“Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, says it best: It’s hard work. I’m not going to lie. Anyone who tells you that it’s really easy to build a content business is not telling you the truth. You have to accept the fact that this is going to be grueling, difficult, time consuming, and laborious work. But if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and get dirty, and are willing to constantly analyze what you’re doing and scrap what doesn’t work and continue what does work, and keep at it, you can be very, very successful.”
“The Audience Persona The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing. ISAAC ASIMOV Repeat this sentence: I am not the target for my content. This thought is critical as you go through this chapter. Business owners and marketers tend to bend their content to their thinking. Don’t fall into this trap.”
“Consider a ghostwriter. Believe it or not, many of the books from the authors you love have been written by someone else. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true. The best ghostwriters out there start at about $50,000 and then go up from there. If you simply can’t make the internal time or don’t have the resources to get the writing done, consider using one.”
" Stop somewhere and realize that perfection is unattainable. I could have kept writing both books forever if I wanted to. At some point, you have to draw a line in the sand and publish the book. As soon as you finish it there will be some new research, some new story, or some new perspective that you should have covered. Don’t worry about it; just use it for your next book.”
“CONTENT MARKETING: FOR NONBELIEVERS Your customers don’t care about you, your products, or your services. They care about themselves, their wants, and their needs. Content marketing is about creating interesting information your customers are passionate about so they actually pay attention to you. This last definition is my favorite (with kudos to bestselling author David Meerman Scott for helping to popularize this), and the hardest for marketers and business owners to deal with. So often we marketers believe that our products and services are so special—so amazing—and we think that if more people knew about them, all of our sales problems would be solved.”
“Take heed from Aristotle. When I first started teaching public speaking, I always used Aristotle’s advice on speeches: tell them what you are going to tell them (the intro), tell them (the body), and then tell them what you just told them (the conclusion). Much of public speaking and getting things to stick is repetition. This type of setup does the trick.”