“Hi, my name is Laura, and I’m in marketing.”

I’m here to admit for the first time that this little mantra, stolen from AA, is what I feel like I should be saying to myself in front of the mirror every morning after I brush my teeth.

Because I think we can all agree that 95.7% of marketing just makes everybody feel gross:

“Time is running out!”

“If you don’t act now…”

“But wait—there’s more!”

And really, I didn’t even mean to end up in “marketing.” I started out as a journalist where I learned the fine art of asking a gazillion questions until I understood completely whatever it was I was writing about that week. Then I’d scurry back to my computer and sort through it all to turn it in into a story that regular people could read and understand.

I did that happily for years until a chance meeting with author Barry Hannah unearthed a long-buried desire to write fiction. So I gave up life as I knew it and headed west to Montana—a.k.a. the most beautiful place on earth—to get my MFA in Creative Writing.

After a couple of years in grad school shangri-la, real life concerns (rent, insurance, vet bills) came flooding back. I had moved to San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities on the planet (I know, I know), right as the news industry started its slow decline and so I quickly realized I needed to blend my two skills—journalism and creative writing—into a new, more sustainable career path. And voilà—a copywriter was born.

Back to the marketing thing…

When I started copywriting, I didn’t even realize, consciously, I was doing “marketing.” And if you’d told me back then, I probably would have stopped cold turkey and hightailed it back to Missoula.

But after a year or so of building a client base that was decent, I realized there was a method to the madness. And if I wanted to move beyond “decent,” I needed to understand the method. I set out to learn all I could about what constitutes good marketing writing, and just as in my journalism days, I synthesized everything I learned and put together my own story of what makes good copywriting good.

And you know what?

Good copywriting doesn’t have anything at all to do with marketing.

Good copywriting is all about solving people’s problems.

Their time problem. Their being bored problem. Their being boring problem. Their husband problem. Their “I feel fat” problem. Their “no one understands what I do” problem.

Once I figured this out, I got over any lingering angst I had about going over to “the dark side” of marketing and started wearing it like a badge. Because solving people’s problems feels really good. And because I get to do it with writing, it’s pretty much the best job I could ever have.

But wait…there’s more!

(Kidding!)

The best thing about all of this is that I’ve been able to create the kind of copywriting career (and now branding, too, but more on that in my next post) that feels right for me and feels great for my clients. It’s just real people talking to other real people about stuff that really matters. What could be better than that?

Thanks again to everyone who came over and entered the Happy Holiday Giveaway. It’s been a real treat for me to get to meet so many new folks.

And because we got so many great entries, it just didn’t feel right to let everyone else go away empty-handed.

So I decided to offer an extra holiday gift: everyone who entered the contest can get $50 off my tagline service or $100 off my bio service if you book your session by May, 2012. Just fill out my contact form and I’ll get you on my calendar. Yay!

And now, without further ado, are the winners:

Tagline: Melissa Marshall

Bio: Sarah Yost

Congratulations, Melissa and Sarah! Just get in touch with me anytime after January 12 to schedule your session with me. Can’t wait to work with both of you!

Happy holidays to all!

Laura

Thanksgiving may be over, but I’m still in a very grateful frame of mind. A lot has to do with all of the great business advice I’ve gotten over the last year (big thank yous to Sinclair Ashley, Danielle LaPorte, Hiro Boga, Tim Brownson). And a lot has to do with the fact that the last eight months have been a downright work-a-palooza for me.

So I thought: why not get the sparkly holiday season started early and celebrate my gratitude for the work and my wonderful clients by giving some good stuff away?

I’d love for you to join me in the fun: my first-annual holiday giveaway for two of my most popular services.

In the weird way that the world works—like when you buy what you think is a unique-ish car and all of a sudden you see them everywhere—for the past week or so, I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about the “starting at the end” theory. Like here. And here. And here. There’s no official definition of this theory that I know of, but the basic gist is this: the best way to embark on a new project (new website, career change, marriage, a business from scratch) is to fully visualize and map out what your ideal outcome is.

Now, I’m mostly too skeptical for hard-core Law of Attraction stuff, but this idea really appeals to the brander in me.

Here’s why.

All too often, people—and I’m talking to myself here, too—decide to change their website, messaging, logo, whatever, because they’re nervous. They’re not reaching as many people as they like—or not reaching the right people—and they think all will be healed if their stuff could just be “cooler,” which often translates into “I want it to be something Seth Godin would think is cool.” Or worse: They want it to look and sound exactly like what everyone else is already doing.

Now, I’m all for cool websites. Nothing makes me sadder than websites like these. But when you don’t think about what you want to happen at the other end of whatever you’re starting, you’re likely going to end up on a very frustrating two steps forward, one step back journey.

The other thing that happens when you aren’t thinking of the end game is even worse: You’re so caught up in creating this cool thing that you forget why you’re doing it. You forget your audience. What do they want? What do they need? It’s kind of like when people obsess about the color of the napkins at their wedding reception, but haven’t thought much at all about actually being married (which, I admit, for a few might be a good thing).

So, what to do when you get the urge to jump into something big and new? Let’s take the example of a new (or revamped) website since that’s my specialty.

