my mind is that when I talk, I can't do this. I just go with the flow and let it ride. I'm going to begin incorporating this into my writing and see where it goes.

As hard of a habit is it to break I'm doing my best not to edit or proof this document as I write. I've become so accustom to watching the words as I type that looking away is more difficult that I thought it would be. I've taken your advice and as you can see from my reply(just over a min or two writing now, and another for a quick proof) things are coming out much easier.

I sincerely thank you.

vdmp and John,

The recorder idea was great thank you! I've though about it for some time now and even tried to use a recorder in conjunction with speech-to-text programs, but that just wasn't for me. And shortly after I gave up on the idea of digitizing my voice. That outsourcing suggestion was great, I will definately use that in the future as my products gain momentum.

vdmp,

In regardes to recording my coaching sessions you mentioned, "your market hesitates to do or it answers one of their objections." what did you mean by this?

I'm really hoping that through IM and the expereince I gain from it I'll be able to structure a business venture online - and offline. Once I build enough of a following I plan on setting up a funnel of upselling starting with a free course, moving through audio and video products, and finally one-on-one coaching or even group-seminars. It's going to be a long road but I have the knowledge and determination to stick with this and give it all I have.

Thank you for you kind suggestions.

Dave,

I can relate to your writing style. If you look at my posts, you'll see that I tend to edit quite a bit. I also tend to edit as I write. However, in graduate school my professor introduced me to the concept of freewriting.

Surprisingly, I discovered that a lot of my best ideas came as I was freewriting. Sometimes they were sandwiched between sentences like, "I have no idea what to write." Freewriting is about finding those spontaneous thoughts in between your brain dead moments. It's difficult to do that if you're debating about whether to use a semicolon between two independent clauses or whether to write the ICs as two sentences. (See how boring that last sentence sounds? It's because I was thinking too much.)

The key is to look at your freewriting several days later. Sometimes, it's easy to get in your own way as you write. Many of the best copywriters I know say that you should learn to write quickly. Think of it this way. Sales letters should have a conversational sound to them. As you speak, I doubt that you are editing every word before you say it. (That would look and sound really weird.) You need that same spontaneous feel with your sales letters.

I had to learn to do this too. I'm a copywriter and a college English instructor. I have to navigate between both worlds.

Write spontaneously. Edit later, but don't edit the spontaneity out of it.

Kawika,

Outstanding suggestions. Great ideas for capturing passion and key selling points that can form the basis of a sales letter or new product.

Thanks for sharing.

Nigel

Thanks for the link Deb. That should come in handy when, not if, I get blocked. It's really going to be hard but I'll try it. I have to remember to check my positioning though as I've been known to be one key off and mangle the "words." Cheers

That was John's idea. I just tried to build on it.

I must say that I appreciate your desire to have offline activities. They're gold imo and most lazy people won't do them so it leaves huge holes in the market.

I apologize for the ambiguity. I use short hand a lot and it gets me in trouble here sometimes. I'll try to explain what I meant.

This is pretty much all I do now. I only work on projects where there's a Master or Guru or whatever you want to call it, a System, a big back end and follow-up systems. With those in place there's many many copy advantages you have at your disposal that stuff almost sells itself.

Step 1
So say some of a prospect's objections, which are universal for "Master" programs, are (1) will it work for me, here, now. They'll see the Master doing it and think, "Well of course it works for him, he's a genius at it. I'm not. And besides the market is terrible in my area these days. And besides, everyone I associate with says it's a dumb idea."

Those are objections that you can talk until you're blue in the face and many prospects still won't believe it will work for them. That's where testimonials and your credibility have to fill-in the gaps. You want that sub-group thinking, "Nope won't work. But then again I do trust him and 5 of his students swear that it will work. Maybe I should give his system a shot."

The way you do that in say a presentation is give 2-3 talks;
"What's working", "Red hot markets" and "Profiting from the changing landscape".

What's working
Question you ask the audience is: Who's successful and what are you doing that's working?

Just interview students that are implementing your ideas. They're basically audio or video testimonials in a classroom style presentation setting. It helps if they have improved on your ideas so they actually add value to.

Red hot markets
Question is: Who's operating in a red hot market? Who's operating in a tough market and still succeeding?

Could be the same presentation above or another one where you highlight different sub-markets.

Changing Landscape
Question is: What did you used to do and what do you do now?

Everyone of your coaching students that has implemented your system should have a story like, "Well, I used to do X but now using your tips and techniques I do Y and make $x,xxx."

Step 2
Take the recordings, it would be cool if you had 12 which is easy if you do a 1-2 day seminar/bootcamp. You can now sell these CD's as a subscription and call them "Power Conversations" or "Insider Conversations" or something else that's not taken. Sell them for at least 30-50x your cost. This becomes your entry level product.

Another option is to include it with a Master newsletter. Online delivery is okay but physical product is better. There's a video of Gary Halbert explaining why.

Step 3
If you don't have an all-in-one from the above then compile a Greatest Hits CD that hits as many objections as you can address. This becomes a lead generation CD.

On all your marketing materials where you're hitting a cold market (web site, flyers, biz cards, free teleseminars, etc.) this is what you want to get into their hands. Of course it is accompanied with a sales letter for the entry product.

I once handed out CDs at a local real estate club and 150 were gone in 30 minutes. Next time I handed out a flyer with a picture of a CD on it and a way to get it for free. Didn't work nearly as well. So I designed a flyer that people couldn't resist picking up. Anway, back to the story.

Step <1
I knew I'd forget something. You should have your backend all ready to go before you start any of this. Or at least the marketing for potential backend. There's a whole strategy to preselling that I won't go into here. Safest bet is to have your backend.

In other words if it's all leading to a $5K coaching program then one progression, of many, is to get them the lead gen. CD, get them on a teleseminar or to subscribe to your newsletter or CD series, hit them over and over to get on the coaching program.

Step 4
Focus a lot of your time doing lead generation in as many places as you can. Don't let your funnel empty out or else you'll get to the big event and wonder where all the new clients are. They're at the top of the funnel, that's now filled with water, afraid to even stick their toe in because they're sure there's a shark down there somewhere.

There's a strategy dealing with scarcity of the Master that I learned from Dan Kennedy and Ron Legrand and it works. Basically play hard to get and people will pay through the nose to get to you and apologize when they do.

There's obviously a lot of work inside there but the key is to do what you're supposed to do; lead the organization. Then pay for the things that suck up time but don't pay you for it. Mailing and creating products for instance.

It's official. You get it.

I wish you the best and I'd love to hear about your progress.

Cheers