I’ve spent many years coaching and consulting with clients who want to _________ [fill in the blank]. In almost all cases, the client has innately known what they wanted, but through coaching gained the clarity needed to take appropriate action.

It’s ironic, then, that I’ve struggled with "naming myself" because I can do such a wide variety of things: writing, ghostwriting, blog coaching, wordpress consulting, marketing consulting, book promotions, social media integration . . . . and the list goes on.

But recently I had one of those ah-ha moments; those delightful seconds when illumination is reached through introspection, and the world of possibilities becomes known.

What happened? I realized that all of my coaching and consulting (blogging, article marketing, site building, et al) was really about Coaching to Zen . . . . helping my clients reach a state of illumination (at times bliss!) through coaching them to their own clarity. My own ah-ha moment has caused me to rethink how I define my own services . . . with the result being . . . (ta-da!) . . .

Coaching to Zen.

I’m not a Buddhist, nor do I have in-depth knowledge of "zen".  What I do know is that MY definition of it  is about opening up to your own inner knowing . . . . and calling it Coaching to Zen simply felt right.

Of course, that means a restructuring of my site, a re-do of my social media profiles, new business cards, new e-mail sig files – - kind of like all that stuff you have to do when you lose your wallet!  But in a good way.

To celebrate my own Coaching to Zen, I invite you to take advantage of a free 15-minute coaching session . . . let’s explore what paths lead to your bliss. Click that Contact button up above, or the hot pink button to the right . . . and let’s see what evolves.

My colleague Rob Schultz has created the 90 Articles in 90 Days Article Traffic Challenge, and it’s open right now. Class starts on June 10, but Rob’s Early Bird Special (save 50 bucks) closes down at midnight Tuesday (May 26).   Although I’ve written articles professionally for more than 15 years, I decided to take Rob’s last 90 Day Article Challenge to personally experience the program.

I can unequivocally say that the benefits I received from this traffic-boosting course were worth far more than the cost of the course (and the course is very affordable).

Using what you learn in the course, in less than 3 months it can help you transform your hard earned experience into hordes of new prospects eager to discover what you offer . . . and eager to buy!

It leverages the viral, social nature of the web to multiply your efforts many times over. It provides a simple system you can use to attract prospects not only months but years into the future. And it supplies under-the-radar secrets that trigger a never-ending traffic torrent you could not turn off . . . even if you wanted to.

Yes, the course taught me tons of article template s, lessons on crafting great titles, and Rob’s “hidden secrets” for creating many products from a single article. Better yet, after a small business owner read one of my articles he e-mailed me to book my Kindle formatting service. Not a bad return from one articles.

If you’re serious about marketing your business or book, click the 90 Day Article Challenge link and watch Rob’s video. I think you’ll be just as impressed as I was.

Good luck with the course.

I talked to a web designer yesterday about a client we both share; unfortunately through her design time and my blog consulting time, we realized this client was going to fall into the “why aren’t I getting more traffic – my website has been up two weeks!” category.

That led, as many of these talks do, to a discussion of SEO content.

Like many website owners, our client didn’t want to invest any cash into even basic SEO tweaks, didn’t care about looking at site statistics (and even fought us on installing Google Analytics) . . . but worse (IMHO) was their inability to comprehend that they were writing “vitamin” content instead of “pain pill content”.

Huh?

Vitamin content is good stuff – but doesn’t solve a problem, and pain pill content serves up info that solves a problem.

For example:  If I were writing about flying a stunt kite, vitamin content would tell you the benefits of being outside, the fun of stunt kite flying, or the history of stunt kites.

Pain pill content would show you how to put a stunt together together without tearing out your hair, or how to do loop-de-loops without killing innocent bystanders with an out-of-control kite!

Simple concept, eh? But one we often forget because we get so wrapped up in the theory, not the “how to”.

Want more examples? Check out Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog – - notice how many “pain pills” he writes about, i.e. How to Make Gmail Your Ultimate Productivity Center. Since most of us use Gmail, and most of us have time challenges, Leo’s post had information that solved e-mail overload and time deficit – - pretty good post don’t you think?

Does this give you an idea for writing some of your own articles or blog posts? Comment below – what’s your best pain pill?

(And if this “pain pill” concept is yours please contact me – it’s great stuff, but I can’t remember where I first heard about it!)

I just purchased a new piece of software by Jonathan Leger called Answer Analyst.  What’s it do? The user enters a keyword or keyword phrase, and the software goes out on the Internet, searching for the most common questions “real people” are asking about the topic.   Can you imagine how much easier this is going to make writing relevant content on your site, blog, or in articles?

