Year: 2021

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How you can write great marketing content

A woman enjoying great marketing content.

How many times have you heard that ‘content is king’ and that you need to create great marketing content if you want your business to grow? If I had a pound for each one, I’d be a much richer woman by now. If you’ve ever heard one of these hopelessly general statements and wondered where to start without spending a fortune, I have good news. Here are my top 5 tips for creating marketing content that speaks your customers’ language.

Know your customer

If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know this is a common theme. Creating good content starts with understanding who you want to talk to. At its simplest this means working out who you help and where you’ll find them. If you could (theoretically) help anyone, start by thinking about who you most enjoy working with. I could work with any business but prefer small business owners. They’re often also business owning mums – maybe we just speak the same language?! You can find out more about getting to know your customer here.

Show your personality

The difference between you and every other business that does the same thing as you is – drum roll please – you. This is particularly true if you’re a one-person business. Your character, values and the way that feeds through into your business is incredibly important. Your customers might choose you over your competitors simply because they like the way you come across. That could be because you share the same values. It could equally be because they feel as if they’re chatting to an old friend when they read your social media posts.

Find your content focus

Good content has a clear focus and sticks to the point. If your blog posts meanders off on multiple tangents you’ll lose your audience, especially if they only have time for something short, sweet and helpful. Of course, if you’re offering up the ultimate guide to something then it’s going to need to be long. There’s nothing wrong with that. The important thing is that you bring everything back to one central thread. If you find yourself sticking to the point and still writing loads your topic could be too big.

Do your research

Research doesn’t just prevent you from going over old ground. It can help you to find your own angle on an existing topic. One of the biggest obstacles to creating great content (or any content at all) is the thought that somebody, somewhere, has already written about it all. They probably have, but they haven’t written your take on it. Research allows you to potentially find a gap, but it could also give you something to respond to. If you read advice that you disagree with, write your own.

Edit at the end

The best content has writing that sounds like you. It helps your audience to imagine that they’re sitting down having a chat with you. That doesn’t happen if you’re overthinking every sentence, worrying about grammar or whether you should use a more sophisticated word. Plan your blog post then sit down and write. You can also dictate into Word if that works better for you. Let the words come out naturally and tidy it all up later. There will be more on this in a future blog, so watch this space!

Do you need to create great marketing content? I can help with that. Click here to book a chat with me about your options or find out more about my blog writing packages here.

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Case study – creating new content ideas for Birkett Consulting

Case study about coming up with new blog topics.

I first met Ros Birkett via a networking group (which is pretty much how I meet everyone these days). She’s utterly lovely and a brilliant person to have a coffee and a natter with. When it comes to branding and marketing, what Ros doesn’t know frankly isn’t worth knowing. She’s the owner of Birkett Consulting, working with a range of clients to deliver adverting and marketing that gets results. In a nutshell, she knows her marketing onions, which is why it came as a bit of a surprise to get an email asking if I could help her to come up with some topics for her blog.

The challenge

When Ros got in touch, Birkett Consulting was in the midst of a website makeover. All of this was happening alongside the day-to-day work involved in running a busy agency and serving clients. There was also the small matter of getting to grips with an in-depth SEO analysis report for a client that ran to over 100 pages. Ros was faced with two main challenges. Firstly, that she was struggling to find blocks of time that would allow her to focus on website tasks. Secondly, all the topics she was reading about seemed a bit predictable. She wanted some fresh ideas that would help her to get the messaging right as we emerged from lockdown.

The solution

To start the process, Ros and I arranged a Zoom call to talk through Birkett Consulting’s marketing basics. She described her customers and the services that she wanted to focus on in the blog. Ros’ awareness of her customer base meant that I could focus on the topics that would have most impact. We also talked about bringing a bit of humour back into marketing to lighten things up after lockdown.

After our chat, I went away and came up with four possible topics using a combination of tools, including my own random marketing thoughts. I’m looking forward to seeing the results when the new website launches.

