How Being a Good Listener Can Help You Write Effective Sales Copy

The post How Being a Good Listener Can Help You Write Effective Sales Copy appeared first on ProBlogger.

This post is based on episode 146 of the ProBlogger podcast.

Before you start writing your sales page, promotional blog post, tweets or Facebook updates to sell something, you need to do something else.

You need to listen.

I first came across this advice many years ago, and since then I’ve heard from numerous people. Robert Bruce breaks it down very well in his Copyblogger post How to Become a Truly Great Copywriter, where he writes about three core ways you need to listen.

It’s a short post, with three key paragraphs I want to dig into here.

#1: Listen to the Product’s Creator

Robert writes:

Listen to the creator of the product you’re selling. Let her talk (for hours if necessary) about what makes it work, why she built it, what she hopes it will do for her customers. This practice alone can give you the bulk of your copy.

Maybe someone on your team created a product or service your business sells. Maybe you’re selling an ebook that someone else wrote. (All our Digital Photography School ebooks and courses have been created in partnership with someone else.)

Even if you created the product yourself, you might find it helpful to run through some of these questions:

Why do you want to create this product? Who’s it for? (Or if it has already created, who did you have in mind when you created it?)

What are the benefits of the product? How do you use it? What makes it work? What’s the product’s ‘secret sauce’? What problem does it solve?

Do you have any or worries about how your product will be perceived? What are they? (This is really useful information, as it lets you know the limitations of the product, or how it could potentially be misunderstood.)

Are there any similar products out there? How is your product different?

Over at Digital Photography School we ask a lot of these questions before the product is created. The author or creator gives us a description or outline of the product and tells us who it’s for. This helps us decide whether the product will be a good fit for our audience, and how to market it.

Here’s a simple example. When we launched Mike Newton’s Adobe Lightroom course, we noticed that Mike kept using the words “mastering Lightroom” when explaining the course to us. He wanted to help people master Lightroom.

We liked that, and decided to call the course Lightroom Mastery. We used the word “mastering” quite a bit in the sales copy.

That’s just one example of how an author’s language helped shape the sales material.

This can also work if you’re doing an affiliate promotion. Ideally you’d talk to the product creator. But if you can’t then look at the sales copy they use, the blog posts they’ve written about their product, and interviews they’ve done with other bloggers.

#2: Listen to Your Audience

Robert writes:

Listen to your audience. What are they telling you — directly or indirectly — about what they really want and need? If social media has given us anything, it’s an unprecedented ability to hear the demands and desires of real people, in real time.

I love this idea of listening to your audience when it comes to sales copy. This is something you want to do before you even start creating products. That way, you know your readers’ needs and challenges, and get an insight into the language they use.

When you’re writing sales copy, ask yourself some of these questions:

Who is the audience? Who will buy this product?

What are their pain points? What are their challenges? What are their problems? How do they express these – what language do they use?

What do they hope to gain? What are the dreams they hope could come true by using your product, or a product like yours? Again, what language do they use to describe these?

What are their fears? What questions do they have about your product, and what objections do they raise? (These may come out after you’ve launched your product. If they do you can edit your sales page, perhaps by adding Frequently Asked Questions section.)

You can also ask your readers about their challenges directly. When we were launching the Lightroom cause, I asked on the Digital Photograph School Facebook page, “What are your frustrations and challenges with Lightroom?”

Two themes came out strongly:

• people had bought the software, but felt overwhelmed by it and weren’t using it
• people had so many photos they didn’t have time to process them.

And so we weaved these two themes into our sales copy.

#3: Listen to Your Competitors

Robert writes:

Listen to your competitors. It’s wise to have a view of the entire field. What’s working in your market? What’s not working? What can you learn from others’ success and failure (and from the language that got them there)?

In the blogging space you can learn a lot from your competitors, who may also be your collaborators.

