Boost sales with professional web copywriting

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photo credit: Alex Campos ♂
A few months ago, I spoke with a business consultant who told me that she’d never hire me because my Alexa ranking sucks.  So, in a panicked attempt to improve my Alexa ranking, I decided to create a challenge for myself.  I said I’d post two blog posts per week and comment on different blogs at least three times a day for three months.  If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you’ve probably realized that I flaked out a long time ago.

I feel guilty that I ditched my own challenge.  But in the end, I’m not sure if doing all those things was in my best interest, anyway.  I’d like to blog more, yes, and I’d like to comment on other blogs and network with other bloggers, but those things take lots of TIME.  And time is something that’s hard to come by when you’re a mom of a two year old, a wife, and the current breadwinner in your family.  Add moving from Chile to Japan, doing a whole bunch of paperwork after the move (ah, red tape), and helping my husband build a photography business from scratch, and extra time is pretty much non-existent.

This post is turning into an excuse fest, but the point is that I have to do what’s right for my family.  And that is not spending a good chunk of my day blogging, posting comments, and doing other things that help my Alexa ranking, which by the way, is terrible again.  It had improved significantly, so it’s true that blog commenting alone really makes a dramatic difference to your Alexa ranking!

In the end, the Alexa ranking is just a number.  If somebody doesn’t want to hire me based on that, then so be it. I’ve managed to get all of my clients up till this point without a good Alexa ranking, so apparently it’s not that important to most people.  The quality of the writing and the customer service are what matter most.

I have to spend the majority of my time on activities that actually have a return on investment.  Making the effort to build a good Alexa ranking might be important when you look at the big picture, but the benefits are distant.  And I’m at a point where I need results… now.

Unlike for some people, commenting on blogs and being active on Twitter hasn’t helped my business AT ALL.  It probably boils down to the fact that I’m just not a social butterfly.  I am a recluse by nature, and traditional advertising and sales tactics have served me far better.  So, I have to focus on again doing the things that have worked and will always work for me – because it ain’t a business if you aren’t rolling around in the Benjamins. 

Have you ever felt a strong desire to help someone because they did something nice for you without expecting anything in return?  I felt that way about a group of musicians on the way home from visiting my brother in Tokyo the other day.

We were walking near Shibuya station and heard some live music, so we followed the sounds and came across a band surrounded by a large crowd, playing funk-style music on the sidewalk.  We took our stroller-bound daughter to the front of the crowd so she could get a prime view of the performance.

As I watched people smile, laugh, dance, and bop to the beat, tears welled up in my eyes.  Oddly enough, I often get emotional when I hear live music.  And in that particular moment, I was ecstatic to see Tokyoites rocking out on the sidewalk, especially since I’m more accustomed to seeing them overworked and barely scraping by on coffee and energy drinks.  The band’s fun, lighthearted music and passionate performance seemed to remind all of the perpetually busy city dwellers there that night of the importance of enjoying the moment and indulging in life’s simpler pleasures.

Was the band selling a CD or asking spectators to donate money in return for all the warm fuzzies?  Nope.  After their performance, they quietly handed out flyers to everyone in the crowd.  The flyers advertised their next live show and gave quick instructions on how to vote for them to perform at a large music festival in Tokyo.

And did I vote for them?  Heck yeah!

Yet Again, the World Proves That What Goes Around Comes Around

If you do something nice for people, no strings attached, they will be eager to help you.  Even if you don’t hint to them exactly how they can help you, they’ll find a way.  So, while it’s easy to focus on immediate returns, such as how much money you’ll make or how many leads you’ll generate, try looking at the bigger picture and focus on providing people with an exceptional experience.  That experience will be carved into their memory, unlike a sales pitch, which will fade into oblivion along with the rest of the marketing messages that bombard them on a daily basis.

If the band had put out a hat and expected people to donate money, they may have been able to grab a few beers after their performance, but they chose long-term benefits over short-term gains.  If they succeed in getting enough votes to play at the festival, they will be able to go in front of a huge crowd and spread their influence.  That shot at success will reverberate farther into the future than any donations they could’ve collected that night.

Here’s a short video that my husband took of the band, called Goma Abura (Sesame Oil).  An old man wearing a track suit is dancing and interacting with the guitarist in this clip.  Like I said, people were really getting into it. The dancing man made my evening.