3 Steps to Starting with the End in Mind

1) Think about your ideal customer and what he or she really needs from you. When you’re redoing your site, it’s easy to feel like you need to load it up with all kinds of proof of your amazingness. And yes, testimonials are a must. But the thing that’s going to get someone to hit a “buy now” button is the feeling that you can solve her problem. So put yourself in your imaginary customer’s skin and pretend you’re browsing your new-and-improved site. What’s making her hurt? What’s keeping him from being as fulfilled as he knows he could be? Then you can spend some time thinking about how to show that you’re the very best person to help.

2) Visualize what you want your website to look like, feel like, sound like. Will it be clean and spacious? Or will it be filled with tons of pretty badges from all of your favorite affiliate programs? Will it sound super sassy? Or will the language be warm and inviting? Will you be featuring your blog on your home page? Or will your programs be the star? The more you can actually visualize what’s going to be the beautiful product of your process, the better chance you’ll have of getting there.

3) Now that you’ve got the practical stuff out of the way, spend a bit of time each day for a week or two thinking about how your work and inner life will be different when you get your new website up and running. Imagine the types of conversations you’ll have around the new way you’re expressing yourself. Think about the clarity and confidence you’ll feel. And go ahead, indulge in a bit of fantasy about Seth Godin mentioning your work in a post.

I’d love to hear stories about how you’ve had success by starting with the end in mind. What’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to you?

In my last post, I asked you to consider “turning down the noise” in your business so you could make some space for creativity, growth, awareness.

If you’re anything like me, you’re thinking, “Then what the hell am I going to listen to?” I, too, rely on that noise to keep me comfortable, distracted, busy.

And though I’m not trying to be super-literal here, it was an interesting coincidence that in the middle of thinking about all of this stuff I heard an interview with Don Campbell about his new book (written with Alex Doman), Healing at the Speed of Sound. In the book, Campbell, who wrote the groundbreaking (and, ultimately, controversial) The Mozart Effect, puts forth the theory that by “using” music and silence, you can become more efficient, productive, relaxed, and healthy.

Um, yeah. Sign me up for that.

I realized after hearing the interview how little I actually listen to music these days. When the iPal is on in the kitchen, it’s tuned to public radio. When I hike each morning, I listen to Howard Stern. Sometimes in the evening, I’ll put on Pandora and have a dance party in the living room with my four-year-old daughter, but “Let’s Get It Started” isn’t exactly listening music for me.

During the day, I listen to my ever-spinning brain, filling it up on 30-second snippets of noise from the internet in between bouts of writing. Now it’s not to say that everything I listen to is noise and junk. It’s just that I haven’t been very mindful about what I’ve been listening to.

I thought I’d do an experiment to see if Campbell’s theory is right. I downloaded the “Focus & Vitality” soundtrack that he put together to accompany his book. The sales copy for it says that it will “sharpen your mental abilities by stimulating your brain through specially chosen frequencies, tempos, and musical structure.“

So every day for the last week, I’ve listened to it through my headphones off-and-on during my workday. It’s mostly classical music—though no composers are mentioned, so it must be original?—with a bit of new age-y stuff tucked in at the end.

I’ve probably listened to the whole thing about a dozen times since the experiment started, and I have to report that it makes a difference. I don’t know how much I can attribute to Campbell’s music specifically, but I do feel that having something lovely playing through my headphones keeps me focused on the matter at hand rather than feeling the need to skitter off and go look at whatever amazing video someone’s just tweeted about or read another Top Ten Ways to Transform Your Business in a Week!!!!!! post that someone’s just tweeted about or, basically, lurk around on Twitter at all.

I’m very happy doing things like, well, writing this post for the Story House blog. I’ve been promising myself I needed to post more regularly for a long time, and lo and behold, after listening to the soundtrack, I’ve written two in two weeks.

Now I’m branching out. Have loaded up the Symphonic Classical Period Radio station over on Pandora, though it seems that some of the less allegro-y pieces don’t have quite the same “focus & vitality” effect. I’m hoping to create my own Story House soundtrack that will be kind of like the green smoothies I’ve started making every morning—energizing and good for you.

So a question: What do you listen to when you’re being your most productive?

I went out with a friend last night to hear Jeffrey Foucault, an über-talented singer and songwriter who looks like he just walked out of a Cormac McCarthy novel.

We were there because of my friend Chris Dombrowski, a poet I met while studying fiction in Montana. He and Jeffrey had been introduced a while back and become fast friends, bonding over their mutual passion for a perfectly tied fly and the sun flash on brown trout’s tail.

While waiting for Jeffrey to go on, my friend and I talked about Chris and his wife Mary, and how whenever we’re around them (which is a far-too-rare occurrence these days), we feel a delicious spaciousness. When you sit down at their kitchen table in Missoula, they are there. Like, really there. Present. 

This made me think a lot today about how a lack of spaciousness can just suck the soul out of people—and brands. We’re so jacked up on launches and likes and lists that it’s really, really hard to just be.

I’m not trying to go all Buddhist on you or anything, but I do want to make a pitch for turning down the noise.

Give your business and brand room to breathe. Give your brand time to get its shine back (it’s there, trust me).

See who comes to your table. Have a cup of coffee with them. Enjoy the company.