Could a fresh pair of eyes on your business help you to speak more effectively to your audience? Get in touch and let’s have a chat.

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Top tips to help you identify and enforce strong and healthy boundaries

Many of us set up our own businesses so we can have more freedom and autonomy.  So we can dictate when and how we work, who we work for, how much money we earn and where we sped our time.  All this extra time we will have when there’s no boss dictating to us. 

Fast forward to being in the thick of running your own business and you wonder how you could have been so naïve!  Instead of just having your main role to do, you are now wearing ALL of the hats for your business – Accountant, Social Media Manager, Admin, Content Creator, Salesperson, Marketer to name just a few – leaving you with little very little of the headspace or freedom that you once imagined was part and parcel of being self employed. 

So how do you change that? 

One of the main ways is to get some clear boundaries in place.  Women tend to be people pleasers.  Most of my clients don’t want to let people down so take on too much and do everything for everyone else and actually let themselves down in the process. 

There’s lots of talk about setting healthy boundaries but what actually is a boundary? A boundary is an imaginary line that separates you from others and vice versa.  When you think of a physical boundary, it’s the image of a fence around a property to keep you safe inside and others from coming in.  But there is always a gate that swings both ways to allow ease and flow. 

These physical boundaries are clear for all to see but when we talk about emotional boundaries, they are much more difficult to recognise and enforce. 

But how do you go about recognising and setting boundaries when everything feels like it has a competing priority? 

Here are my top tips to identifying and enforcing strong and healthy boundaries 

  1. First of all, you need to identify what your boundaries are.  Boundaries are very unique to you as an individual so yours might be very different to your best friends’.  Spend some time (ideally a month so you can track it against your hormone cycle) noticing when someone has crossed your boundaries.  Blaming yourself, feelings of shame and guilt, justifying your behaviour, sensing that something is “off, using words like “should” are all signs that your boundaries are being crossed.  Make a note of when these situations occur, who you are with, time of day etc… It’s important not to judge these observations.  You are just collecting data to analyse. 
  2. When you have tracked these observations, take a look at what you have captured and look for any patterns.  Is there a certain day of the week or a particular activity you are carrying out or a certain person you are with etc… that triggers these uncomfortable feelings? 
  3. Name the emotion that you feel – angry, sad, frustrated.  When you do this, it detaches you from that emotion so that the feeling isn’t part of your identity, it is a feeling that will pass. 
  4. When you have identified any patterns and feelings that arise, explore what this means for you.  If it always happens with a certain client, is this someone you want to continue working with?  If it always happens at a certain time of the month, do you need to block time out of your calendar at that time in hour cycle for more self-nourishment?  
  5. When it comes to emotional boundaries, you need to make sure you communicate them.  This can be as simple as stating in your email signature or sending an automatic out of office that stipulates your working hours.  Make sure you stick to those hours.  If you have said you only respond between 9am – 5pm, be consistent with that message.  If you are catching up on work late at night, make sure you delay the delivery of your emails to the following morning at 9am so that people don’t expect you to be working late into the night. 
  6. For boundary setting on a more personal note, this can feel really vulnerable and scary so my advice is to start small.  Begin by communicating your boundarires to someone you know really well and feel comfortable with so it’s a safe space.  Eg this could be to your partner.  Let him or her know that they may see a change in your behaviour because you have realised that you need to set boundaries to protect your time / energy and health.  You don’t have to elaborate or explain further than that.  Just be clear that they will notice a change in you and invite them to help you stick to your new boundaries so it’s collaborative. 
  7. Invite and respect other people’s boundaries.  When collaborating, ask the other party what their boundaries are such as their working hours, what method of communication they prefer, what their non-negotiables are and share yours too from the outset.  This role models healthy boundaries for others too. 
  8. This will take practice so continually be on the look out for when boundaries are crossed as in point one above.  Be consistent and tweak your boundaries as they evolve.  They will change in new situations and different times in your life so make sure you make it a regular practice to notice and enforce healthy boundaries.  You will notice a positive change in your mental and physical wellbeing as a result and although tricky at first, will result in healthier relationships with less resentment and guilt. 

