Going Deeper

One of the biggest lessons that I pulled from writing my first book was a sense of style.

I was talking to Jeff Matlow today, (One of the coolest guys I’ve met recently. He has a great substack newsletter if you want to look him up) and we were talking about everything from LinkedIn gurus and coaches, personal branding, and how to craft a persona online.

He paid me a compliment that I was not deserving of and then followed up with, “I don’t know if you’re really smart and you purposefully designed your image or if you just stumbled upon it. Either way, it’s really working.” He was trying to be nice, and I appreciated his honesty. It was slightly humbling.

The truth is, it’s a little of both.

I enjoy helvetica neue, black, gold and white for ‘my colors’, hand-drawn images with think pencil strokes, and inserting a little bit of dry humor in almost everything that I write.

Those aesthetic details make me stand out from other writers.

More important than the feel and look is the voice that I choose to write with.

Notice the bottom of this icy mass. 👆

I pointed out to Jeff that although getting the right image and personal brand right is important, I personally have felt that people are wasting too much time on it.

I’m guilty of it. I thought it really mattered. The social media gurus didn’t help the situation.

I spent a TON of time sitting on the top of this styleburg, fretting about the headline, featured section, how things looked as a whole—for what?

It’s important for sure. After all, it’s still a part of the styleburg. But if you don’t have the two parts underneath the water, you won’t have any staying power. You don’t have any substance. Over time, you will blend in with all the other icy chunks at sea.

Which brings me to the brand peddlers:

(n.) A guru who insists that time spent with them will bring you glory, gold, and gargantuan results.

There are brand peddlers everywhere. They insist that they can give you a course, consult with you for a few sessions, and in the end, you’ll have that professional image bound to get you more attention.

More impressions and likes and leads and…stuff. “More people seeing you, more people buying from you.” And stuff.

But does that work?

If you’re anything like me, you could care less about pure awareness. Sheer exposure without a purpose doesn’t mean anything. I can see your profile pic or your posts again and again and still feel dead inside.

That’s what makes the voice and message so important.

By discovering, harnessing and executing on the voice and the message, (as well as talking to the right audience) then you can start to create an enduring brand.

Potentially the best endorsement I have to date. 👆

Is there a formula to bring out the correct voice?

My only answer is write like a freakin’ banshee. If you’re really wanting to improve your craft and bring out your voice, there’s only one satisfactory plan forward: Start typing.

In the last few years, I’ve been writing nearly daily. I’ve probably amassed north of 500,000 words. Maybe more.

Writing is thinking materialized. And when you’re starting out, your thinking may be surprisingly unclear.

In the beginning, you’re not happy with how you bring ideas to life on the page. It’s humbling to watch yourself stumble through sales pitches, emails, blogs, or social media posts.

You will think to yourself, “I’ve been writing since, what? Five years old? Don’t make that face at me, Ticonderoga pencil. I’m sorry. No! Don’t go! Oh, how the mighty have fallen!” And then you’ll hang your head in shame, remembering your first A+ on your 5 paragraph essay from middle school.

Those were the good ol’ days.

So allow the keyboard to come alive with the sound of music. Let the clicking and clacking commence. Pound the spacebar until there’s a little black dot as a battle scar.

When you’ve done it enough in different environments, you’ll find that not only have you emerged from the mind fog as a better thinker, you will have a distinguishable voice in your writing.

More than that, you’ll have control.

You’ll have a better feel for your sentence structures and the role that rhythm plays in moving the reader along. You’ll be able to better sense how certain pieces of your writing makes them feel—which may be the most valuable skill of all.

Finally, we bring the message into the picture.

This is will be subject of many posts to come, but I want to end on this image.

It’s the age old debate of volume writing vs. focused writing.

There are probably better terms for what I’m about to explain, but this is what I’m going with.

Two types of sea currents. One is better. 👆

If you’re of the Gary Vee school of thought, your content marketing and social media strategy is about volume. You want to overrun the channels with your face, platitudes, and bombastic speeches with tons of F-bombs.

Let it fly, son.

When covering lots of ground and winning territory quickly, I think this has a place. There are probably some situations where volume is king.

I just don’t find it to be very appealing.

I associate it with the fluffy content that floats around LinkedIn—TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK. TREAT PEOPLE WITH RESPECT.

Much like dandelion seeds blowing every which way in a spring breeze, jargon and business cliches spread all over the social media landscape. And what do you eventually have to pull out of your garden? Weeds.

It gets clicks.

It’s unbelieveable.

Why? It doesn’t challenge a soul.

It’s obvious yes content. “You shouldn’t hit kittens with canoe paddles!” Who is going to disagree with that?

On the other side of things, you have the focused group. If you’re in this tribe, you side with people like the Category Pirates. One of their mantras is, “We only put out legendary content.”

Translation = We will not release anything out into the wild unless it’s pretty darn close to perfect for the people that engage with us.

I would also include that on the focused camp, there is the principle of building super users and consumers (people that enjoy your content and follow you often) and delivering top-notch content to them.

This carries far beyond the stream of social media writing. The idea of focused writing and content marketing gets into the waters of email, sales letters, graphic design, newsletters, etc.

I don’t enjoy templates for this reason.

Whenever I go to contact, I do it in small bunches, having done plenty of research on the person, and give them a 1 to 1 experience.

It takes a lot of time. It’s not entirely scalable.

It does deliver good results.

Going back to the styleburg, your potential customers want to have a highly personalized interaction with you—the message matters. The delivery matters.

Everything else above the water? Not as much.

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If we’re not connected on LinkedIn, do it now.

If you want to buy my book, also do it now.