As a major article writer and article marketing geek, I plunked down my $77 as fast as I could, and then took this baby out for a spin.

Am I happy with it?  You bet.

First, let me tell you WHY you want this

It you need content of any kind (articles, blogs, site, sales page) Answer Analyst will tell you exactly what your client/customer/consumer wants to know about what you do. (and this works even if you have an offline business)

For example, pretend you own a bricks and mortar “pest control” business and want to beef up your website with more relevant information so 1) your site will be found; and 2) you’ll get more customers.

. . . and now how it works

I entered “pest control” as a keyword phrase and within 3 seconds Answer Analyst popped out a whole list of questions, such as “is the landlord responsible for pest control”, and “what is biological pest control”.

But, as the Ginzu knife guy said, but wait, there’s more!

Highlight any of the answers being asked, click “Get Answers” and Answer Analyst surfs the net and pulls back information from other Websites about your topic. You can then save that info as part of your research, then write an article about it. At this point, not only do you know what info your customer wants, you have plenty of research material to write about it!

To Buy or Not to Buy?

I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly creating new content . . . not only for my own sites but for my clients as well. Having instant access to the questions people want answered about ANY TOPIC . . . and then having access to instant research is a no-brainer for me. I bought it this morning and it’s already saved me $250 of my own time in researching keywords and then researching the topics I need to write about. Probably the best $77 bucks I’ve spent.

Grow your business with kaizen strategies

For me, 2009 is the year of focus aided by the Kaizen Philosophy—a way of being that encourages small, continuous improvement.

Although generally associated with post-World War II Japanese industrial recovery, Robert Maurer, author of One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, noted that kaizen has its origins in Training Within Industries (TWI), a post-Depression era methodology of making continuous improvement.

As World War II hit America, factories were tasked to increase production, while at the same time losing factory workers to military service. Instead of making radical changes to the factory processes, workers were tasked with making small continuous changes. For example, if a factory line had 100 different processes, the goal was to make one small change per process.  The results of WWII factory production is legendary.

Kaizen and Your Business
We human have big goals. When we diet we want to instantly lose 20 pounds.  When we start an exercise program we want to run a half-marathon. When we start an online business, we want 10,000 people to sign up for our mailing list on day one.

What happens when the pounds don’t come off so easily, or a month goes by and only 5 people sign up for your mailing list? The natural temptation is to give up – - to reach for the Snickers, or to jump to another “instant success” business idea.

When meeting a client for the first time, I do my best to manage their expectations—for example, to let them know that they are not going to get effective articles for their article marketing campaign if they pay $5 each and have them written by a non-English speaker. The client may not like paying more for articles, but over time they have proof (through analystics and conversion) that the better content brings the better business result.

In terms of our own businesses, what do you think about mananging our own expectations but drafting a Kaizen-inspired blueprint for our businesses?  What would that look like? Maybe

•    5 new mailing list sign-ups this week
•    8 the following week
•    12 the following week
•    18 the following week
•    24 the next week

Not very sexy, but by following the Kaizen philosophy, you will experience steady, continuous growth.

How else to apply Kaizen?
What if you focused on the small continuous improvements that will bring in one excellent client this month.

Or, if you wrote an update to your last e-book and re-releasied it at a discount to everyone on your list?

Or what if you spent one hour once a week calling or e-mailing your existing clients? Or 15 minutes?

It’s these small continuous improvements in your processes that will bring changes of legendary proportion.

What 2009 Continuous Improvements Will You Make?
As we swing in

to 2009, my small continuous improvements will be in the area of article writing and high touch customer service.

How about you?  Please leave your comments -

Back in the day when putting bread on my table depended on my ability to write articles quickly, I developed an easy system that I use to this day.

1.  Decide on the number of words in your article.  For illustration, let’s say you want to write a 500 word article on collecting political campaign buttons.

2.  Next, figure out how many sub-topics you want to write about, i.e. Republican, Democrat, Third Party, and value. So you have 4 sub-topics of the main topic: How to collect campaign buttons.

3.  Assume you’ll write 75 words in your opening paragraph and 25 words in your closing paragraph (this is an estimate – but close enough).  Opening and closing graphs take up 100 of your 500 words.

4.  Take the remaining 400 words and divide them equally among your sub-topics.  That means each of your topics will get 100 words each.  Writing 100 words is a breeze.  (This article already has 154 words)

5.  Write your article!

Here’s the deal. Once you follow the formula above, you know exactly how many words you need to write about each sub-topic. This will keep you focused and concise–and if you use this technique consistently, writing an article in 15 or 20 minutes will become second nature.

Try this article writing technique next time you’re facing the blank page and let me know how it works for you.