About Ellie

I’m a strengths & leadership coach based in South Manchester.  I’m a mum of 3 little hurricanes, wife, recovering perfectionist and introvert.

I was a coach before I even realised it.  People used to say how natural I was at developing others but didn’t really understand what that meant.  It turns out I have made a career out of it in various guises throughout my 15 years of leadership within large organisations.

I have combined my coaching skills with my passion for helping people thrive in their working life by setting up Elevate with Ellie in January 2021 where I specialise in helping small business owners get the best out of their people.

Here is where you can find out more about me:

www.elevatewithellie.co.uk

https://www.instagram.com/elevatewithellie

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellie-lloyd-jones-leadershipcoach

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5 ways you can find new things to blog about

Woman making notes about new things to blog about
Photo by Judit Peter via Pexels

Finding new things to blog about can feel a bit relentless. You create a plan then before you know it you have to start all over again. I’d say it’s like painting the Forth Bridge, but even they’ve stopped. Then there’s the monotony of the whole thing. You might have your own favourite methods but you’re just bored of them. What you need are some fresh new ways to help you find topics to blog about. As if by magic, here are a few of my favourites.

Ask the audience

One of the simplest things you can do to find new things to blog about is to ask your customers. I suspect that if you took to social media and said, “what should I blog about?” you’d get tumbleweed, but if you ask, “what are you struggling with right now?” you’ll get some useful answers. You could also try a poll with a few suggestions to get them started.

This method helps you offer timely and useful information as well as boosting engagement on social.

Write a case study

Case studies are brilliant for two main reasons. Firstly, they offer social proof. It’s not just a nebulous statement that you can help with something. You can show your audience that you’ve actually helped someone. Secondly, it lets them imagine themselves in an existing customer’s shoes. Your case study could be describing someone just like them, with the same challenges. If you’ve helped someone else, you can do it for them too. A case study can also help them to understand the process or how you deal with potential problems.

Update an old post

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you should already have data to show what your audience liked. Use your analytics to find your most popular posts. Then update them. Are there new things that you’d like to add? Has your advice changed? This post from last week is an update of one I wrote a couple of years ago. I’ve changed the structure but also added some new ideas. Finding new things to blog about is a perennial topic so it’s always going to be useful.

Find things to blog about with autocomplete

This is a bit of a blunt tool, but it’s useful if you need inspiration. Head to Google and start typing a question that’s relevant to your business. Here’s what I got when I started typing ‘content writing tips’.

As you can see, it gives me a whole list of potential things to focus on, including key phrases that I can target to help with my SEO. Some are useful, some not so much, but it helps me to learn what people are looking for advice about.

Collect useful resources

It’s tempting to believe that absolutely everything you write has to be fresh and original. It doesn’t. Your content just needs to be useful. If you can bring together resources that have helped you (or that will help your customers), that’s incredibly useful. It saves them a heap of research time and offers them solutions that are already tried and tested. By supporting your audience you’re also building trust in your own brand, so it’s a win-win.

Do you need to come up with new topics? I can help with that. We’ll have a 30-minute chat then I’ll come up with some fresh new ideas that you can take away and write about. Just book your slot here.

You could also sign up for my mailing list for hints and tips straight to your inbox every month. I don’t do spam and will never share your information with anyone else.

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How you can find fascinating blog topics

A woman at a laptop reading about fascinating blog topics
Image by Ekaterina Bolovtsova via Pexels

When you start coming up with blog topics, there’s one very important thing to keep at the front of your mind. Your customer. Whatever you write about, ask yourself – “will my customers care about this?” If they won’t, don’t write about it.

Knowing your customer should be one of the foundation stones of your marketing. When you know who’s most likely to need your services you can start talking just to them. A good blog can create that moment of recognition that makes your reader feel seen and understood.

