Client Magnets Official Blog

I’ve been writing my Client Magnets newsletter (also known as an e-zine) since February 2002. The first one went out to a handful of people – now it reaches more than 20,000.

The newsletter has played a critical part in the growth of my business. Maintaining regular contact with your prospects, and consistently providing value each time is a great relationship builder and ‘cementer’.

Anyway, I think every ‘Client Magnet’ needs their own newsletter, yet practically once a week I hear the following question: ‘How do you come up with something to write?’

So in this article, I’m sharing my favourite newsletter secrets:

1. Believe that you have something worth saying and worth reading. There is no one else in the world with your combination of skills, talent and experience. No one. You have something worth saying and worth hearing. The problem is that you probably underestimate the things that are easy for you because you think ‘That’s obvious’ to everyone else. Here’s a newsflash. It isn’t!

2. Find your unique voice When I first started writing newsletters, I was trying to adopt an ‘expert’ tone, and I thought I had to come up with something really groundbreaking every week. It was agony! Each newsletter took me a day to write. When I realised that all I had to do was be myself, the writing process got MUCH easier. Now each article takes minutes, not hours.

3. Don’t try to please everybody. A couple of years ago I came across some negative feedback about my newsletter on an online forum. It’s no understatement to say I was shattered.  For the next few newsletters I wrote, I noticed that I wasn’t writing alone. There was a negative critic in the corner ridiculing everything I wrote, pulling faces, and shaking her head in disagreement. I started analysing everything I wrote from ‘her’ point of view. Finally I realised that the attention I was putting on this critic was stopping me from paying attention to those people who were interested in what I have to say, and decided to write on regardless.

4. Answer questions. I pay attention to the questions or issues that come up in coaching sessions, on training courses and teleseminars, or simply questions emailed to me. When I notice a common theme emerge, I respond to it.

5. Share your experience. From time to time I write about what’s happening in my own business – the good, the bad and the ugly. When I’m writing about the ‘bad and the ugly’ it takes courage to be that vulnerable in front of an audience. Yet I get an amazing response when I do. The amount of support that pours in is very touching. People seem to like hearing about the human side.  At the other extreme, I used to worry about writing about things that are going well. I was concerned that it would come across as bragging, or is alienating to people who are going through a more challenging time. But it’s inspiring to hear about other people’s successes, especially to those people who have been part of this journey and actually watched my business grow.

6. Don’t write it. Remember the purpose of the newsletter is a low cost way of staying in touch and sharing ideas with your prospects. No one says it has to be written. You could record an audio, or have a friend interview you on a subject, and then either get that transcribed, or simply upload the audio file to your website and email people a link to it.

7. Recognise that ‘writers block’ has nothing to do with lack of time or ideas
And everything to do with a fear of really showing up in the world and sharing your gifts. To quote Marianne Williamson, ‘We ask ourselves, who am I to be gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be?’. When you commit to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ you will cut through writer’s block like a warm knife through butter. With every step you take, you dissolve a little bit more resistance. Just start from where you are.