twointwomillion
New member
Most solopreneurs suck at writing.
That's a problem because the words you write serve three critical business functions:
i. They allow people to discover you. Because if you do a good job, your content spreads.
ii. They allow you to build deeper relationships with people. It's much easier to sell products or services as a solopreneur once you've built trust with people.
iii. They allow you to make sales. Most solopreneurs' sites are so vague, leads can't figure out what they do, let alone give them money.
If you follow these tips, I guarantee your writing won't suck. (Or I'll refund you for the money you paid to read this)
1.Switch it up
If every sentence is a paragraph or if every sentence is 3 words, it just doesn't read well. vary the length of your sentences.
2. Write first!
Editing before you're done writing. Write first, edit later. If you try doing them at the same time, you'll keep staring at a blank page because your brain will filter out good ideas.
3. Not formatting
Yesterday, I wrote this post. It did okay but the formatting got messed up when I posted it. As a result, it barely got any upvotes. When I re-formatted it, it immediately started doing better. Poor formatting means people won't consume your stuff. If they won't consume it, then the algorithm won't show it to other people because it assumes it's bad.
This is true for YouTube, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Medium.
4. Being cute
Don't be cute, be straightforward. If I feel like you grabbed a thesaurus to write your copy, I (and most others) won't bother to read it. (People will most often do this because their focus is not making sales or growing their audience but being perceived as smart.)
5. Seriously get rid of really bad adverbs
Stephen King said "the road to hell is paved with adverbs."
Every word should earn the right to be there and adverbs add nothing.
In fact, point 5 should be named: "Get rid of adverbs". See how much cleaner that is.
6. Say less
I've sold well over a thousand dollars for an eBook that's 20-something pages. It's a 30m read. Now compare that to most books which take 10-20 hours and (if you're aware of book statistics) sold a median of 0 copies!!! Let that sink in. A short book is a read book. People want to get more value than what they paid for (in terms of money OR time/attention). If you ask less (because it's short), it's easier to achieve that. Would you pay more for a dentist that took 4x longer to fix your cavity?
The counterintuitive part here is that for your entire adult life (starting in school and later in your career) you've been told that outcomes = effort put in. So you'll often be rewarded for writing a massive opus because both in school and your career it signals industriousness (having worked hard). Problem is, normal people couldn't give a lab rat's ass about your effort.
I've made Reddit posts that took 20 hours and went nowhere, and I've written ones that took 20 minutes and blew up. The one I linked isn't even there anymore. Effort doesn't equal results in entrepreneurship!
7. Have courage
People will say things like "I think" or "In this particular circumstance" to have an out. While it might deflect some attacks, it makes your writing bland. If you believe in what you say, have strong opinions. Writing is not the time to have an academic attitude. People are drawn to confidence.
8. Write to your friend
Instead of writing to the entire planet, write as if you're talking to one person. When a piece of copy needs to talk to men, women, solopreneurs, VC-funded startups, mom&pop shops, creatives, hackers, engineers, and so on, it'll talk to no one. Pick a niche. Then pick a person from that nice, and write to them.
9. Avoid big words
If there's a simpler way of communicating your idea, go for that. The occasional big word (if needed) is fine, but you'll lose many people if the reading level is too high. IQ follows a Gaussian distribution (curve in the shape of a bell). There simply aren't that many smart people. So if you use that as an additional segmentation, you're severely constraining your market.
E.g. The last sentence could've said limiting instead of constraining, and this sentence could've started with "for example" instead of "e.g.".
Some of these will feel like they're orthogonal (at odds). Figuring out the balance is a bit of an art & science.
While these tips will help you, if you're seriously interested in building an audience of buyers and making a living on your own terms as a solopreneur, join my daily newsletter.
If you're the type of person that hates a CTA, then ignore that last sentence.
(But also, then why are you in an entrepreneurship subreddit?)
That's a problem because the words you write serve three critical business functions:
i. They allow people to discover you. Because if you do a good job, your content spreads.
ii. They allow you to build deeper relationships with people. It's much easier to sell products or services as a solopreneur once you've built trust with people.
iii. They allow you to make sales. Most solopreneurs' sites are so vague, leads can't figure out what they do, let alone give them money.
If you follow these tips, I guarantee your writing won't suck. (Or I'll refund you for the money you paid to read this)
1.Switch it up
If every sentence is a paragraph or if every sentence is 3 words, it just doesn't read well. vary the length of your sentences.
2. Write first!
Editing before you're done writing. Write first, edit later. If you try doing them at the same time, you'll keep staring at a blank page because your brain will filter out good ideas.
3. Not formatting
Yesterday, I wrote this post. It did okay but the formatting got messed up when I posted it. As a result, it barely got any upvotes. When I re-formatted it, it immediately started doing better. Poor formatting means people won't consume your stuff. If they won't consume it, then the algorithm won't show it to other people because it assumes it's bad.
This is true for YouTube, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Medium.
4. Being cute
Don't be cute, be straightforward. If I feel like you grabbed a thesaurus to write your copy, I (and most others) won't bother to read it. (People will most often do this because their focus is not making sales or growing their audience but being perceived as smart.)
5. Seriously get rid of really bad adverbs
Stephen King said "the road to hell is paved with adverbs."
Every word should earn the right to be there and adverbs add nothing.
In fact, point 5 should be named: "Get rid of adverbs". See how much cleaner that is.
6. Say less
I've sold well over a thousand dollars for an eBook that's 20-something pages. It's a 30m read. Now compare that to most books which take 10-20 hours and (if you're aware of book statistics) sold a median of 0 copies!!! Let that sink in. A short book is a read book. People want to get more value than what they paid for (in terms of money OR time/attention). If you ask less (because it's short), it's easier to achieve that. Would you pay more for a dentist that took 4x longer to fix your cavity?
The counterintuitive part here is that for your entire adult life (starting in school and later in your career) you've been told that outcomes = effort put in. So you'll often be rewarded for writing a massive opus because both in school and your career it signals industriousness (having worked hard). Problem is, normal people couldn't give a lab rat's ass about your effort.
I've made Reddit posts that took 20 hours and went nowhere, and I've written ones that took 20 minutes and blew up. The one I linked isn't even there anymore. Effort doesn't equal results in entrepreneurship!
7. Have courage
People will say things like "I think" or "In this particular circumstance" to have an out. While it might deflect some attacks, it makes your writing bland. If you believe in what you say, have strong opinions. Writing is not the time to have an academic attitude. People are drawn to confidence.
8. Write to your friend
Instead of writing to the entire planet, write as if you're talking to one person. When a piece of copy needs to talk to men, women, solopreneurs, VC-funded startups, mom&pop shops, creatives, hackers, engineers, and so on, it'll talk to no one. Pick a niche. Then pick a person from that nice, and write to them.
9. Avoid big words
If there's a simpler way of communicating your idea, go for that. The occasional big word (if needed) is fine, but you'll lose many people if the reading level is too high. IQ follows a Gaussian distribution (curve in the shape of a bell). There simply aren't that many smart people. So if you use that as an additional segmentation, you're severely constraining your market.
E.g. The last sentence could've said limiting instead of constraining, and this sentence could've started with "for example" instead of "e.g.".
- Write with heart
Some of these will feel like they're orthogonal (at odds). Figuring out the balance is a bit of an art & science.
While these tips will help you, if you're seriously interested in building an audience of buyers and making a living on your own terms as a solopreneur, join my daily newsletter.
If you're the type of person that hates a CTA, then ignore that last sentence.
(But also, then why are you in an entrepreneurship subreddit?)