Before you start working on a list of blog topics, think about who they’re for. Are they cash rich but time poor or the complete opposite? Will your products only suit people who are at a particular stage in their lives, like new parents or people who’ve just retired? Think about the problems you solve or the ways you make your customers’ lives better. Then we can get started.

The story so far

Sharing your story with your audience helps you to understand each other. People get to know you, like what you say and ultimately come to trust you enough to buy from you. The key is to talk about your experience and link it to the ways that helps your customers.

As an example, if you’re a parent selling clothes for babies and children, talking about your family shows your customers that you’ve been through it all and know how to make clothes that will last. 

What has my personal life taught me?

You might have a personal story that isn’t obviously related to your business, but that’s made you who you are.

For example, when you’re building a business, you need to be a bit brave sometimes. If you’ve found a way to be brave, share it! Maybe something in your past has helped you to build skills that you use now. Tell your customers because they might just recognise themselves.

FAQs

Answering an FAQ is a quick and easy way to create a new blog post. What are you asked most often? What do your customers ask you in emails or face to face? If they’re asking, people who are looking for you online will be too. It’s an easy way to start building your search rankings.

Create a list of the questions you’re asked all the time and start answering them in your blog.

What’s in the news?

You have to move fairly fast for this one, but if you can relate a news story to your business, people are more likely to find you. Lots of businesses offered advice about GDPR when it was on everyone’s minds. You can talk about current topics, but it’s also worth thinking ahead. Look out for topics you can talk about that your customers will need to deal with in the future.

What’s next?

Hopefully that’s got you off to a good start, but what else can you do? As always, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Think about what questions they’re typing into Google that will help them to find you. I’ve found that small business owners won’t necessarily search for a writer. But they will ask how they can attract more customers or improve their marketing. It’s my job to make sure that I talk about the answers to those questions.

If you’d like some more inspiration in book form, I can help.

‘50 blog topics for your business’ does exactly what it says on the tin. It gives you 50 topics that you can use straight away – if you write one a month that’s over four years’ worth of ideas for less than the cost of a family takeaway.

Does that sound good? Get your copy by clicking on the image below.

book with 50 blog topic ideas for your business

Some useful resources

Answer the Public – type in a key word and it’ll tell you what people have searched for.

Google Trends – what searches are most popular when.

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Your marketing: do you know who’s watching?

Someone who's watching your marketing without you noticing.
Image by Daria Shevtsova via Pexels

That sounds a bit creepy, doesn’t it? Like you might have a stalker. In a sense, you probably have, just in a good way. I’ve been in business for over 5 years now* and it’s taught me a lot about the way people respond to marketing. Here are 5 types of people that are watching your marketing – whether you know it or not…

*I celebrated the anniversary in January, with home school and weeping.

The ones that make a lot of noise

There are two kinds of noisy person on social media. There are the ones that comment on your posts without really saying anything useful.  Then there are the ones who share your posts, offer insightful comments, or say thanks for a helpful tip. Both will potentially increase your reach, but I prefer the latter. They don’t just help me; they often add something for my other followers (or their own). Some of them even turn into customers.

The ones that act on your marketing

I’ve got to admit, this is a relatively rare experience. Everyone has followers who never really engage with anything. Then suddenly, something hits the mark and they become a customer. Even more rarely, you might get someone that hasn’t even followed you, but they respond to a post and turn into an instant customer. I have no idea how this works unless they’ve been lurking so stealthily that you haven’t noticed them at all.

The ones you meet networking

I love networking and it has helped my business to survive lockdown. I’m not exaggerating – every customer I’ve had over the past 15 months has been someone I met networking. That doesn’t mean I stop marketing online. When I meet someone networking, I still go and check them out online. It helps me to learn more about their business and whether my first impression was the right one. The same is almost certainly true of your networking contacts too.

