What I Taught a 16 Year Old How To Write

…and How it will Help Your Content Marketing and SEO!

What I taught one of my players who was stuck writing an essay.

I gave him what a college professor taught me. And then some other nuances that I learned later on down the line that can really liven it up.

I immediately shared it that night with my son who was in the middle of a college essay.

And which can help you tons with your content.

Content Creation

Here is a terrific formula to create your content. So as you may know I really am a coach. I coach businesses and I coach football players.

Not too long back I’m in the weight room because I help run the weight
program over there at the school. And one of the kids is doing homework because he is behind on his studies and is not allowed to lift weights.

And I ask how he is doing and he exclaims in frustration that he is not so good at writing essays.

Problem

You know you should create content.

• Blog
• Write articles
• Video
• Audio/Podcast

And then you wonder where will you put it? Overwhelm engulfs you and you paralyze and stick with the same ole same ole.

No content creation or distribution.

And if you want to be on the internet. You must create content. Even an advertisement is content.

So just like you or I, the kid on my team is in overwhelm over an assignment that is coming due. And he has donuts worth of progress.

What I taught the kid:

I asked him if I could teach him an easy fast way to approach writing. That was largely inspired by a college professor so long ago.

He was receptive to the idea as a smile came over his face at my invitation.

“Look first thing you got to do is write as if you’re talking to one of your bros.”

One of your guys on the team. How do you talk or write to him?

Because you probably talk  to him more more easily than you do when you’re writing for your your class.

This is copy 101.

Write to a singular person not to a faceless crowd. And write how you talk and formalize it up as neccesary later.

So I said to speak to that guy and  then as if you’re writing it to me… you know you’re gonna be a little bit more formal because I am your coach.

But it’s football it’s not writing so super heavy-duty formality, but it is still to an authority figure. So you’re gonna write a little differently.

Then write as if your reader is the principal at the school.

And then  as if it’s your teacher,

Now you realize that everyone’s a little different. But you want to write as personably as possible. And so now with the teacher you’re going to write it using the words that you know your teacher likes.

And you know your teacher uses certain words all the time.

For us we need to write at about the 6th grade or so level.  Unless your audience is super full of their vocabulary and education.

You are safe at about the 6th grade reading. That is the standard for USA Today.  Seriously. So you and I should probably acquiesce to their market research .

And on that note. If possible…..

What Are Your Prospects Favorite Words?

You know this is a pretty good habit with anybody is to know what words they use all the time. In fact, I sat with a hypnotist pal of mine today and he kept writing notes as we speak.

And I asked why is he writing while we talk?

He said that, “Tim you are using these certain words that I find so interesting. ” He intimated that these were anchors that I keep repeating. And his lesson for me they were words that are anchors or triggers in my life.

So he will often use some of my favorite words to build rapport with me or myself.

So it helps to use a person’s favorite words. So I ask the kid you can do that right?

He was dialed in.

VAKog*

So I once had a college professor. A little Italian man who was a true educator. He instructed for our assignment that we go home and go find
a tree and write about the tree. ” I want a one-page  essay about the tree.”

“I want to know how it and looks, smells, tastes, feels, and sounds in vivid detail.”

My adult self recognizes this as the VACog from NLP.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) which is related to hypnosis and  specific communication. Teaches modalities and submodalities as a way that we perceive the world and can change our perception of the world.

*V-Visual
*A-Auditory
*K-Kinesthetic(feeling)
*O-Olfactory -smell
*G-Gustatory-taste

Long story short, the discipline uses some distinctions of each modality called sub-modalities. Which my comp prof would call vivid detail.

Additionally, we can experience these internally and externally.

So I told my player that when you write in those vivid terms that person has an experience that is richer than if you write in generalities. When that experience is richer, we can move them emotionally. And…

Emotion Sells!

And that is what we want our reader to experience.

So the kid can get the A.

And you can get the sale!

The best way to feel emotion is usually from what is called associated. As opposed to disassociated.

An Example of Dissociated

^^^Hard to feel lots of thrill and emotion from this view ^^^

Associated

This video is a much richer experience than the photo of colussus from the parking lot. In POV (associated).

Now describe that experience adequately with vivid VACogs and you will move your listener from where they are now to where you want them to experience emotionally.

Visualizing yourself chomping down on a lemon can you give you not only an emotional response but a physiological one.

Good writing should move your reader emotionally.  Moving their associations can help that along.

Facts Tell, Stories Sell

So notice that most of what has been said here is in story form. Hopefully interesting enough to get you to this point.

So as humans we love stories.

In fact, when I chat with my team, I call it story time. They think it weird at first. Then I see individuals clearly moved emotionally.

And when I have that. I have them.

But we all love the analytical as proof. Since we know:

“We do things for emotional reasons, and justify them with logic later.”

So in order to write well you must:

1. Speak directly to your audience as an individual. You must use their words and level of typical vocabulary.
2. Write with their perspective in mind.
3. Move them emotionally.
4. Tell it via story.
5. Back it up with facts. Even if all you are doing is placing what looks likes facts into a bulleted list. 😉
6. Know all the angles on your topic.

One more for you.

This is a favorite of mine and a great way to get multiple perspectives.

Perceptual Positions

Now in all of these NLP examples I am  dumbing the concepts down to make my point.

You are very welcome to look into it further. And I have tons of experts on my podcast. And my pal Adam is a sales expert and should be contacted if you have more interest.

So for our purposes Perceptual Positioning is to visualize an experience such that we perceive it through multiple perspectives.

1. Our own
2. The listener/reader
3. Birds Eye/Google Earth

The first one is easy. What is your agenda or position on a subject you wish to write or talk about? You know it well. You have emotions and feelings around this topic.

The Second one is your reader. This person that you wish to convince has their own agenda and feelings and beliefs about your topic.

Your goal is to wear their shoes for awhile. To get into rapport with them. Feel what they feel. Gain empathy for their wants, needs, desires, pains around your subject matter.

The birds eye view is like Google Earth. Seeing the first and second subjects below as if from above.

Much of the emotion is gone up there as you are so dissociated from the two people down below in front of one another.

You can zoom in closer. Or to the side of the home or room. What else is happening? What other information are you missing about this subject?

Now you are ready to write.

Hopefully, on even dull subjects in business, you can write with some flare that causes your reader to feel.

Your reader is desperate to feel. 

Oh one more:

Too many of us allows perfectionism to justify procrastination. As Nike says. “Just do it.”

Get it better on the next run.