How often do you come to write your content and find yourself hitting a brick wall? You’ve set aside time to put pen to paper but you simply have writer’s block! How do you get around that or how do you make the writing process easier when you’re on a tight schedule?
Find inspiration around you
Start to notice the things going on around you and take note of what other people are doing or share about. Use other people’s experiences to give you ideas and inspiration. All you need is an idea or a seed and you’ve got something to start from.
Plan ahead
Take a few moments every week to make a list of relevant topics or titles which you can use another time. Research what is trending, what other people are writing about and most importantly, what your audience will want to read or hear about. Your content should be relevant to the people who are likely to read it so they can gain the value and insight from what you have to say.
Keep a notebook
One of the best ways to never find yourself with writer’s block is to keep a notebook with you all the time and to jot down ideas as you think of them. Someone may ask you a question which you could later turn into a blog post. You may see something on an advertising board that gives you an idea about a series of ‘how to’s’ or tutorials. You may be in a coffee shop and find inspiration from the conversations that you hear. In all these situations, you don’t need to write a load of content there and then but make a note in your pad so that you have something to write about the next time you sit down to put your content together.
Research
When you hit writer’s block, hit the research button! Spend some time looking at other reputable businesses and industry leaders to see what topics are hot at the moment. Use Twitter to see what questions people are asking or what people are searching for – what’s popular and what subjects need to be addressed.
Research is a good process to go through regularly anyway, whether you have writer’s block or not – it keeps you up to date and in touch with those around you.
Ask your audience
What better way to give your audience the content they want to hear by asking them the question.
Ask them: what do they want to know about \ what would they like to learn \ what would inspire them \ what would help them in their business or life situations?
Gain insight directly from the people who the content is for. If you’re asking them what they need and you’re writing content to accommodate, they will come back for more.
When you hit writer’s block if can be an extremely frustrating time however with planning and keeping your eyes open to what is around you, it becomes easier to overcome. Have processes in place that when you get to a time when you are drawing a blank on content, you’ve already got a backup plan to help you through.
Keeping on top of social media content and regularly posting to a blog takes time and effort. If you’re using a multiple of social channels and are committed to providing valuable content to your audience, it can be a lot of content to write! Try to keep your message from going stale, keep relevant to your audience and be sure to be giving them content that helps them. If you’re providing value, you’ll have loyal followers, you’ll grow your audience and (hopefully) grow your business.
Remember that in everything you do, refer back to your initial marketing strategy and keep to your goals – long and short term – in order to measure what works, what you are achieving and the direction you are heading.
If you still find yourself hitting writer’s block and you know that writing is simply not your thing – talk to us about our content marketing packages.
Why not download our FREE Awareness Days Calendar to see if the day you’re stuck, there is something you could write about – at least you’ll be on trend!
When you started your business, you had passion and drive to see something happen, to see something achieved. You recognised a need and aimed to set out to achieve the solution.
What were the passions that got you started? What were the dreams that you had when you first created your business startup?
And more importantly, are you still heading in the same direction that you first set out in and achieving the goals that you wanted to accomplish?
How often do we start something and don’t see it through to completion?
How often to we get excited about a subject that we love but something gets in the way and we don’t finish?
Now is the time to get your head in gear and to reaffirm those goals and targets and make a plan on how you’re going to achieve them. Get your business back on track and take ownership of where you wanted it to go, where you are now and where you want to be in the future.
What things could help you get back on track?
What were your initial dreams?
Go back to basics, go back to the beginning when you first decided to start your business. What were the things that motivated you? What were the things that inspired you and gave you passion to want to make a difference?
What were the needs that you saw? How did you think you could achieve to solve them?
Write these things down. Keep a note pad or a section on your mobile device where you can keep looking back at these first passions and reasons why you wanted to start a business. Don’t lose sight of your passion. Don’t let go of what got you started in the first place.
Where are you now?
How long have you been running your business? Has it been 2 months / two years? Put into perspective what you have achieved in this period. Have you made the most of what you have accomplished? Have you become lazy in your efforts and lost the desire to make a difference or to help others?
Write these things down. Make a list of all the things that you have accomplished, all the things that matter most to you and what you have done with everything that you’ve started.
Don’t lose heart. Even if your list isn’t very long and you haven’t accomplished everything that you thought you would by now. NOW is the time to get back on track. NOW is the time to recoup and move your path back to the direction you know it should be heading.
If you’ve accomplished everything you planned to – well done! Congratulations on being able to adhere to a plan and sticking to your strategy. How have you achieved these points? How have you got to where you are today? Write these down too – these things are just as important as you may need them later on in life. And if you have achieved everything you set out to, what’s next? What plans can you put in place to reach even higher limits and aspirations?
Who do you aspire to?
