The Studio Source.com

Image by Robert S. Donovan

Consider your blog
I have two questions for you.

Who are your customers?

And here’s the important one: are you writing for them?

I ask because I see way too many creative blogs that cater to colleagues instead of customers.

Sharing business tips with your people is a noble cause, to be sure, but if your intention is to sell your work, you need to go in another direction.

Image by wonderferret

Not too long ago, I had an enlightening telephone conversation about a resume. It was the usual collection of talking points and accomplishments, tidied into the expected categories and correct terminology. It was pretty much what you’d expect to see. Nicely done, but not thrilling.

We were discussing who would be looking at the document when the person in question mentioned a training course. As she went into detail, my jaw dropped, and I scrambled to find the information on her resume. There it was: the name of the course, the organization that offered it, and the number of training hours.

I pictured a bunch of people in a hotel meeting room, suffering through role-playing exercises and eating bad sandwiches.

The real story couldn’t have been more different.

You need to write something for your website, for an exhibition, for a prospective client. You want to get it right.

Writing can be intimidating if you don’t do it often.

You sit in front of the keyboard staring at the blank page, your fingers and brain refusing to make nice.

Paralysis sets in.

You fidget. Stare into space. Snack. Start, delete, start again.

Finally, words come. But they look a little strange. Stiff. Alien.

You finally get the job done, but it doesn’t sound anything like you intended it to. In fact, it doesn’t even sound like you.

How does that happen?