On Digital Photography School we often create products with people who are actually our competitors. The Lightroom course I’ve been referring to was created by Mike Newton, who sells similar products to ours on his own site. He came onto our radar when we were looking for affiliate products to promote, and we learned a lot by looking at how he was selling his products.

Knowing what other people are selling and how they’re selling it can really shape what you do. Maybe the way they do their sales pages, their launch emails, or even their social media will inspire you.

If you’re selling something at the moment, or if you’re about to create your first product, do this listening exercise.

Listen to whoever created the product, whether it was you or someone else.

Listen to your audience and understand the language they use – this should be the basis for your sales copy.

Listen to your competitors and collaborators, too.

That way you’ll be creating a product your readers will love, and promoting it in a way that shows how it can help them.

Image credit: Jeremy Vessey

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Why You Should Revisit Your Old Content – Regularly

The post Why You Should Revisit Your Old Content – Regularly appeared first on ProBlogger.

This post is based on episode 145 of the ProBlogger podcast.

Is your obsession with new content hurting your blog?

As bloggers, we tend to focus on what we’re creating now rather than what we created months or even years ago.

Of course, it’s important to put time and effort into creating new content for our blogs. And that’s what we do here with both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School. We want to make those posts useful and practical, and to ensure they’re well edited, attractive to the reader, and optimized for search engines.

It’s good that we do all that. And it’s also good that we promote our new content. We share it on social networks, put it in our newsletter, and encourage engagement through comments on the blog and on social media.

But here’s the thing: The week your post goes live is only the beginning of its life online.

Sure, it will get a spike in traffic for a few days after it’s published. But what happens in the months, years, and potentially decades after you hit ‘publish’ can completely dwarf those first few days.

That’s why evergreen content is so important. I won’t get into creating it too much in this post, but if you want to know more there are plenty of resources on ProBlogger including:

• How to Build Your Blog’s Audience with Long Form Evergreen Content
• The Ultimate Guide to Creating Evergreen Content for Your Blog (podcast episode 136)
• 7 Types of Evergreen Content for Your Blog (podcast episode 209)

Why Your Archives are an Amazing Asset

If you’ve been blogging for a year or more, your archives probably contain loads of great content that can really help your readers.

It may take a while for your regular readers – particularly the newest ones – to get to those archive posts. But readers who come in from search engines are more than likely to land on one. In fact, when I looked at the Google Analytics for Digital Photography School, the 14 most recent posts got only 15% of the overall traffic. The remaining 85% went to older posts.

So don’t assume your archived posts don’t matter or aren’t useful. They’re almost certainly getting a large share of your traffic.

And don’t assume the people who subscribe to your newsletter or keep coming back to your blog each week have read them either.

Here’s how to focus more on your archives, which can provide a number of benefits.

Revisiting Archived Posts

Each day on Digital Photography School I look back at what we published six months ago (which will almost always be two separate posts), and ask myself:

#1: Is the content evergreen? If it is, I schedule both posts to be published on Facebook the following day.

#2: Is the post still relevant? If it’s related to a promotion or competition that finished nearly six months ago, or linked to some news that’s no longer relevant, I consider deleting the post.

#3: Are there any mistakes in the post? I look for errors in the post – factual errors, spelling mistakes, broken image, embedded tweets that no longer work, and anything else.

#4: Could I (or my team) improve the post? Maybe it can be enhanced by updating the image or adding some additional formatting to the text. It may even seem a bit dated. (This doesn’t happen too much with six-month-old posts, but occasionally I need to make tweaks to keep them up to date.)

#5: Could we link the post to newer content, or link to it from newer content? This helps readers find their way deeper into the site. (It also helps a bit with search engine optimization.)

#6: Does the post need additional optimizing for SEO? This means looking at how it’s ranking on Google and potentially tweaking the titles and keywords, or even the alt tags used for the images in the post.

#7: Could we publish a follow-up post tackling the same topic? If the original post got a lot of discussion going, the questions in those comments sometimes give me an idea for a fresh post. Or maybe I’ll ask one of our writers to write a post that takes a different angle.

