Roses Need Fertilizer

“For all your days prepare,
And meet them all alike:
When you are the anvil, bear —
When you are the hammer, strike.”
– Edwin Markham, “Preparedness”

In Issue #198

Roses Need Fertilizer, Part 1
by Conrad Hall

Some great roses bloomed at AWAI’s first writer’s retreat. Bill Terrell had his headline and lead for the Self-Help Course accepted for testing. Toni Rockis came away with an agreement to develop a new niche product on Grant Writing.

Yours truly also had a bloom, but my most valuable time was spent fertilizing the rose bed.

Everyone knows roses need preparation in the spring, care during the summer, tending through the fall and protection from the winter. We can do the same kinds of things for ourselves before, during and after any conference or trade show to get the most value from it.

This series of three articles is a study of what I did for the AWAI Writer’s Retreat, and how we can use it to improve performance at future events. My hope is that these articles will be as useful to you as writing them has been to me. Remember, Bootcamp is only a few weeks away.

I’ve tucked five lessons into this article series that I picked up because of the retreat. The first lesson is that it’s easy to go to writing / career building events unprepared.

I did very poorly at the writing aspect of the retreat. I was unprepared when I arrived, and there was very little opportunity for me to write.

Let’s take a look at what I did and didn’t do. There are five more lessons tucked in here. Each one will help you make some prize-winning roses.

There are three ways in which I was unprepared for the retreat. Three side steps that kept my bloom from becoming a bouquet:

  1. Shortage of Research
  2. Diffused Focus
  3. Incomplete Planning

To understand what each of these means, let’s back up to before the retreat. Looking at how I prepared, and what I did at the retreat, is what has transformed a few side steps from “stepping in manure” to finding fertilizer.

Arriving unprepared made me take a closer look at how I use my Letter Toolkit (a resource I have assembled as a letter-writing template). That close look showed me how I have avoided the elements of writing that are less attractive to me.

A few of the items in my toolkit are worksheets for:

There are also articles and reports from a variety of sources. It’s organized into sections and in an order that guides me from idea to first draft to a finished letter.

You can see there is no shortage of organization in my approach. Still, my research was lacking and that was my first side step.

My purpose in attending the retreat was to write a headline and lead that showed promise for beating AWAI’s control for the Six Figure Copywriting Course. Here’s a list of what I accomplished before the retreat:

You’re probably wondering how anyone could do all that work and still find himself unprepared. It certainly had me confused. There was even a point during the retreat when I wanted to pack up and leave. It was really frustrating.

Here’s the second lesson: hearing is not listening, and reading does not equal understanding.

I read the controls. Not studied. Not copied. Just read.

All the other work was good, and it is proving useful to me now, but all I did with the controls was read them. When you’re competing with someone, you have to analyze what they’re doing. Listen to their message and understand their approach.

The controls for a product are the best research tool and swipe file elements you can find. They are full of things that are already working with the target market.

In the next article, we look at just what I did to prepare for the Writer’s Retreat. You’ll see the importance of staying focused and discover a strategy for making the most of your time at a conference.

One last note for the wise: Print this article and put it in a file folder. Then print parts 2 & 3 to put them all together. Why?

Because this series is about how to succeed, and success takes work. You have to read all three parts together to get the full benefit – that’s deliberate. You might even want to send me an e-mail and ask a few questions.

[Conrad specializes in creating definitive information products and marketing materials for Fundraising and Business-to-Business clients. Bob Bly says Conrad is the best writer he knows. Conrad currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada where his favorite pastime is hand-feeding sparrows on the Toronto Islands while mulling new copy for clients. (Conrad@conradhallcopywriting.com or 561-623-9441 (U.S.) or 647-989-9173 (Canada)) Meet Conrad at AWAI’s Bootcamp in Del Ray Beach in November.]

Resource Referral: Write for Fun and Profit

As his bio indicates, Conrad Hall (the author of today’s guest essay) specializes in creating information products. In previous issues we’ve told you about one of his information products, Writing E-books for Fun and Profit, that we really like.

Writing E-books for Fun and Profit is a 109-page e-book that walks you through the 21-step process to writing and selling your first e-book at a handsome profit. It even explains how to build an entire information empire.

If you’ve had an experience that you know would help others and you’re willing to share it, writing an e-book is an easy and affordable way to do it. Writing E-books for Fun and Profit only costs $19, so check it out.