Oyaji Dancer in Shibuya from Kathleen O’Connor on Vimeo.

photo credit: quinn.anya

One of the first things people will do after they meet you online or consider hiring you is google your name.  They’ll read your comments on blogs that show up in the search results and check out your social media profiles and interactions to see if there’s anything you ‘forgot’ to tell them.

So, make your Facebook profile pictures private.  You don’t want a potential client to find a random tagged pic of you passed out in a puddle of your own vomit at your friend’s birthday party last weekend.

All kidding aside, people search for your name because they want to learn more about you; the contents of your About Us page just don’t cut it.  Your About Us page contains information you want everyone to know, but it usually reflects the polished version of you that you want to present to clients.

Some people hope that by googling your name, they’ll be able to dig up some juicy details about your life.  In other cases, they simply want to see what other people are saying about you online because what other people say about you has more weight than what you say about yourself.

Why Ranking for Your Name Is Important

People will search for your name online, whether you like it or not.  At the very least, if you actively try to rank for your name, you can control, to some extent, what people read about you online.  You can also knock negative results off the front page of search results and bury them under positive results that give searchers a good impression of you and your business.

Once, I had to write SEO content for a client who had the same name as someone on an FBI most wanted list.  Every time someone googled him, they came away thinking that he was a fugitive drug lord.   This guy was obviously upset, so he used the power of SEO to his advantage to rank for his name and mend his reputation.

On another occasion I googled a client’s name and was shocked to find some porno websites in the results. Of course I had to click through to see if it was really her.  I was relieved to find out that my client wasn’t appearing in films like Ocean’s 11 Inches and Sick Degrees of Penetration during off hours, but these situations go to show that reputation management is reason enough to take ranking for your own name very seriously!

How to Rank for Your Own Name

If you’re lucky enough to have an unusual last name or your parents were hippies, it won’t be hard for you to rank for your name and build your personal brand.  People with names like Alexia Petrakos and Fabeku Fatunmise are lucky when it comes to online personal branding because they aren’t competing with anyone else to rank for their names.  On the other hand, if your name is Mike Smith or Jennifer Jones, you’re going to have some work ahead of you if you want to build an online presence around your name.

Whether you have a common name or you’d like remnants of your bad online behavior to disappear from the first page of Google, do the following:

• Optimize your website content for your name
• Optimize your website content for your name plus your profession (e.g. Jim Jenson photographer or Lisa Johnson writer)
• Write press releases about your business with your name in them
• Add your middle initial to differentiate your name
• Create several profiles at well ranking social media sites like LinkedIn, Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook
• Use a different name altogether

I have noticed in my Google Analytics reports that people often search for my name and business name to find my website.  Or perhaps they are trying to find more information about me and happen to stop by my site in the process.  My problem is that I have a very common name, thanks to Irish naming patterns.  Google Kathleen O’Connor and you’ll see what I mean.

I used to optimize everything for the name Kathleen K. O’Connor.  But a business consultant I worked with told me that I should try to rank for Kathleen O’Connor since most people won’t bother typing that middle initial.  So, I switched all the names on my site and social media profiles to Kathleen O’Connor, hoping that would do the trick.

Unfortunately, since there are far too many Kathleen O’Connor’s in the English-speaking world, I’m buried in the search results now.  I’ve decided to go back to using the name Kathleen K. O’Connor because ranking for Kathleen K. O’Connor is better than ranking for nothing!  And since I noticed that my cousin’s actor husband uses a middle initial in his name and it gets lots of searches, I figured that it wasn’t a bad route to take.

Although I often wish that I pulled a Johnny B. Truant and gave myself a cool pen name like Kaye O’Copy just to rank, people already know me as Kathleen, so Kathleen K. O’Connor it is.

What about you?  What name do you use for your online presence?  Do you have Google Analytics installed so you can determine what keywords people are using to find your website on Google?

Ever wondered where gelatin comes from?

Schoolchildren like to say, “Did you know that gelatin is made of cow bones and horse hooves?” to their friends picking at their Jell-O in the cafeteria, but I learned firsthand where gelatin comes from when I ate caldo de pata (cow foot soup) the other day.  Caldo de pata is a popular dish in Chile, and although it looks horrifying, it’s scrumptious.  Texture-wise, the gooey substance inside the cow’s foot really is like Jell-O.  In fact, we happened to eat Jell-O for dessert and it was eerily similar, albeit with cherry flavoring.