#8: Is it worth repurposing the post into a new medium? If the post has done really well, I consider whether it’s worth turning the content into a podcast or video.

#9: Does the post need a new call to action? Sometimes the call to action we used six months ago is no longer relevant, and we may want to promote a new Facebook group we’ve started or new product we’ve released instead.

#10: Do any comments need to be dealt with? This where I delete any spam that has managed to slip through the moderation system. It also gives me the opportunity to reply to comments I haven’t responded to yet.

#11: How is the post performing in Google Analytics? If the post has a lot of comments, or gets new comments regularly, I might look in Google Analytics to see how it’s performing. If it’s doing well, it’s a sign I need to pay attention to that post. For instance, I might be able to get it ranking even better.

As I go through these questions, I usually find the posts only need a few small tweaks. But even if I don’t update it, looking at that post helps me put it to the front of my mind.

Repeating the Process So You Cover All Your Posts Annually

Once I’ve done this for the posts from six months ago, I do it again with the posts from 12 months ago.

I get into a rhythm when I do it, so it only takes me a couple of minutes to look over each post.

I then go back 18 months, 24 months, 30 months, and so on – right back to the start of the blog in 2006.

All up it takes me about an hour. And it’s one of the most valuable things I do each day.

I look at every post in our archive (of more than 6,000) at least twice a year. And many of them get little tweaks along the way.

You might want to try a different system, such as looking only at the posts published one and two years ago. Or you have some other way of looking at posts in your archives – some of which you may have forgotten were even there.

Why This Process is So Effective

When I share older posts on social media other people often share them too, which helps to bring in even more traffic.

And updating old posts can help search engines view them more positively – potentially bringing in a lot more traffic over time.

I also get loads of new ideas when I do this. For instance, if I see that posts on a particular topic are doing really well, I might think about creating additional content. A while ago we realized a lot of our Digital Photography School posts on Adobe Lightroom were doing especially well, which gave us the idea to create a course on Adobe Lightroom.

This process also keeps my archives from looking dated and out of touch. I don’t want 85% of people coming to my blog thinking “Meh, this is no good. It’s out of date”.

You may not have an hour a day to devote to this. That’s fine. Make a start anyway. Even spending ten minutes on one post in your archives each day can make a huge difference over time.

I’d love to hear how you maintain your archives and keep older posts up to date (and visible to your current audience). Feel free to share your tips in the comments.

Image credit: Matthew Dockery

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Should You Use ‘He’, ‘She’ or ‘They’ in Your Blog Posts?

The post Should You Use ‘He’, ‘She’ or ‘They’ in Your Blog Posts? appeared first on ProBlogger.

This is a post by ProBlogger writing expert Ali Luke

You probably already know you should use “I” and “you” in your blog posts. But how do you use “he”, “she” and “they” in your blogging?

It’s an important issue, and one bloggers don’t always think about.

Let’s say you’re working on a blog post and you’ve got a sentences like this:

If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that [PRONOUN] can provide you with relevant samples of [POSSESSIVE PRONOUN] writing.

What should go in the ‘pronoun’ spaces? There are several potential options, some of which are more appropriate than others.

Option #1: If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that he can provide you with relevant samples of his writing.

Option #2: If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that she can provide you with relevant samples of her writing.

Option #3: If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that he/she can provide you with relevant samples of his/her writing.

Option #4: If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that they can provide you with relevant samples of their writing.

Option #5: If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that it can provide you with relevant samples of its writing.

We can dismiss option #5 immediately. In most contexts, “it” sounds bizarre and dehumanising when referring to a person. (There are a few exceptions, such as “It’s a girl!” when a baby is born.)

So which of the other four options should you pick. And why does it matter?

Option #1: Use “He” Because It’s How It Was Traditionally Done

If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that he can provide you with relevant samples of his writing.

A few generations ago, a sentence like this wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. (Well, other than because “blogging” wasn’t a thing back then.)

