Who Do You Write Your Blog For?

I realize I guess I was supposed to say, “For whom do you write?”

Does that sound dumb and kinda 18th century to anyone else? Okay. Good.

Today makes 31 days.

31 Days. 31 Posts.

It’s officially a habit. The Daily Blur is actually, you know, daily.

“How have you done it?”

Late last year, Michael Hyatt inspired me to write more often.

I’ve been asked that by a surprising number of people. Either they’re impressed by anyone being able to do it or they didn’t think I had it in me … or maybe both. That’s cool. I like wearing the ‘nobody believed in us’ hairshirt, yo.

After spending the last two weeks writing about customer service, I thought I’d share some insights this week into my workflow, motivation and secrets to delivering (hopefully) quality content day after day.

Things started improving immediately when I wrapped my head around one truism:

When you try to write to everyone, you end up writing to no one.

Here’s what I mean by that: Worrying about offending or being too specific or being too boring to the masses is a sure-fire ticket to, at worst, paralysis, at best, flaccid writing.

I write first for myself.

• Is this something I’d want to read?
• Does it feel honest?
• Unpretentious? Human?
• Yes?
• Then it’s onto the second audience.

Depending on the post, I’m writing for ONLY one of four people.

If it’s about customer service, it’s an employee at a local company I’ve known for a few years. She’s trying to do the right thing but often has to swim upstream.

If it’s about strategy and advertising, it’s a particular small business owner who’s got more promise in her pinky finger than I had – at her age – in my whole body. She’s going to take over the world. She just doesn’t know it yet. I’m trying to keep her pointed in the right direction.

If it’s about motivation and productivity, it’s for a director of a small not-for-profit I know who we desparately need to stay enthused and keep fighting the good fight.

Finally, if it’s about autism and my son, it’s for my mom.

I really, truly don’t write for anyone else. If you like what you read, awesome! Come along for the ride. I think it’ll be a good one.

Choosing one person – imagining this one person reading … being helped … by the odd little thoughts in my head has helped make this big ole’ goofy world known as The Daily Blur a little smaller and a little more meaningful and a lot more consistent.

You should try it – whether you’re writing an advertisement or a proposal or teaching or delivering a sermon – try speaking or writing to just one person.

You’ll quickly learn, as I have this past month, that we are more alike than we are different.

Like, for example, most of us don’t care if someone ends a sentence with a preposition.

Sometimes, we all just need to be reminded, and that’s what I’m here for.

New eBook Coming FRIDAY

 Your Customers Like This – How To Deliver Shareworthy Service

I’ve got about 15,000 20,869 words – way more than I have had time to post here – collected in stories, emails, lessons and ways for you to implement a shareworthy service program in your organization. I’m turning it into a nice eBook with some worksheets and step-by-step instructions. I was originally going to give it away for free, but my wife and I talked about it. We’ll make it available later this week to download for a donation of any amount (starting at $0.99) to Touchpoint Autism Services – the organization that first taught us to communicate with our son. We can never fully repay them, but this’ll be a little way to try to start. It’ll be available for download this Friday.