Here are the cow's feet before going into the pressure cooker.

I love that people in Chile eat virtually every part of the cow.  They chow down on the feet, brain, tongue intestines, etc. so very little ends up in the dumpster after the animal is butchered.

I probably wouldn’t have ventured to taste cow foot soup if it weren’t for watching Anthony Bourdain eat it at a market in Santiago on his TV show, No Reservations.  Being the Anthony Bourdain fan girl that I am, I add most of the things he eats on his show to my list of dishes to try before I die.  Thankfully, I’m in Chile right now so I was able to try caldo de pata right away.

This is caldo de pata.

Being his usual chatty self, Anthony Bourdain conversed over his caldo de pata, telling his guide how it’s a shame that members of the upper classes in Chile refuse to eat this dish because it’s associated with the working poor.  Although Chile is now one of South America’s most prosperous nations, many traditional Chilean dishes originated from the poor man’s pantry.

Slave Food: Transforming Scraps into Delicacies

Similarly to the working poor in Chile, African slaves in the Americas had to make do with the skimpy selection of ingredients that was available to them.  Slave masters took the best meat from the butchered animals and left the unwanted scraps for their slaves.  But the slaves were inventive with these odds and ends, concocting dishes like cow foot soup, feijoada, a Brazilian bean stew containing pork scraps, and chittlins, or pig intestines.

Feijoada from Brazil

Slave food, which is now affectionately referred to as ‘soul food’ in the US, has been passed from one generation to the next, embodying the unconquerable spirit of African-American culture.   In Brazil, feijoada has become the national dish.

African slaves were stripped of their language, heritage, and family ties.  Despite their hardships and the lack of resources, they managed to spawn vibrant culinary and cultural traditions. Armed with little more than their creative spirit and any scraps they managed to gather, these people created instruments, rituals, and art forms that have influenced the world.

Soul Food

Birthing Creativity in Times of Distress

Even the lowliest of leftovers can be transformed into something memorable with a dash of this, a sprinkle of that, and most importantly of all, hope; hope that better days are to come and that current circumstances do not dictaten one’s destiny.  Creativity doesn’t wither away at a time of crisis.  In fact, it’s born from crisis.

Albert Einstein said:

“Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born from the dark night. It’s in crisis that inventive is born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. Who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions.”

In a time of hardship, kindle your creativity, no matter how grim the prospects and minimal the resources. Digging until you reach your core of insight during what seems like an insurmountable crisis may lead you to unearth your most brilliant ideas.

Photo Credits: Obvio171 and ThomasHawk

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nuagedenuit/151329148/

Reading blogs is beneficial because it allows you to improve your skills and meet new people – or so I thought.

These days, I find that reading blogs is more often causing frustration and a niggling case of writer’s block than inspiration and enjoyment.

When I decided to re-launch my website and start a blog, I subscribed to as many blogs in my niche as I could.  I stopped reading blogs for fun and entertainment because I wanted to concentrate on the type of blogging I was planning to do, or in other words, blogging for business (not blogging for money, but blogging to grow my writing business).

And before I started this blog, I had TONS of ideas – a Google notebook full of them.  I was pumped and eager to pound away at my keyboard and share my vision.

But a few weeks ago, things started to change.  I wasn’t motivated to blog anymore, and after reading many blog posts, I felt upset and frustrated – like I was doing it all wrong.

So, what’s the solution?

After talking with Yolanda of Red.Hot.Momentum. on the phone, I decided to start cutting out many of the voices I was listening to.  Yolanda told me I was reading too many blogs and valuing the opinions of other bloggers far too much.

And you know what?  She’s right.  I was listening to so many voices that I was losing my own.

Most of the blogs I read are for bloggers, and this is where a major problem lies.  Blogs for bloggers teach people how to blog.  They tell you to do this, avoid that, tweak this, or get rid of that.

I intently followed their advice, but the more I listened to them, the more stuck I got.  I read things like:

“Only publish phenomenal posts!”

“Post whatever you can every day to get the momentum going!”

“Don’t blog about bla bla bla.  It’s a waste of energy.”

“Don’t blog about business because it’s boring.”

“Be authentic, transparent, and (insert buzzword here).”