Traditionally, “he” could be used in this type of sentence as a neutral pronoun to encompass both male and female. Old style guides might still suggest it be used that way.

But today it’s rare to come across any writer who believes “he” can be used neutrally. Regardless of the intent, “he” inevitably implies the person being referred to is male, not female.

In our example sentence, using “he” might be seen as implying that freelance bloggers are mostly male (or even that they should be male), which is far from ideal.

One case where it might make sense to use “he” for hypothetical people is when you’re writing for a blog aimed solely at males (e.g. a blog about prostate cancer). But it can still be an issue, as we’ll come to when we discuss the use of “they”.

Option #2: Use “She” to Make a Point

If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that she can provide you with relevant samples of her writing.

An alternative approach is to use “she”. It’s likely to stand out because it’s not as common as using “he”, which may be what you want. For instance, you might want to challenge the reader’s unconscious assumptions by using “she” to talk about hypothetical CEOs or managers.

The danger with this approach is that, just like using “he”, it can come across as exclusive and ruling men out of the conversation. It could also imply that you feel some roles are or should be female only (e.g. using “she” when talking about an assistant or secretary).

Again, “she” might make sense is if you have a blog aimed solely at females (e.g. a blog about breast cancer). But it can also be an issue, as we’ll come to when we discuss the use of “they”.

Option #3: Use “He/She” to Keep Things Equal

If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that he/she can provide you with relevant samples of his/her writing.

The advantage of this approach is people won’t object to it on grammatical grounds. But if you do it for more than a sentence or two it becomes very clunky to read, which is a real disadvantage.

You could use “s/he” instead of “he/she”, but that also starts to look clumsy after a while. And there’s no real variation for “his/her”.

Still, if you’re writing something very formal or official then using “he/she” might be your best option.

Another alternative is to alternate between “he” and “she” in successive blog posts, or perhaps in successive examples within a single blog post. So you might write something like this:

If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that he can provide you with relevant samples of his writing.

[…]

Make sure you offer your freelance blogger feedback on how she is doing. It’s unfair to blame her for not meeting expectations you haven’t clearly set out.

If you’re determined to avoid using “they” (which we’ll come to in a moment), then alternating between “he” and “she” is probably the best method. But you need to make sure you are alternating (rather than simply throwing in a “she” occasionally), and that you’re not using “he” for higher status roles than “she”.

Option #4: Use “They”, Either as a Singular Pronoun or By Rewriting the Sentence

If you want to hire a blogger to write for you, it’s important that they can provide you with relevant samples of their writing.

This is my favourite option. These days I simply use it as a singular pronoun. I know some people dislike that, but it’s become very common across all sorts of media. (It’s also found in writing going back centuries, as the Oxford Dictionaries site explains here.)

There are several crucial advantages to using “they” in this way:

• It’s truly neutral
• It doesn’t look clunky like “he/she” or “s/he”
• It’s inclusive of non-binary readers

That third point is important, and may need some unpacking.

Some of your readers may not identify as being either male or female. This can be the case even if your blog is aimed at a particular biological sex. (If you’re writing about breast cancer or prostate cancer, some of your readers may well be non-binary. You might also have transgender readers.)

The preferred pronoun for most of these readers is likely to be “they” (though there are other options such as “ze”), so using it as your all-purpose neutral pronoun makes great sense. That way you’re including all your readers: male, female and non-binary.

But if you’re strongly opposed to using “they” as a singular pronoun, there’s a simple solution: rewrite your sentence to make the subject plural.

If you want to hire bloggers to write for you, it’s important that they can provide you with relevant samples of their writing.

While it won’t work for every sentence of this type, in most cases it will solve the he/she/they issue. No-one will fault you on your grammar, and it’s inclusive of readers of any gender.

Why This Matters (Even Though It’s Your Blog)

A few weeks ago the he/she/they issue generated a huge discussion in the ProBlogger Community group on Facebook.

