What’s the Point?

August 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Let me set this up right from the beginning: this post is about my business as an example. Yet, please let me be crystal clear here - it’s about you more. My goal is to be radically clear for you about the ways in which I try to serve you – now, and even more going forward so that you can use me in ways that make your life easier and your business thrive. 

Please note: In a surprise outcome, the process of writing it was really useful for my own business planning. I highly recommend you write a post like this for yourself. It’s a fabulous business planning tool.

Here goes…

In a recent conversation with a new reader to my blog (Hi, new reader! So happy you’re here!), I was gifted a very useful window into what a person might be thinking as they read through my blog content.

Here’s what she said (essentially):

“When I’m reading your blog, I’m often thinking, ‘Where is she taking me with this? And yet, I can’t stop reading. Your style is so unusual. It’s about way more than marketing or speaking. It’s so much deeper than that.”

Here’s what I heard:

“I like reading what you write. It’s engaging. Yet, I get lost on your point at times.”

While my ego loves hearing that my writing is engaging, I am also aware that many people would not stick with reading when they can’t see how the article applies to them and their real wants and needs.

This was incredibly useful information for me. And while it is only one person’s view, I actually see very clearly why she had that comment. I bet she is not alone in that feeling. I haven’t been as clear about why I write what I do on this blog about (essentially) how to communicate your life-changing message authentically and powerfully.

Clarity is critical to my goal of being immensely useful to you.

Since I’m going to launch a new version of my website in the next few weeks, now is the time to be radically clear.

This time, I really want to get the message right for you. I want it to tell you how I can be of service to you, really help you express yourself more powerfully in your own business (and life.) I want it to be obvious from your arrival the ways in which I can help.

Let me declare it right now. I’m  here in service of:

Your Soul Crafted Message. On stage, page and web.

When I write on my blog, create programs and otherwise share my (ahem) wisdom, my great desire is to help you:

  • Name your genuine, distinctive, powerful “flavor” of communication (the ultimate engagement of this is your “Expression Elan)
  • Craft a radically clear, compelling speech that magnetizes clients to you (the ultimate engagement of this is Speaking Coaching)
  • Write your own engaging, effective, authentically powerful web copy for your website
  • Create newsletters and other communication with your community that keeps them excited to be connected with you
  • Actually write that book you have living/brewing in you
  • Write blog posts, print articles and engage in social media in a way that feels awesomely “real” to you and expresses your great expertise

The truth is, doing these things takes way more than writing skill, stage presence, time management, brand articulation, consistency and speech-writing how-to.

You know why?

Because most of these moves require putting ourselves out there in ways that are scary.

The antidote to fear is to consciously bring calm, ease, and self-compassion into our experience. And this explains why I also write a lot about:

  • Inner Peace
  • Speech anxiety
  • Self-compassion
  • Courage/Fear

Further, and finally, as soul-inspired business people, our work and our personal lives are deeply intertwined.

While we may attend to different activities when we are focusing on one or the other, our effectiveness and ease in our business is dramatically impacted by our home and personal life. This is why I sometimes venture beyond our businesses into the home and personal realm. I don’t do this very often but if it feels like it will help you, I will do it.

Because my goal with every single article, program offering and product is to help you get your Soul Crafted Message into the world with ease, confidence and clarity so you can live and enjoy the business you came to build.

Tell me, please.

How else can I help? What do you wish I would write about in service of your message? You can comment here or you can email me at michelle [at] michellebarryfranco.com. Thank you for being here. I am honored to serve you.

 

[This sweet image of Pickle the Puppy peaking through the fence reminds me of how it can feel just before we leap out into full view with our message (or new website, in my case.)]

 

 

 

Filed Under: blogging, messaging

Why I forgo Food and Sleep to Read a Penelope Trunk Blog Post

August 17, 2010 By 4 Comments

penelope trunk Every time I see a new post in my inbox from Penelope Trunk, my heart skips a giddy little beat.

Why? You ask…

Because I know she’s going to say things that shock me, make me think, and unhinge my jaw at some point in almost every post.

I read a lot of stuff. I have a book collection that shames the Barnes & Noble business book shelf – and my parenting and self-help/psychology collections are just a few books shy of that business shelf. I read zillions of blogs, haphazardly, maybe like you do. I know many of us who spend a lot of time online skim the blog world throughout the day.

So, I’m saying, with all this reading I do, I rarely get shocked… flabbergasted…

…awed by the sheer gall and brilliance of an idea or connection between ideas like I do with Penelope Trunk. I love her writing because I can count on this amplified emotional experience that also teaches me some kind of otherwise mundane life lesson. I just dig that.

I dig it so much that if I see the post arrive when I’m already way past my bedtime and my eyes are dried out and I’m barely able to read, I still stay and read the whole thing. I miss the first five minutes of dinner if that’s when the post arrives – it’s so enticing to me. Even if I’m really hungry.

Not all of my friends read and like Penelope Trunk.

In fact, I have forwarded her posts, touted her audacious writing and passed her url onto almost everyone I’ve talked to for more than ten minutes about blogging. Three of my friends actively dislike reading Penelope’s blog, which totally blows my mind. They say they “don’t get it” and that it’s just too much oversharing about  her personal life. Which is what I love about her blog, in large part – along with the way she ties in sex, parenting, personal relationships and career so unexpectedly and (mostly) brilliantly.

