“any guidance or direction on how to move the dial even just a little more?”
In response to a recent email about choosing one thing and focusing on it for a minimum of six months, reader Evan Cook writes,
“I’ve been writing fairly regularly since 2015. I’m decent with video and audio but writing is my jam. Looking back, I can see I’m improving when compared to my older work. But I’m still not gaining the traction I’d like as a coach. Other than patience and persistence, any guidance or direction on how to move the dial even just a little more?”
–Thank you for asking such a great question Evan.
Readers of my work will be familiar with the two golden rules:
- Do a great job
- Make sure everybody knows about it
–One without the other results in frustration.
Evan, your message above hints at a few things:
- You have been ‘fairly regular’ with writing, but it hasn’t been a strict focus.
- You have dabbled in a few other things (video and audio) even though you know that writing is your jam (why?)
My first question to you is how much focus you’ve put into really developing your writing. Have you dabbled? Or have you made it a practice, studied it, and worked at it like it was your job?
My guess is that you’ve dabbled and there is nothing wrong with dabbling, but it isn’t deep work and without deep work and focus on a task for a long enough time to develop a skill in that thing to set you apart from the pack, you won’t get much of a result.
But mostly, Evan, its rule #2 that I wish to discuss.
In my email yesterday I used the example of Facebook video and said that part of the work is networking to find syndication partners for your video.
Creating great content isn’t enough. You must also market that great content.
Do a great job (50%)
Make sure that everybody knows about it (50%)
–Both are skills to be developed
Evan, when it comes to your writing, I would ask you how much time and effort you have put into learning how to market that writing?
- Have you studied copywriting to ensure that your headlines attract eyeballs and ledes draw in the reader? (do you even know what a lede is?)
- Do you understand story structure to make your work engaging and personal to the reader?
- How is your website formatted? Is the typography clear, font large enough, spacing adequate, and reading area free of distractions?
- Does your website have appropriate calls to action to share the material or buy from you?
- Have you developed a proper opt-in email automation and sales sequence to profit from your writing?
- Do you syndicate your work on other platforms, bringing you new readers?
This is not a complete list, Evan, but it’s a start. There’s a reason why some artists flourish and others flounder. It’s a 50/50 game. Great work is important and I wish that it was enough, but it’s not.
You’re not alone Evan.
There’s a huge amount of fit pros not living up to their potential.
Most of them have the potential to help their clients. The problem is that the suffer from a lack of marketing awareness and prowess.
Even with services like Fitness Marketing Monthly designed to solve this very problem, most fit pros (and even readers of this message) will ignore my advice. They’ll continue to invest their continuing education dollars and time learning more about fitness and wonder why, despite their ability to elicit transformational change in their clientele, they are having trouble building a business.
Perhaps the problem is an addiction to immediacy. I don’t know how to get fast business results that are sustainable Evan. Every method that I know that could potentially work overnight, will stop working just as quickly and without notice.
So I don’t teach those methods.
Instead, my team and I craft materials for the more patient fit pro. Those willing to learn the deep skills needed to market and stand out regardless of platform thereby rendering themselves immune to changes outside of their control.
We put our best stuff into each issue of Fitness Marketing Monthly. Most won’t subscribe. That’s just the unfortunate truth that I’m forced to live with.
The decision is yours. People like us will keep on rocking either way. There’s no pressure and no time sensitivity to join us. You can join today, or tomorrow, or a month or year from now. When you’re ready to make the move to take back control your business, FMM is there for you. Here’s the link:
-Coach Jon
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This article was originally published on OnlineTrainer.com