Small Business, Big Mindset

Stop Writer's Block: How to Never Wonder What to Write Again

Muscle Creative Season 3 Episode 81

We've all been there.

That darn blinking cursor. It's like it's taunting you, "Look at this big, blank page. You'll never figure out what to write. Such a waste of time. Loser."

RUDE.

This week I go over 15 ways you to always know what to write. I'm finally recording this episode because one of the most common things I hear from people is that they have no idea what to write about, especially when it comes to their business.

As well, you don't ALWAYS want to be strictly talking about your business, at least not in a way that it comes across that way.  Ideally, you'll make a connection to your audience... I always say to have an ongoing conversation with your audience - a copy as a conversation.

You may be like, "Okay, great,  I know how to talk about my product. But what else do I talk about? I'll tell you! Listen in for a few ways (15 to be exact) to keep the writing topic ideas coming.

If you need help with your copywriting, I have a bunch of different ways I can do that. One of them is my Copyedit Polish + Strategy service -  if you've written something and it's not performing for ya, not attracting engagement or sales and you need to get it to the next level to really engage and connect with your audience for that sale... you can send it to me and I'll give it a glow-up if you will, to really make it pop for you and engage those customers. I'll also look at all of your copy holistically and suggest strategic placement and perhaps additional copy to add to bring in more sales. Click here for more info!

Erin Geiger:

Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business. And to make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process. And this podcast, let's do this. Hey, Erin here, welcome to the small business, big mindset podcast. All right, this week, we're going to get into it, I'm going to go over 15 ways you can get ideas for what to write, because one of the most common things I hear from people is, I have no idea what to write about, especially when it comes to your business. Because you don't always want to be talking about your business, right as as far as like, what you sell what they can buy from you, you know, that sort of a thing, you want to make a connection to your audience, I always say have an ongoing conversation with your audience a copy as a conversation. And so you're like, okay, great, like I know how to talk about my product. But what else do I talk about? That even makes sense? So I know that people get writer's block, right? That blinking cursor gets you every time, it's hard to write from a blank page. So here's a few ways to keep the writing topic ideas coming. Alright, number one of 15 is brain dump memories. So just sit down, type it out, write it out, whatever feels most comfortable for you. And you can break it up into topics too. You can say like, early childhood, teenage years high school, college, but you know, whatever you want, you can say, whatever organizations you're in, you know, like book club running club, you know, you could do like Kid memories, like your own kiddos, or, you know, fun stuff you've done with your partner. So you can come up with these different topics that fit your life. And then just write out memories to start out with, you can just write sort of like phrases, you don't have to go into the entire memory, you can always go back to that if you want, you know, the time at the beach, when you know, my two year olds took his first swim or you know, whatever, you can just kind of do a one liner, and then later, you can go back and fill it out. The second one is look at the photos on your phone. So I've said this one before on different episodes, I think. But you know, there's so many memories, if you're anything like me, you have probably a couple of years of photos on your phone, hopefully that are backed up. But you can kind of scroll through and look at photos on your phone. And that's going to kind of get jog your memory of stuff that you've done. And you probably have both personal and professional photos on your phone. So scroll through those make notes as you go along. The third one is look at holiday photo cards. So we're big on our holiday photo cards and our family we send one out every year. No shade, don't do that. But we love to get them. So we get a bunch every year, we're so grateful for it. And we put them in photo albums like I cannot bring myself my husband's the same way to like throw out these holiday photo cards, because there's these memories and photos of your family and friends. So we and when I say we I mean Joey puts these cards into photo albums, right? So if you do that, or if you have photo albums, look through those. So you know and that's gonna jog your your mind of memories as well. Number four, is look at the memories in social media. So if you're on social media, like Facebook, you know, it'll say like, you know, memories on this day. And it kind of takes you back however many years that you've been on Facebook if something happened that day. So that's pretty cool to look through. As far as what happened, I'll jog your memory. Number five, is scroll through your social media accounts. See what are people talking about? Right. So you might you might be connected with personal and professional people, depending upon the social media platform. And be like, you know, kind of write down like, oh, so and so posted about this, even if it's like a friend got a new puppy, like write it down, because that will jog your memory of other things that kind of have to do with that maybe you had a puppy or maybe you will allow your employees to take their dogs to work. And that's something to talk about, right? And scroll through groups if you're a part of different Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups. See what people are talking about right? What's resonating was kind of getting people going. Number six is scroll through your LinkedIn profile. So I broke this out separately from the other social media accounts because this could be more of your professional memories. You can even just just scrolling through kind of like your online resume, different places you've worked, maybe the recommendations that people have made for you testimonials people have posted for you that can kind of get your mind going as well. And of course scrolling through, you know, your newsfeed your contacts on there. Back at help to number seven is brain dump realistic goals. So these are things you know you can achieve in the next 3060 90 Days to a year, I wouldn't go further than that, because we really don't even going a year. Like we've learned in the past few years, we don't even know what's gonna happen tomorrow. So, but these are realistic ones that you know that you can achieve. Okay, so now for number eight, you want to brain dump a pie in the sky goals. And number seven, you did realistic goals. And then number eight brain dump pie in the sky. So these are, this is your vision for your life. This is like ideally, like if you could have anything in life, this is what would happen, okay? These are goals that if you told someone else, they'd be like, Whoa, okay, those are big goals. Let's see if those really happen. You know, so you want to write those down, too. And then number nine, I want you to write down advice that you've heard for life, good or bad. Okay, because that's really good fodder, you know, for something to to explore further. It could be good or bad advice. So advice, there's good that you followed. And that worked out really well for you, or bad advice that either you followed and it did not work out or a bad advice that you knew you did not follow because you knew it was horrible. But those are really fun things and interesting things to write about. Number 10, is to write about advice you've heard for business. Number nine is for personal number 10 is for business again, good or bad, good advice that you took, or maybe didn't take, and what happened, bad advice that you took or didn't take and your thoughts behind that. Number 11, scroll through your inbox, see what headlines are out there and what others are talking about. Okay, so I'm sure you're like me, and you get a bunch of, you might even get a bunch of kind of cold marketing emails. And those are usually what not to do. Or you, you know, might see news headlines, or even retail sales, or all that kind of stuff, like what are what are people talking about, write that down. Number 12 is go through the podcasts, ones that you listen to, maybe ones that you know, you've yet to discover or listen to, that are in your niche or within your industry. And also you can just look at general podcast, you know, news podcasts and see what people are talking about that doesn't necessarily necessarily correlate with your business. And number 13 is do a similar thing, scroll through your like news, your notifications, blog posts, to see what's going on, what is the conversation? What is the narrative happening externally, that could kind of give you some ideas. And number 14 is scroll through your text messages. So you might be like Erin What, like that's personal. i You don't have to like you know, quote, unquote, spill the tea. But some conversations that you're having might spark a topic, okay, so you don't have to name names, or get into super personal things, but you'll be like, oh, yeah, so and so told me about that. And that reminds me of XYZ. And that could spark a topic. And then for number 15, the final one is scroll through movie releases events going on, in your area, or nationwide, those could spark a topic to Okay, so that's 15 things I just went over as far as what you can kind of look for, to get ideas for what to write. And again, all of these can be correlated to your business, but they're going to help you connect with your audience along the way. And kind of keep that two way street of conversation that conversational copywriting going so that your audience feels engaged, and like they're in the conversation with you instead of you just kind of like talking at them, they're a part of it. So I'm hoping that helps you. As always, send me a note at Erin at muscle creative comm with any questions or you know, just stuff you want to talk about. And, and then also, if you need help with your copywriting, I have a bunch of different ways I do that. One of them is at muscle creative comm slash copy edits, and I call it my my copy, edit and polish service or if you've written something and you kind of need it, to get to the next level to really engage and connect with your audience for that sale. You can send it to me and I will kind of take it to that next level, give it a glow up if you will, to really make it pop for you and engage those customers. So until next week, I hope you guys are doing well and I'll hopefully chat with you soon. Thanks for tuning in to the Small Business Big mindset podcast to keep the fun going check out Our Facebook group start and scale an online business For even more free trainings and resources from fellow entrepreneurs. If you haven't already, head on over to muscle creative calm and click subscribe to join our email list for weekly updates. And if you've enjoyed this podcast episode, check us out on your favorite podcast platform to follow us and give us a review. As always be authentic bring an insane amount of value and keep crushing it