Maybe they’re right.  Or maybe they’re wrong.  But ultimately, you learn through doing, not through listening to other people yap away as they try to fill their blog post quota for the week.

So, that’s why I’m getting rid of the voices.  Not the ones in my head, though; the ones in my RSS reader.

I don’t have room in my brain for this smorgasbord of voices and viewpoints.  And I don’t want to suffocate my self-expression and creativity by reading so much about how it should be done.

So, I’m going to ignore a good chunk of the ‘shoulds’ out there and do it my way, even if that means I bore you or break one of the 1 billion makeshift rules of blogging.

And I won’t end this post with a question, even though that’s what I’m supposed to do…

Hey!  I am so excited.  There are only 2  more weeks left before our big move to Japan!  I already changed my Twitter bio and home and about pages to reflect that I’m in Japan, even though I”m actually not there yet.  I figured I’d let Google know in advance since they take a while to process that info.  :)

Well, I’ve had a fine week listening to Awesome Fear-Wrangling interviews.  I was feeling down, but the interviews and worksheets in Awesome Fear-Wrangling have motivated me again.  I really like the advice that Kelly Diels gave at the end of her interview.  She talked about keeping your head down and focusing on the baby steps rather than looking up at the huge mountain that you want to climb.  If you work on taking those small steps, before you know it, you’ll be halfway up the mountain by the time you look up again!

Anyway, I wanted to share some links with you that caught my interest this week.

Launch Fatigue and How Not to Be an Infomercial

This post and the comments that follow it discuss a lot of the stuff that I’ve been thinking about lately.  I have been overwhelmed with the number of launches that have been going on in the last few weeks.  It’s like every other day, somebody I tune into via email, Twitter, or RSS is launching a product or limited time offer.  I can’t buy it all, even though it all sounds very enticing. As one of the commenters pointed out, I think the issue is that the clique of people whose messages I’m tuned into is feeding from the same pool.

On Being Sick and Tired of Content

I agree that people are starting to sound like broken records by talking about the importance of “content” on the web. But hey, I do it too because content is important and I create content for a living, as a web copywriter/web content writer for small businesses.  I disagree with churning out junk content just to rank, but if you’re writing stuff that helps people and boost your website’s visibility, where’s the harm in that?

A thousand flavors of awesome

Worried that you won’t be able to build a successful online business because you aren’t bubbly and outgoing?  Well, even though this post comes from someone who is admittedly gregarious, it is reassuring.  You cannot appeal to everyone, so don’t bother.  Position yourself in a way that resonates with the right people.

The only element I think is missing from this article is the “how,” as in, how do you find people who appreciate who you are and how you do business?  If you build it, they will not come.  It’s often recommended that you, “add value,” and “join the conversation,” but it’s really not that simple.  You could churn out free content till you’re so burnt out that you want to gouge your own eyes out and still not see results.  I just don’t think personality-based branding works for everyone, just like everyone can’t be “cool” in high school, no matter how hard they try.

Have a good weekend!  I’m off to eat some completos, the Chilean version of hot dogs that’s slathered with mayo and avocado.  They look disgusting, but they taste pretty darn good.

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ritman/4325113277/

Building a website and promoting it to the world is scary stuff.

To keep your fears under wraps, it’s easy to fall into a routine of doing ‘safe’ things: blogging about the same old topics, branding yourself just like everyone else in your niche, or trying to appeal to everyone (and hence appealing to no one).

Well, that’s fear talking.  And if you let fear dictate your decisions, you’re doomed to a mediocre existence.

To work through my fears and overcome the anxieties that have come along with building and trying to grow my website, I just bought Awesome Fear-Wrangling, a new product by the lovely Catherine Caine of Be Awesome Online.

Catherine Caine has taken action x gazillion since launching her website at the end of last year.  Her business has grown rapidly in such a short amount of time.  I watched her from the very beginning (we met on the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint) and have been impressed and inspired by her progress.

In a few short months, Catherine has managed to build a loyal following, strong relationships with influential people, and a funny, value-packed blog with a welcoming atmosphere.  Go comment and you’ll see what I mean!

When Catherine said she was releasing a product to help people overcome their website fears, I hopped onto the advance discount list right away and bought the resource as soon as it came out.