The lurkers

Lurkers are the people you get rid of when you have a follower cull. They don’t leave a like or comment. Maybe they don’t even see your posts. Yet I’ve heard tales of people who lurk on other business owners’ pages because they want to know what they’re doing without supporting them. That bothers me. None of us are a good fit for every customer and if I can send someone to a writer that will do a better job for them, I’ll do it.

The quiet ones

I love the quiet ones. I still see you, reacting to my posts (but hardly ever commenting) and I’m so glad you’re there. Sometimes you’re the ones who tell me face to face that you enjoy my blog.  My favourite thing about you is that you’re the people who turn up just when I need you. I’ve had plenty of those moments where I wonder why I bother marketing because everything’s gone quiet. Then one of you appears out of the woodwork because you’re ready to work with me. It’s like a little bit of magic.

If you’re worried your marketing isn’t working, keep going. Get help if you need to, but don’t give up. If you’re one of my quiet ones, thank you. I hope I’m helping you. If you’d like to stick your head above the parapet and let me have your email address, I send helpful hints and tips out once a month. If you’ve been biding your time and are ready for a chat, here’s the link to book a Zoom chat. I’d love to see your face!

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Fight, Flight or Watch the Flames – A Mindful Approach to Stress

Guest blog from Jo Round about mindfulness and stress

Hi, I’m Jo Round, Mindfulness Teacher and guest blogger.  It’s taken me ages to decide on the subject area for this blog.  That’s not because I’m indecisive (at least I don’t think I am 😀) but because mindfulness is so far reaching, I could have gone down any one of many different paths.

In the end I chose stress because it’s something we can all relate to so I hope this blog will be helpful.  Also, if I look back to what I believe was the very start of my mindfulness journey, it would be an appointment with my GP when he told me I was stressed and his advice was to take my foot off the gas for a little while!  Hmmm!  Ironically, that sent me into an even greater tailspin.  But here I am writing a blog about it as a fully qualified Mindfulness Teacher, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

Let’s talk about stress!

Feeling stress is normal. It’s the body’s way of preparing us to deal with threatening situations (whether real or perceived).  You may have heard of the fight, flight or freeze response.  This is where the body detects a threat and releases hormones so we can either stand up and fight, run away or be still until the threat has gone, at which time the body stops pumping the hormones and returns to its resting state.

Our stress can come from many sources – the workplace, family issues, financial difficulties.  A little stress can be beneficial to get us through a challenging situation – a job interview, that presentation you’ve been working so hard on, even trying to buy your dream home.  It’s when the stress becomes so great, persistent and left unchecked, where our body doesn’t adequately return to its resting state, that stress becomes a problem.

Spotting the dangers

Most of us recognise the types of stress highlighted in the examples above.  But in the modern world, perhaps the greatest stressor is psychological – coming from our own thoughts and beliefs but so subtle that we don’t realise the negative impact on our wellbeing. Maybe we wish things were different to the way they are or the way we think they should be.  Our thoughts and projections about a situation can often cause us more stress than the actual situation itself.  We start to believe the negative thoughts in our head “I’m not good enough”, “what will people think”, “I don’t like this”, “why does this always happen to me?” – trust me, these thoughts are not you and they are not reality. Yet this type of stress can be constant, like being on a hamster wheel going round and round and preventing our body from returning to the resting state.  The stress continues to build until we start to feel it physically as well as mentally and simple tasks become too much to deal with.

How mindfulness can help

Like I said, stress is normal and we can’t make it go away – life just isn’t like that. But practicing mindfulness helps us to learn how to deal with stress so that it doesn’t have a detrimental effect on our wellbeing.  Imagine stress as a fire and every time we have a negative thought or wish things were different or get too caught up in our thinking, we’re adding fuel to the fire and it grows, burns and consumes until we’re quite literally burnt out.  In mindfulness we learn to spot the signs, we learn to step back and we learn to watch the fire, as though we were watching it on a TV.  We don’t get involved or pass any judgement or think too much about it, and in doing this, the fire dies down on its own and eventually it goes out.  Mindfulness isn’t about changing things; it’s about accepting things as they are.  When we can do this, things no longer take a hold and we can live our lives with much more calm, clarity and contentment.