One of the views there was along the lines of:

It’s my blog. I’ll do what I like, and if readers don’t like it then I don’t want them as readers anyway.

Another view was along these lines:

People get offended too easily these days.

While I can understand those perspectives, I disagree with them.

Of course we should be free to run our blogs however we like, and that includes the language we use. For instance, bloggers who swear frequently might feel it’s a crucial part of their brand. And they’re happy to pay the price of losing some readers who don’t like that kind of language.

But I don’t think we should see he/she/they as a minor, insignificant issue that people are just waiting to be ‘offended’ over.

Instead, it’s an opportunity to bring about a more equal world where people of all genders feel equally valued and welcomed, which is hopefully something we all want. As bloggers and writers, we have an important role to play here.

Of course, in the end it’s your blog and your choice about the pronouns you use. All I ask is that you give it a bit of thought, and consider that your assumptions (e.g. “Everyone knows ‘he’ can be used as a neutral pronoun”, “Everyone is either a ‘he’ or a ‘she’”) might not be correct.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that language changes and evolves over time. And that’s a good thing. It means the words we use reflect the changing society in which we live. Just because a particular grammatical rule or guideline was in use fifty years ago doesn’t mean it should still be used today.

How do you handle the “he/she/they” issue on your blog? Is it something you’ve already considered? Is there something you might change going forward? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Image credit: Tim Mossholder

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How to Get Moving Again When You Feel Stuck

The post How to Get Moving Again When You Feel Stuck appeared first on ProBlogger.

This post is based on episode 158 of the ProBlogger podcast.

Do you ever feel stuck in your blogging or your business?

I think many of us can relate to feeling paralysed at times – not just with blogging or business, but in other areas of life as well.

You might feel stuck and unable to move forward because:

• You’re a perfectionist, and can’t move on from one thing until you’re convinced it’s just right.
• You’re caught up in ‘analysis paralysis’. You keep looking at the different options, but you can’t pick one and move forward.
• You don’t have a clear idea of where you’re going. And you can’t make progress without knowing your destination.
• You always feel you need to know or have something more (develop a particular skill or more confidence, meet more people, have more money, etc.) before taking a particular action.
• You compare yourself with other people. It feels like everything you want to do has already been done, or that everyone else is doing it better.
• You feel overwhelmed by all the advice out there, and don’t know what to do first.

I can certainly relate to a lot of things on that list. I can get stuck when I have so many ideas that I can’t decide what to do first. Fear is also a big one for me. I worry what other people will think of me, how I’ll sound, how I’ll come across, what might happen if I make a mistake, and so on.

Perfectionism is a struggle for me. I imagine what I want to accomplish, and create the perfect picture of it in my mind. But then taking action seems risky, because whatever I do will never measure up to the way I imagined it. And so I’m tempted to do nothing at all.

But whatever the reason, being stuck will hold you back in any kind of business – especially in the online world where you need to keep active and keep moving.

Why You Should Take Imperfect Action

‘Imperfect action’ is always better than ‘perfect inaction’.

In fact, imperfect action is really the only kind there is. No-one ever takes perfect action.

Imperfect action gets things done. It’s what separates the dreamers from those who accomplish great things.

Here are some of the key benefits.

#1: Imperfect Action Creates Momentum

When you take one small, imperfect action, the next steps often reveal themselves.

As I mentioned earlier, some people don’t take action because they can’t see the big picture. But you may never see that big picture until you start taking steps forward.

I sometimes find that taking that first step towards a fuzzy goal makes it clearer for me. And starting to move gives me the energy to carry on.

#2: Imperfect Action Builds Confidence and Courage

I love this quote from Dale Carnegie:

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

Taking one small action can help give you the confidence to take the next, slightly bigger action. Keep moving a little bit further outside your comfort zone, and your comfort zone will expand.

#3: Imperfect Action Teaches You to Learn by Doing

Do you feel you don’t have the skills to tackle what lies ahead? Take imperfect action, and you’ll learn a lot – fast.