I’ve listened to several of the interviews and started reading the materials in Awesome Fear-Wrangling and it’s been very eye-opening so far.  It’s also super reassuring to know that people I look up to have overcome the same feelings of self-doubt and insecurity in order to get where they are today.

Here are the wonderful people that Catherine interviewed for Awesome Fear-Wrangling:

Some things I’ve learned from Awesome Fear-Wrangling so far include:

• How to eliminate fear by focusing on helping others
• How to be “authentic” while maintaining my privacy
• How to break the scarcity mindset and embrace the abundance of opportunities in my life
• How to put an end to stuckness quickly

I could go on and on, but I’ll keep it short: Awesome Fear-Wrangling is inspiring, outlines specific fear management strategies, and helps you work through the icky fears that come with self-promotion, blogging, entrepreneurship, and online networking.  Putting these fear-taming strategies to work will help you take action and achieve your fullest potential.

Want to start pushing past the fears that are preventing you from taking bold steps towards your goals?

Then please consider investing in yourself and getting this product.

There are two options (yes, these are affiliate links):

The DIY Fear-Wrangling Package features interview recordings, worksheets, and cool bonuses for $97:

Click here to view more details

The Do-It-Together Fear-Wrangling Package is the whole shebang.  It features interview recordings, worksheets, cool bonuses, AND four 30 minute one-on-one support calls with Catherine for $247:

Click here to view more details

Oh, and it’s Catherine’s birthday today! Please wish her a Happy Birthday. Better yet, go get yourself a copy of Awesome-Fear Wrangling!

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunadirimmel/1845108081/

On your website, do you say, “I” or “we?”

Is your brand based on your personality, or is it based on a company logo?

When you first start building an online presence for your business, it might be tempting to hide behind a corporate façade.  I know that was my first move.

Prior to working on O’Copy, I was working with a different designer and going for something more corporate-looking.  I thought that in order to make more money and be successful, I had to have stock photos of people in gray suits talking on Blackberries on my home page.  Silly, I know.

Thankfully, I realized that pretending to be a big company was not going to attract the right kind of clients to my business.  I’m just not the corporate type – never was, never will be.  So, I obviously wouldn’t be happy working with that crowd.

When you hire O’Copy as your web copywriter, you do business with me.  No middle man, call center, or anything in between.  You know what to expect because I talk about myself on my blog and my about page.  I don’t pretend to be something I’m not.

But when you look at many small business websites, they look and feel corporate, even if they’re really not.  They make it sound as if they had a big office somewhere with hundreds of employees.  They say, “We,” a lot.  They have no personality.

Remember – people don’t want to buy from faceless companies; they want to buy from people.  You’re not going to sell more by pretending to be a big company when you’re actually a one-man/one-woman LLC working from a laptop on your dining table.

Be real.  Sprinkle some personality in your copy.  Take out the “We,” on your about page and replace it with “I.”  Let people get to know you.  You’ll have more fun because you’re not pretending to be something you’re not, and you’ll be able to work with clients that appreciate you for who you are – not a false image you’re trying to project.

Hola.  I write to you from an isolated Caribbean beach.

Kidding.  I can only dream.

The truth is that I write to you sick and swamped with work from the cold Atacama desert.  We move to Japan next month!  Right in time for the humid summer.

Here are some links that caught my attention this week.  Enjoy!

Four Ways to Find Out If Your Customers Are Active With Social Media

I like practical, applicable advice about social media.  This article teaches you how to do some research and find out if your target customers are using social media.  And if they are, these tools make it easier for you to e-stalk them.

It’s not about falling down, it’s about getting back up

This is a far cry from the usual for a dude who talks about going to war and building empires on his blog.  Nathan Hangen is a blogger who I’ve been following for a while now because I like his no-nonsense approach.  But on this guest post at Catherine’s awesomesauce blog, Nathan goes a little soft and talks about his past and how it made him who he is today.  And I agree that we should not focus on failure itself as the formula for success… it’s about how you react to the failure.

Tim Ferriss Scam!  Practical Tactics for Dealing With Haters

One of the inevitable consequences of putting yourself out there and doing your best work is that people will be jealous and their keyboard courage will get the best of them.  “If you are really effective at what you do, 95% of the things said about you will be negative.” (Scott Boras) For me, this was just a smart reminder not to worry about what other people think.  I’ve never had to deal with haters… yet.