If you’d like to find out more about mindfulness, courses or working with me, do pop along to my website www.likeacircle.co.uk or drop me a message through the contact form on the website.

And finally, thank you so much to Kirsty for allowing me to be a featured blog.

Stay mindful

Jo x

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Want to help new customers find you? Use your blog.

Woman working on her blog to find new customers
Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels

Have you started a blog and are wondering how long it will be before it brings those lovely new customers to your (virtual) door? Maybe you’re just thinking of starting one but are hesitating because you don’t know whether the time and effort is worth it. Whilst a good, helpful blog that’s relevant to your customer base is a wonderful thing, there are still a few things you can do to give it a better chance of being found and read. Here are my top 5.

Optimise your blog for keywords

You might already have your SEO strategy sorted, or you might not. Whatever your situation, one of the simplest things you can do is to optimize each blog post for relevant keywords. If you’re a hairdresser with a blog post about elegant wedding hairstyles, use that as your keyword phrase. Using the right tech will really help you with this. If you have a WordPress website, Yoast have an excellent plugin that will help you to use your keywords in the right way.

Share on social media

Yes, I know this seems blindingly obvious, but it’s worth including for completeness. There are loads of ways to do this, like creating a short video summarizing the main points with a link in the comments. You can also post snippets with an image and add a link to those. Don’t be afraid to share multiple times and add a link to your Instagram bio if there’s space. You can find more ideas here.

Reuse your blog in your emails

Email marketing is a great tool for making sales, as your readers already like you enough to have signed up for your emails. If you’ve written a blog with gift ideas for an upcoming occasion, or services that will support them with a current challenge, you’re already being helpful. Add links to buy or book and they’re more likely to click through because you’ve just made their life a whole lot easier.

Write good headlines

A great headline can make the difference between someone clicking through to read your blog and scrolling on to find something more interesting. The important things to remember about headlines are that they need to be relevant to the post and your customers. Basically, avoid clickbait (it’s annoying) and show people that you understand what they need. Headlines that feel personal are more likely to be read, so using words like ‘you’ and ‘your’ work really well.

Track what’s popular

If you’ve got website analytics set up, review them once a month to see which of your blog posts got the highest number of visitors. You can also check what followers engaged with on social media. Is there a pattern in terms of the headlines you’ve written, or the type of content you’re covering? You might also have a post that didn’t get lots of readers, but which prompted people to get in touch. By working out which posts get the best results you can do more of the same.

If you want to attract more new customers by starting a blog, let’s have a chat. I offer a range of options to support you, from topic suggestions to writing it all for you. Email me or book your free discovery call here.

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Want more website visitors? You need to speak your customers’ language

Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA from Pexels

You’ve probably gone to a lot of time and effort creating a great looking website for your business. There’s a lot of technical work you can do if you want more website visitors but one of the most important bits is the one that’s overlooked most often. The words. If your website copy (the technical term for the words) doesn’t tell your visitors that they’re in the right place within a few seconds they’ll bounce off to another site and you might have lost them forever. Then you have to work on attracting more website visitors rather than deepening the relationship with the ones you already have. The great news is that the words you use can help you to attract more visitors and impress them when they get there. How do you do it? I’m glad you asked…

Know your customer

When someone lands on your website, it’s because they were looking for something. You need to show them that they’ve found it. Say they’ve found your shop by typing ‘gifts for Mother’s Day’ into Google. The page they land on should tell them what gifts you’re offering, whether it’s jewellery, chocolates, or something else. If you offer a service, sum it up in a couple of sentences, or with a question they’ll answer yes to if they’re in the right place.

Apply the ‘so what’ test

It’s important to remember that your visitors don’t really care about you. Your credentials are important in that they help you to build trust, but your customer is only really interested in what you can do for them. If you’re an accountant helping small businesses with their tax returns, make it obvious. This can just be something like ‘Want to make your next tax return quick and easy? We can help.’ Yes, it’s really that simple.