The day I started my first blog was probably the day I learned the most about blogging – ever. I learned so many new skills, and understood so much more than the day before.

#4: Imperfect Action Leads to Self-Discovery and Self-Improvement

As well as learning new skills, you’ll learn so much about yourself by taking action. Stepping out of your comfort zone will help you think about who you are and how you react in these situations.

For me, starting my blog helped me develop my ideas, and discover passions I wouldn’t have otherwise known I had.

#5: Imperfect Action is Relatable

This is something I think a lot of bloggers, podcasters and online entrepreneurs should understand. We’re often tempted to make our posts, products and sales materials perfect. But if we make things too perfect they’re not as relatable because they’ve lost some of their ‘humanness’.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t aim for excellence. (For instance, your posts should always be edited well.) But don’t feel you need to eliminate every imperfection. Humanness, vulnerability and imperfection help others relate to us and feel a connection.

Today, I encourage you take your next best step. You don’t necessarily need to reach your destination. You just need to take the next best step that will move you towards it.

What if You’re Really Stuck?

But what if you don’t think taking your next step will be enough to help you regain your momentum? That happened to me at one point with ProBlogger, when I realised I’d been putting off several different tasks. They were on my ‘someday’ list, but never quite made it to my ‘today’ list.

To get moving again, I set aside an entire week to get things done. I came up with a list of ten things I needed to do – things I’d been avoiding – that I could achieve in a week. Each one took half a day or less.

I also turned off a lot of the input in my life. No blog posts, no podcasts, no social media, no Netflix, and very limited email. I stopped consuming for a week, and started creating instead.

It turned out to be a really great week.

Putting that week aside and creating those boundaries meant I not only got a lot done, but also got my momentum back. And the following week was really productive too because I was in ‘creating’ mode.

Could you take one ‘next best step’ towards your goals today? Could you look ahead in your calendar and block out a week to really focus on moving forward and building your momentum? Let us know what you’ll be doing in the comments.

Image credit: Erda Estremera

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How to Overcome Failure in Six Powerful Steps

The post How to Overcome Failure in Six Powerful Steps appeared first on ProBlogger.

This post is based on episode 190 of the ProBlogger podcast.

Most of us don’t want to learn about failure because we don’t want to fail.

But we all do.

And that’s okay, because failure is an essential part of any business. If you’ve never failed then you’ve probably stayed in your comfort zone. And the fact you’re holding back means you’ll never know just how successful you can be.

So learning how to overcome failure is critical. And in today’s post I’ll take you through six things I try to do when I’m facing failure or I’ve made a mistake – no matter how big or small it was.

A lot of these tips will apply to areas of your life outside of blogging. Unfortunately, blogging mistakes can sometimes become very public failures. The things we do may not work out, and there can be consequences.

Your Emotional Response to Failure

So what’s the first thing I do when I fail?

I freak out.

Yep, just like everyone else I panic and get upset, which is a perfectly natural way to react. It’s important to get those feelings out, rather than denying them or bottling them up.

Just make sure you’re not doing anything that could have long-lasting consequences – for you, those around you, or your business – while you’re getting those feelings out. (You may want to step away from your computer and avoid saying anything online while you’re going through this.)

Six Steps to Overcoming Failure

Once you’re past that initial emotional response, here are six steps you can follow to help overcome it.

Step #1: Separate Your Failure from Your Identity

Equating your self-worth with your achievements (or lack thereof) and what other people think of you is a huge trap.

The message we hear all the time – in conversations, the media and marketing messages – is that our self-worth equals what we achieve plus what others think of us.

So to be worthwhile we think we need to achieve a lot and have other people think well of us. We might not consciously think about this, but we constantly look for success and want to look good in front of other people.

But that’s not realistic.

All of us will fail in our personal and business life at some point or other. And there will always be times when other people don’t think much of us. If we base our self-worth on our success and other people’s perceptions, there will be times when we don’t have much at all.

