rob's writing roundup! (week two)
rob's writing roundup! (week two)
14 days into this challenge, and I am still alive and kickin'
Sup amigo,
Here's a summary of all the new writing I did this week.
​Pricing alchemy​
This was my favorite thing I published, and the piece I'd most recommend. It's about how I stumbled into running "choose your own price" coaching calls two years ago, and why they've since become one of the most delightful, effective parts of my business.
Here's a quick rundown of the benefits. This pricing structure gets me out of my head, and makes me a better, more present coach, thus helping me serve better. This structure feels far safer and less risky for potential clients, leading to way more people giving it a shot. It also tends to attract serious, earnest people with real problems to work through, making the sessions far more generative. They're so easy for me and others to share, which throws gas on the fire of word of mouth marketing. I def recommend experimenting with something like this if you offer some kind of service. It's been nothing short of magic for me.
​From niches to networks​
I have come to loathe the word "niche," and in this piece I officially retired it from my vocabulary. It's become such a convoluted mess that gets conflated with like a dozen different business and marketing concepts. If you tell ten creators to "find their niche" you will get ten vastly different interpretations of what that evens means. If we care about having a shared understanding of the world, we've gotta work on being more precise with our language.
From here on out, I'm replacing the term "niche'' with "psychographic network." There are a handful of emotional/psychological drives that lead people to network themselves together on the internet, thus creating clusters of activity and distinct digital subcultures. Being able to see this landscape clearly is incredibly useful for anyone who wants to be more intentional with their marketing and business.
​Slowing down, finding balance​
Publishing daily like I have been has been so enjoyable, but it's also thrown my life out of balance in many ways. Personally, I have to remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I have other responsibilities in my work and personal life, and I can't spend five hours a day writing without it fucking things up. Gotta slow down a bit, and stop trying to write mega essays each day lol.
​One customer at a time​
Within me, there are two wolves. One says, "Rob, your membership is starting to grow. You don't have time to connect with every new customer. It's time to systematize everything and get it ready to scale." The other says, "Connecting with people is the entire point. If we ever forget that, we have nothing."
This post was more of a reminder to myself of what I'm trying to build and why. As seductive as more growth and more money are, if I chase those at the expense of connecting with people, my business will never feel how I want it to feel, and it will not create the ripples throughout business culture that I hope it will.
​I nuked today's post (lol)​
Friday was easily the hardest day of this challenge I've had yet. I struggled through most of the day and wrote a decent amount, but then threw it out because it felt lifeless and forced.
Then I started riffing on an idea. What if I could be in conversation with my older pieces of writing that I don't quite agree with anymore? What if I viewed all of my work as one ongoing conversation, instead of expecting every new piece I publish to represent me well forever? After all, I'm a fluid and evolving human, and it feels right that my writing should reflect that.
​The Ungated Manifesto, Revisited​
Speaking of being in conversation with my past work, I gave that a shot yesterday with one of my most popular pieces of writing.
There are two particular paragraphs in the manifesto that have bugged me since the day I hit publish. So I spent some time riffing on them and updating my thinking in real time. First, I got into some nuanced thoughts on genre, storytelling structure, and why they absolutely are useful even though the manifesto implied otherwise. And then, I called myself out for being a judgmental jerk in the following paragraph lol. Shame and ridicule will never change our cultural or business landscape for the better. Only kindness and compassion will.
And with that, I have one other quick announcement. On Tuesday, I'm running a collaborative digital hangout thing with my friend Sari Azout. We'll all be talking about our favorite corners of the internet (the places that feel like an oasis away from the noise), and then submitting them to the Oasis Builders database I've been working on. Here's the signup page if you'd like to come join us!
Rob's Weekly Invitation
Since I spent so much time writing about "choose your own price" coaching sessions this week, feels natural that I would mention them here. If you ever want to jam on something you're stuck with in your creative work or business, my door is always open.
See ya next week 🫡
-Rob