Internet Marketing Lesson in a Hat

To celebrate my birthday (December 11th), Ed and I took a quick trip down to Leavenworth, Washington.

When we arrived, the streets were jam-packed with tourists and locals there for the Christmas Lighting Festival being held later in the day. As it was darned cold and somewhat windy, we took frequent advantage of what Ed called the ‘people warmers‘ which were placed at strategic intervals along Main Street. Whenever we stopped at one, we engaged in polite chat with others who were also crowding around the heaters.

However, despite the warmth, my ears were at risk of freezing and falling off, because I'd forgotten my hat at home. So, it was off to “The Hat Shop”, where I picked up the little red gem shown in the picture above right. 🙂

Well, so much for ‘polite chat'!

All of a sudden, we were talking with almost everyone we passed. Little kids stared and pointed; while adults smiled, laughed and called out ‘love the hat!' and ‘where'd you get it?'. Of course, there was immediate bonding with the many others who were also wearing weird and wonderful hats.

Just as my hat set me apart from the crowd and made others more inclined to stop and talk, you need to do the same with your Internet business and website.

In other words, your site has to be unique, or as I like to call it, YOU-nique.

And the best (and easiest) way to do that is just to be yourself.

For example, any reader who has read one or more of my articles on this blog will ‘get' who I am and what I'm about because of my writing style. And that style is all me because I write just like I talk — straight-up and direct. One of the nicest compliments I ever received was from a regular reader whom I met at a conference. He said

even if I hadn't seen you, I would have known it was you, just by listening to you talk!

Awesome… that's exactly what you want to hear!

So, if you spend time agonizing about how to write everything ‘just perfectly'… relax.

Speak it.

Tell it to a friend.

Then write it down just as you would say it.

By doing that exercise, you will come through in your writing, and your readers will connect with the real you which is the person they really want to know.

If you want to speak and write at the same time, check out Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard. I'm on my third edition of the software, and the latest version (10) is a vast improvement over earlier editions. Although you still have to ‘train' the software to recognize to your voice and it's nuances, much less training is involved with version 9. I bought it originally when I was having trouble typing because of the pain in my wrists (brought on by too much typing), but kept using even after they got better.

My question to you is… how much time does it take you to write your average blog post or article. Do you find it fun & easy or more like pulling teeth — and why?

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,