I keep wanting to convince my friends who don’t love Penelope to read her because I know they’d see how great of a writer she is if they just read a little more.

Then I remember that they don’t have to love her.

In fact, that they don’t is a sign that she’s doing a bang up writing job after all.

And that’s the part I want to learn how to do even better – write so that some people don’t like it.

What about you? Do you write knowing that some people won’t like it? What’s your strategy?

Thanks eschipul for the photo of Penelope speaking. I was going to grab one from her site, but I’m afraid she’d get mad and we all know how scary it is to have the wrath of Penelope.

Filed Under: authenticity, blogging, writing

The Good Kind of Long Day

March 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday as our four-year-old “center” daughter and I were driving home from a “date day” including birthday party of one of her preschool friends (a ballet, tea party no less!), I had the thought: This has been a long day…. the good kind of long day. I wonder if she was having a similar feeling because right then she said, “Mama, are you taking a long-cut?” She meant was I taking a long way home, which I sometimes do when I just feel like driving a bit longer. But since I was taking the same route I usually take from that side of town, I wonder if she was expressing a similar feeling… a sense of a longer, more relaxed day in a way.

It got me thinking (later, after all the girls were in bed) about how time feels: days, hours, minutes, weeks. How it’s always the same in that a minute is always sixty seconds and a day is always 24 hours, but that’s not how time feels. It goes faster and slower – depending on what we’re doing and how present we are. The last few months have been full of hours that fling by like minutes and days that pass through almost unnoticed from late nights into early mornings.

That’s what I think was behind my sudden noticing of this good kind of long day I was having with my daughter yesterday. It was  a Sunday feeling day – like old Sundays used to feel. I liked it. It reminds me of Gretchen Rubin’s (of The Happiness Project) “The days are long, but the years are short” concept. Which also reminds me: you really should watch that video (grab a tissue beforehand)  if you are at all inclined to get lost in the frenzy of life’s details at times.

Part of me is thinking I should tie up this post with some connection between all of this parenting stuff and business ownership. After all, this is my business blog here, not my family blog. But you know what? I bet you can do that for yourself, if you need to – connect this concept of presence, enjoying the moment, living peacefully inside of a long day in your soul-driven business. For me, I just really wanted to share with you that feeling I had yesterday of the good kind of long day… and wish that kind of feeling for you sometime this week.

Filed Under: blogging, entrepeneurialism, parenting

Blogging Leads to More of Your Right Clients

March 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Starting a blog can feel daunting. I know because I thought about blogging a long time before I started to do it myself. Even then, I struggled to really get into blogging. I think the reasons for this struggle are similar for many of us who are in heart-felt business endeavors: 1. We like to listen to others so sharing our “expertise” in what appears to be a one-way fashion (which it’s not, but at first it really feels like it is) feels strange, 2. It takes a lot of confidence to put yourself out there in such a bold way to such a potentially gigantic audience, and 3. We already have too much to do so thinking of topics, figuring out how to write them in a way that’s interesting, and learning the technical aspects of blogging feels overwhelming.

If you can write reasonably well, you really should blog

If you listen to or read anything about marketing your business or private practice today you will hear how important it is to have an online presence – and one that attracts your Right Clients, fans and potential collaborators. The best way to do that – hands down – is blogging. (Actually, public speaking is even better, but that’s not an online endeavor, mostly… but more on that soon.) Blogging is a great way to be generous with your knowledge, invite conversation and show your expertise.

If you can Guest Blog, too, that’s a lovely bonus.

Eventually, if you keep at it for a while, other people might invite you to blog on their website, too. This is great news for a number of reasons: 1. you get a brand new audience, which means a whole new set of possible connections with you and your business, 2. you get “linkbacks” to your website, if they agree to add a link to your website – these are good for Search Engine Optimization, and 3. it is an endorsement from a third party that they think you have credible expertise.

You never know where these guest blog opportunities might show up.

After I wrote my first Working Retreat blog post, in which I talked about home swapping as a way to arrange a retreat at lower cost, I got an email from Lois at Home Base Holidays asking if I would guest blog on their companion blog about using home exchange for working retreats. (Which I did and here is that blog post.) What a cool opportunity for me. A whole new audience, and one that fits my Right Clients well because I work with solo business owners like counselors, social workers, therapists and artisans so often. Many of my clients chose to go into business for themselves so that they would have the flexibility to travel.

So, start your blog, if you haven’t already.

I really do relate to the uncertainty about beginning your blog. I know there are so many things that you could do to grow your business. And, I also know that blogging draws community and potential clients to your page. From there, it’s about creating  meaningful relationships just like in any other part of life. And you know how to do that. So give yourself this opportunity to reach a bit further in your connections.

Starting a blog can be really easy. If you need a few pointers to know where to start, get in touch via email or comments here. I am happy to point you in some useful directions.

Thank you to Foxtongue for the fabulous blogging via typewriter image.

Filed Under: blogging, marketing, networking, small business marketing, writing