We all have people that we look up to or perhaps think “I’d love to achieve what they’ve done!”. Are there people that you listen to you regularly on podcasts or read their books to gain insight? Having a mentor is an amazing thing and a way that we can have someone to help us along the journey and motivate us going forward. Having inspiration and motivation and learning how to stay positive helps us in both our business and personal life. It keeps us going and gives us hope. It gives us something to work towards and allows us to be open to suggestion or guidance of people that have ‘been there and done that’.
If you don’t currently follow anyone in that way or you have a mentor or coach, take some time to search online for industry leaders, for thought leaders, for motivational speakers, for business coaches in your niche. All these people will push you in the right direction and will help you to stay on track and focus in your business.
Let’s get back to basics. Let’s go back to where your business began and really delve deep into what it was that started you off. This is not a quick process and not something that you can do on a whim. Any business owner that wants to be successful has to take time to work out what their dreams and passions are and to plan and make a strategy of who to achieve those dreams. Don’t start something and give up; if you have a passion, use that to get results.
If you’re looking for someone to coach you back into loving your business and giving you a way to realise your full potential again, we’d love to chat with you. Don’t go it alone. Don’t think that if you’ve tried once, you’ll never succeed again. Love yourself, love your business and watch process unfold as you come back to basics and see business growth.
We all have our own approach in how we view or look at leadership and what makes a leader. It can depend on your environment, the type of industry you are in or even your own personal life. But what makes a great leader is the attitude to see results and lead by example as well as getting the job done.
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates
So what makes a great leader?
We must believe in what we are doing and have faith that are able to achieve it. This does not necessarily mean that you’re going to do all the work, but you learn to delegate or lead by example in order for a task to be complete.
A leader is used to make hard choices and to take the initiative to say yes, or no, to a problem or solution. It’s very easy to get swept along with the tide in busy business environments or to get into a routine that doesn’t allow for improvement. However leadership really is a mindset that is in action. A leader doesn’t need a title, they believe in what they are doing and they act on that, taking initiative to see something through to completion. The title is not given, it’s earned.
“The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.” – Peter Drucker
If you want to make the move from managing to leading, from being a professional to being an inspirer, from being one of the team to being a leader of the team, you need to know the ABC of Superlative Leadership.
Take a read of the Leadership ABC’s:
Let’s take a look at these in more details:
A is for Appreciative Cultures, the end result of a leader’s work, when the culture he or she fosters becomes an appreciative value of the company.
B is for rock-solid Belief that your team can move mountains.
C is for Culture, which is the way people behave when you’re not looking.
D is for the Drive for Power that makes you want to lead.
E is for Encouragement, like sun after the rain.
F is for Fun, an indication that the right work is happening.
G is for Growing your people and believing that they can achieve their goals. Putting them first.
H is for Helicopter vision, because you need to see in three time zones: the near, the middle and the far.
I is for leader Identity, the ability to be comfortable in your own shoes.
J is for Joy because leaders rejoice in their own blessings as well as the successes of their team.
K is for Knowing your people, not just by name and number, but by strength and weakness, character and spirit, skills and potential, what makes them sigh and what makes them soar.
L is for Learning, because learning is change and learning is growth.
M is for Mission which leaders live as well as dream and portray.
N is for the Nobel complex, the belief that everything your people do is worthy of a Nobel prize.
O is for Opportunity. Take hold of everything you can in order to see results.
P is for Plain-talking because leaders need to be understood.
Q is for Questions, such as “What do you need me to do?” and “How can I help you work better?” and “What should I be doing?”
R is for Respect, the touchstone of every relationship a leader has.
S is for Symbols, the language of leadership.
T is for the Traits of courage and determination, patience and perseverance.
U is for Unleashing what’s there, allowing team members to express themselves and explore new ideas.
V is for Values, the guiding principles of the team, or “the Walkmans of the mind”.
W is for the Way, the Chinese “tao”, the route that leaders take and others follow.
X is for Xtraordinary because leaders get ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
Y is for Yes, because there is always a plus to be found even in the worst situation and the toughest setback.
Z is for Zero tolerance of failure, sub-performance and giving up.
Learn these simple principles and there are no limits to where you can lead your team.
Can you add to these points? Do you have your own A,B,C of leadership that you apply to your way of working? Please comment below and share.
There are certain times throughout the year when we are looking for a little motivation or inspiration to get our acts together and be able to move forward. Whether that be with our business or personal life – a little nudge can be a great encouragement.
So why are inspirational or motivational quotes so important? They lift your spirit, they give you food for thought and they encourage you to keep going, keep trying and to help you push forward towards your goals.
Everyone needs them at some point and often we don’t even realise! So with that in mind, we thought we’d put together some motivational quotes to help you if you’re going through one of those moments at present.