Kick Your Email in the @

I have issues with email.  I leave my inbox open all day and it’s very distracting.  On some days, I find that I spend more of my day writing and checking emails than actually getting stuff done!  Email can be a total productivity-sucker if you don’t deal with it deftly.  Here are some smart tips for taming your inbox and cultivating a healthy relationship with email.

Got any good links?  Please share.

Oh, and have a great weekend!

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richlewis/3723498220/

There have been lots of discussions going on around the blogosphere about the importance of showing your bruises.  Of putting an end to secrecy.  Of showing your vulnerable side (because life’s not a press release).

But how much is TMI?

And how little authenticity makes things a bore?

Write in a conversational tone?  Check.

Talk like you talk in real life?  Uh huh.

Share the gory details about the near nervous breakdown you had the other day?  Ummm… maybe not.

We all have boundaries and things that we’d prefer to keep to ourselves or at least not reveal until we’re ready to let them go and move on.

Gather bits and pieces of the real you and put them on display.

I’m not going to make a sweeping statement and say that all bloggers who aren’t writing in a deeply personal way are boring because that’s far from the truth.  If we can learn something from what a blogger writes, we all benefit, no matter how impersonal the tone.

But it never hurts to show glimpses of authentic, unadulterated self.

I find myself attracted to bloggers who talk about their lives because I feel like I am getting to know the ‘real’ them.  I’m curious to check in and see how they’re doing, whereas with completely impersonal blogs, I’m more likely to skim, gather the golden nuggets, and skip off into the proverbial sunset.

But talking about your life doesn’t mean you have to delve into the details about the fights you get into with your significant other or your life’s lowest moments you feel like tearing all of your hair out and screaming – unless you can tie those events in with an important lesson.  You shouldn’t feel obligated to reveal things that make you uncomfortable.

But do attempt to strike a balance between personal and professional.

While I benefit from reading blogs that talk straight business, I find that my brain starts to get numb from the how to’s and tips after a while.

I like to know that there’s a human being behind the text I read; a human being that has struggled, succeeded, and experienced both the heights and depths of their joy and sadness – not a drone that churns out tips and tricks like clockwork.

The occasional peek of that vulnerable, emotional side of a person is enough to keep me interested.  But I prefer it when bloggers strike a balance.

When it’s too personal, it loses me because that’s not what I’m there for.  But if I can see that there is humanity behind the words and not just pure strategy, then I feel more drawn to the writing.

But if you’re trying to get clients out of your blog, isn’t unprofessional to be real?

We all have flaws.  We all screw up… even the best of us.  So, revealing the less-than-picture perfect aspects of our businesses and lives makes it easier for people to relate to us.

When I read about people who started from zero, it motivates me.  And I’d sure as heck rather buy a product from someone who failed, struggled, failed again, and then finally succeeded than from someone who had everything handed to them.

Essentially, being you and occasionally revealing your screw-ups is good for business.

What it really boils down to is this: what problem do you solve with your product or service?

How can you express that you or someone near and dear to you has dealt with the same problem and that you have the solution?

One of the best ways to help prospects to see eye-to-eye with you is by letting them know that you struggled with the same problem.  And there’s no better way to reveal that struggle than within your writing.

People will feel more compelled to buy a weight loss product from someone who used to be fat and now has washboard abs than from someone who has always had a hot bod.  They feel like they can achieve the same success because that person was once in their shoes.

Someone who’s trying to learn Spanish will feel more inspired to buy a study program from someone who used to speak terrible gringo Spanish, had trouble learning in school, but now speaks fluently, thanks to his perfected study program.

Aren’t sure how or aren’t ready to reveal your struggle?  Just make some space for you – the uncut version.

Say there were two online sellers offering the same Japanese kitchen knives.  Which seller would you prefer to buy from: the stiff, impersonal seller with a cookie-cutter website or the seller who writes captivating, personal content and treats you as if you were one of his buddies?

I’m sure a good number of people would choose the latter.

So, the ‘secret’ to being authentic is this: decide what you’re comfortable revealing.

You don’t have to beat yourself up all the time or talk about every failure or meltdown you have.

But if you think your perfect customer might relate to some of your trials and tribulations, then by all means, Omnia Extares.  Or in other words, let it all hang out.

Okay, so maybe not ALL of it.  But don’t be afraid to offer people a peek into the less polished version of your life.

It’s a balance I continue to seek…