What if your visitor isn’t ready to buy?

Sometimes you’ll get a new visitor, but they’re not ready to make a decision yet. They might just be doing some research or perhaps they need to talk to someone else before they decide. Inviting them to sign up to your mailing list or follow you on social media gives you the chance to stay in touch and remind them why they were looking for you in the first place. Then when they’re ready to buy, they’ll remember you.

Are you making it easy to buy?

If you’ve got a website visitor who’s ready to give you their money, make it easy for them. If you sell products online, you know that good photos and clear pricing are both essential, along with a quick and easy checkout. If you offer a service and need to talk to the customer before they buy, show people how to make an enquiry or book a call. Give them a button to click or a form to fill in so they don’t have to go searching.

What do you want to be found for?

If you’ve done any work on your SEO, you’ll know how important key words are. Yours might be easy to identify, particularly if you offer a service in a particular location. It’s worth thinking about the kind of terms your customers will understand. Most people know what a hairdresser does, but a copywriter like me? Not so much. My customers are more likely to look for advice on how to write a blog so I talk about that.

If you want to attract more website visitors and you think your website copy needs an update, let’s have a chat. Email me or book your free discovery call here.

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Who’d be a business owning, Channel swimmer’s spouse?

Channel swimmer in action
Husband swimming the Channel – photo courtesy of James Spencer-Matthews

In case you’re reading that question and wondering what the answer is, well, it’s me. I would. You’ll hear lots of business gurus telling you that business success is all about you – how dedicated you are and how far you’re prepared to go outside your comfort zone to reach your goals. The truth is that it’s not always just about you. For me (and I’m guessing most of you) there are competing priorities. The people you love don’t revolve around you. They all have their own needs, ambitions and dreams that need to be recognised and included in your own plans.

Some of them are predictable, others not so much. Sometimes you have to shift things to let someone else live their dream. In my case, it came in the form of a Channel swimming husband.

The dream

My husband has been a swimmer all his life, but when I first met him, he mostly did it in nice warm swimming pools. Pre-kids I’d go along to some of the same training sessions, sticking to the slow lane while he zoomed along with the speedy people in the fast lane. I can’t say for certain when the Channel swimming dream was first mentioned, but his open water career started a long time ago. We used to travel to grand prix swims around the country at weekends. They were mostly good fun, apart from the Scarborough swim where it rained so heavily that the spectators got wetter than the swimmers did.

Somewhere along the way, the Channel started being mentioned. Then it got serious.

Channel swimmer training

It won’t surprise you to learn that Channel swimmers need lots of training, and not just on endurance and technique. You’re not allowed to wear a wetsuit, so you train to withstand the cold. You also need to sort your head out. Most people who pull out will do so because their brain told them they couldn’t do it.

Obviously, there’s lots of swimming in cold water. This is sometimes lovely – there’s a lake up the road from us where the whole family can go along. However, a swimmer’s need to train with other Channel swimmers means living with a man who disappears off to Dover for the weekend, or to a training camp in Croatia. I admire single parents generally, but never more so than during those weeks.

The stress

You might think that most of the stress of being a Channel swimmer’s wife is in the juggling. It isn’t really. He’s training for his third swim at the moment, so I’m mostly used to it. (Oh yes, did I mention that being a Channel swimmer is addictive? He keeps saying things like ‘five is a nice round number’.) The real stress comes when someone you love is swimming through a shipping lane. My logical brain knows that his support boat has a professional crew and two of his friends looking out for him. I reassure myself with the statistic that there have only been ten Channel swimming fatalities since 1926. Yet I still don’t breathe easily until he’s on dry land.

I know that most of you probably don’t have a Channel swimmer in the family. That’s not why I’m telling you this story. It’s because we all have things that we juggle and I wanted to you know that I get that. If you’d like to work with a writer who knows how life works for you and will help you tell that story to your own customers, get in touch and let’s have a chat.