Advice to a writer who’s “stuck”

Andy runs a jewelry business, and he’s looking for a breakthrough.
He writes:

I keep flirting with the idea of sending emails like this to our clients…but something keeps me from doing it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been at it (the jewelry business) so long that it bores me. Or maybe I’m tired of a world that is all about selling stuff. It’s always about selling stuff it seems…and I don’t just mean the diamond business either. (‘Course I NEED this business to survive and take care of my circle, and quite frankly it’s been good to me.)

Dunno…just no fire.

Whatcha’ got for a guy that is losing his desire to tell stories about his business…and has next to no motivation when he sits down at the keyboard? (OK…let’s be fair…I have 10 billion other things to do…like everyone else. That tends to suck motivation out of a day.)

Two things on this:

First of all, there’s the question of whether email marketing would work well for a brick and mortar jewelry biz.

Oh. My. Goodness. YES!

I still remember what it was like picking out the engagement ring I would present to my future wife…

I was a total stress ball of emotions.

Wanting to get it the ring just right. Clueless about diamonds. Worried about dropping 4-figures and getting ripped off. Not to mention wanting to make the PERFECT proposal…

Any time your business touches deep emotions like that, you can rest assured that you will KILL it if you learn to write good emails.

Now as far as feeling uninspired…

The best cure I know for this problem is making a commitment.

A public one, if possible.

For this, I’m a big fan of 30 day challenges.

In fact, that’s how my entire career in marketing got started.

Back in 2012 I decided to do a 30-day blogging challenge.

The rules were I could write about anything I wanted—mostly programming and productivity tips at the time—but I had to publish something every single day.

I didn’t quite make it… I missed ONE stinkin’ day.

I discovered to my surprise that people kinda liked the stuff I wrote. And several of my posts ended up “going viral,” including one about this new programming tool I was using called Sublime Text.

Something almost magical happens when you commit to writing something every day for 30 days.

Writing seems less and less like a hideous chore—you may even find you look forward to it.

And you start to see ideas for emails and blog posts EVERYWHERE.

If you complete the challenge, the worst thing that could happen is you have 30 emails that you can turn into an autoresponder series.

Or you just might find that you catch fire and make writing a part of your daily life.

Related posts:

  1. How to crush writer’s block by mapping out your email sequence Yesterday I got pretty frustrated with this email sequence I’m writing for a client in the mortgage lead generation niche. This particular client has an ice cold list—nearly 1,000 leads and past customers that haven’t heard a peep from my client in months or years. I banged out the first...
  2. Copy Critique: Mortified Jeweler Sends His First Email Longtime subscriber Andy is a jeweler with his own store. He recently told me he’s going to start writing regular emails to his list of several thousand past customers. I warned him that I might have to critique some of his emails, but he went ahead anyway. After his first...
  3. Why “just write” is stupid advice A golfer sighs in frustration as yet another ball slices hard and disappears into the woods. An old timer, who’s spent the last few minutes observing the young hacker’s herky-jerky swing, smiles and offers his sage advice: “Just hit the ball, son.” A programmer glowers at his screen as his...
  4. A crusty newspaper editor’s “cure” for writer’s block During my senior year in college, I spent a semester living in Washington D.C. And while I was there, I worked as an intern (I preferred the term “cub reporter”) at The Washington Times. For the first few weeks I thought everything was going great— I’d met my deadlines and...
Luis - February 4, 2016

I can definitely agree with Joshua. I had some niche sites that I got bored of working on, until they got traction. I also had my own blog, same thing it started getting traffic people starting sharing posts, and others left some really nice comments and it was all very motivating.

I think there is once very important nuance buried in Joshua’s comment that directly address the Mr. Diamonds motivation issue. Mr Diamond said “I’m tired of a world that is all about selling stuff”, and I agree “selling stuff” sucks. But if you look at Joshua’s example it wasn’t about selling stuff, it was about helping people with problems and moments in their lives that are important them, that’s the motivation.

That’s why it’s seeing people share your posts and leaving comments is so motivational and inspiring, because it’s at that point that you see you are doing something valuable, something that is about more than selling. (but that get’s you sales in the process – after all they are going to buy their engagement right somewhere.)

    Josh Earl - February 6, 2016

    Thanks for the awesome comment, Luis.

    You’re spot on. When you immersing yourself in your customer’s world, see what they’re seeing, feel what they’re feeling…

    Well, if you’re still bored after that, I’m checking your pulse. 🙂
    ᐧ

Comments are closed