“Think about how you want other people to perceive you before you move forward in action” – Karen Petrauskas
“Start the week with a positive attitude and let the rest of the week flow with positivity” – Karen Petrauskas
“Often your first thoughts are the right ones – believe in yourself” – Karen Petrauskas
“Dream big and set your goals high – if you want it bad enough, you have it in you to succeed” – Karen Petrauskas
“You are who you are – you were fearfully and wonderfully made. So let your creativity flow” – Karen Petrauskas
“Be true to what you believe and don’t change your views to fit in with others – stand out from the crowd and be YOU” – Karen Petrauskas
“Do what comes naturally and follow the inner voice. First thoughts are often the best” – Karen Petrauskas
“Delegate the things you’re not best at and push forward in the things you love to do. Good business sense” – Karen Petrauskas
“Learn the art of delegation – so that you can experience more of life and thrive on what you enjoy to do” – Karen Petrauskas
“Stop and take time to notice the world around you. Learn to love life and appreciate all it has to offer” – Karen Petrauskas
We hope these will inspire you for the year ahead. If you’re looking for a helping hand in moving your business forward with online marketing this year – get in touch, we’d love to help!
Why not plan out your social media motivation quotes throughout the year with our FREE to download social media planner. Here you’ll find lots of awareness days and monthly hashtags to keep you inspired from January to December!
If you’re anything like us here at KJP Creative, you’ll love Pinterest and Instagram – and now it’s simple and easy to schedule all your favourite inspirational quotes into your social accounts with no fuss at all! You can start for FREE as well – Join Tailwind and start pinning TODAY 🙂
Do you often find yourself in a place where you need to be motivated and inspired to keep you on track?
Are you in the right mindset and ready to get your thoughts pointed in the right direction to make your business a success?
If not, then please please get in touch with us here at KJP Creative. Being in the right mind will enable you to do amazing things and staying positive and thinking. You need to have the right inspiration and support behind you. You need to be motivated and to be kept on track.
Support is a wonderful thing and when you’re starting out in business it can be a very lonely road. But please be assured that you’re not alone and there are people there to come along side you.
Today we’ve got a few tips for you – just a couple of programmes that we use to make our lives a bit easier so we don’t forgot things as we get stuck in to the busyness of lief!
Evernote
Evernote is a fantastic programme which you can have either on your laptop or phone and it’s basically a note pad / to do list / Dictaphone all in one. It’s perfect and is there at your times of need!
We use Evernote for personal and business use as it’s always with us. When writing shopping lists or to do lists for home, you can make notes.
When you’re sat in the school car park with a blog post ready in mind, make notes!
You can organise your notes and create separate notepads per category as to make things easier and more efficient when dealing with different aspects of your life / business and it’s such a handy piece of kit that we love it!
You are also able to sync your mobile app with your computer so when you’re out and about making notes, they’ll all be at home waiting for you when you get back!
Hootsuite
The next programme is Hootsuite. This is a social media manager and allows you to connect up your different social media accounts and manage them all from one dashboard. How much easier is it to log into one central place rather than into each individual account and make/create your posts.
This also allows you to schedule your posts or tweets so you can easily plan the next week or month in advance and not worry about tweeting or posting every hour.
It’s fantastic and it’s FREE! Can’t be better than that.
This will really save you time and effort. It’s great to log in on a Monday morning, write out the posts you want for that week and then forget about it for the next few days – if you’re working on your own or you even just want to use it for your personal social media accounts, it will save a great deal of time, which is brilliant to say the least! We highly recommend it – and you’ll definitely notice the difference.
Canva
Canva is a great platform for creating beautiful images. You can create images of any shape or size and really is a great FREE app for anyone creating social media posts or marketing material. Your images are available to download straight away (free of charge) and can be .jpg / .png / PDF format.
If you’re yet to discover Canva and you’re looking for the perfect, simple and quick way to design artwork – this is the place to be. It’s available to use on desktop or mobile and both accounts can be linked together so if you’re on the go or at home, your images are kept in one place.
So, hopefully these tips will save you time and let you spend more time on the things that help you build your business and keep you motivated.
Design your own App
If there’s not an app out there that suits you, why not create your own!
You may be thinking that you don’t know the first thing about designing an App as well as App-making software, and yes if you went to an app developer and asked them to help it would probably cost a fortune. However, there are tools out there which can take you through the process and make it as easy as possible. This would enable you to a) make money on the side if people like your app software and b) provide you with something that fits your organisational requirements.
Just a little food for thought – every idea is a good idea. Just making it work is where the work comes in!
If you’re looking for help to get yourself motivated and in the right mindset to be successful, we’d love to help. This is the first step in conquering your journey and being successful in your business. Organisation, preparation and motivation… key elements to success.
Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss how you can push forward in your own business and in life… We’re here to help at the click of a button.