Instead, look for something deeper to root your self-worth in. For me, it’s my faith. For you, it might be something different.

Just because something you tried in your business failed doesn’t make you a failure.

Step #2: Don’t Face it Alone

I often see friends fall into the trap of internalising their failure and facing it alone.

One of the best things you can do is to admit your failure and share it with at least one other person. It could be your partner, or perhaps a close friend. Even if they don’t understand your business, you can still talk to them about it.

Internalising your failure and not talking to anyone about it can make it seem far bigger than it really is, to the point where it can completely overwhelm you.

When you talk to someone about your failure, or even a concern you have about your business, it helps you put it into perspective. It can also help you to find solutions and ways forward.

Next, look for a second person to talk to – someone who does understand your business. That might be a fellow blogger, or perhaps a business coach or mentor.

Alternatively, you could look for a support group (such as the ProBlogger Community Facebook group) to share your failure or mistake and look for advice.

Finally, there might be times when you need a therapist or counselor. If your failure has really shaken your confidence or affected your mental health in some way, there’s no shame in asking for help from a professional.

Step #3: Be Transparent

When you talk to a friend, colleague or therapist about your failure, be transparent about it.

As you start processing your failure, you may realise it affects other people: a business partner or team member, or maybe even your readers.

When other people can be hurt by our mistakes, it’s tempting to hide our failures and pretend they didn’t happen, or even lie about them. But in most cases this just makes things worse.

It’s better to come clean.

Admit the failure to those affected by it, and own your part in it. Deal with the consequences, and try to right any wrongs that have been done.

Owning your mistakes and failures, and taking responsibility for them, is often well received by other people. Most people are generous and gracious, and may even be able to help you find a solution.

Step #4: Learn From It

I say to my kids all the time that making mistakes isn’t a bad thing. It’s making the same mistake repeatedly and not learning from it that’s an issue.

What can you learn from your failure? Why did it happen? What could you do differently next time to get a different result?

Don’t run away from your failure. Instead, embrace it. See it as a learning opportunity, and a chance to do things differently next time.

If you think back to previous failures you’ve had, you may realise that some of them made you who you are today. It’s easy to see in hindsight, but try to see it in the moment as well. Ask yourself, “What can I learn from this? How can I turn it around?”

Step #5: Keep Moving

There are definitely times in business when we need to stop and take a break. After a failure, you may need to rest for a while so you can focus on looking after yourself. But then you need to move on and keep the momentum of your business going.

When I taught my youngest son to ride a bike, he had his fair share of crashes. He got scrapes and bruises on his elbows and knees. Understandably, there were moments after each crash when he said, “I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to ride a bike.”

That’s a natural reaction. But to learn how to ride a bike he needed to get back on and try again.

The same applies to your mistakes. Once you’re past the initial emotional reaction, and you’ve given yourself a bit of time to rest if necessary, you need to get back on that bike.

Identify your next best step. It might be to pick up the pieces and start again, or to evolve what you do. It may even be time for you to start something new.

Step #6: Look for the Positive Side

I know it annoys the people around me sometimes, but I always look for the positive side of things.

Even in the midst of incredible failure, there’s almost always a glimmer of something positive.

It may take a while for those glimmers to emerge. But when you see them, focus on them. The little sparks from a failure could well turn into your next big thing.

I can think of a lot of people who have experienced failure only to discover a new passion, including helping other people going through what they’ve been through.

Has something gone badly for you in your blogging or business life recently?

As you face failure, try to:

1. Separate the failure from your identity and self-worth
2. Turn to family, friends, fellow bloggers and professionals to help you get through it
3. Be transparent and honest about the failure and its effect on those around you
4. Learn from what happened so you can avoid making the same mistake again
5. Keep moving and keep up your momentum: get back on that bike
6. Look for any sparks of opportunity or anything good that can come out of your failure

While failure can be difficult to overcome at times, these six steps should help. Feel free to share how you get on with them in the comments.

Image credit:Jake Hills

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