Writing Tips

by Kai Davis | Last Updated: August 29, 2020

If you’re marketing yourself as an indie consultant online, you’re going to be writing a lot — articles, emails, landing pages, sales pages, books, products, content… the list goes on and on.

I commented to a friend, colleague, and co-conspirator this morning that ‘the words are coming easier these days,’ and she asked if I had any Kai content writing tips.

I have six tips to share with you.

• Form — Form matters a lot more than I thought a few years ago. e.g., writing dailies vs writing a sales page vs writing a lesson for a course all take slightly different muscles. It’s like doing a circuit training workout at the gym.
• Outlining — Every time I outline something and let it sit in the subconscious for a day or seven and then write/edit it, it turns out better than I expect
• Swipe Files — Swipe files (reference files with high-performing content/copy/etc.) continue to be super impactful. These days, I’m focusing on two types of swipes: form swipe files (e.g., landing pages, email courses) and audience/topic swipe files (e.g., a folder stuffed with content on a topic, like Productized Consulting or Podcast Tours), so I can reference both similar form content and similar type content.
• The Resistance — When the resistance is present, saying to myself, “I’m just going to write for ten minutes and then I can go do whatever else I want if I’m feeling something else. But this starts with putting my butt in the seat and making the clackity-clack noise for ten minutes.” has gotten me started on many multi-hour writing sessions
• The Goal — The goal of writing is to finish and move onto the next thing, not write the perfect thing. Better internalizing that and the idea that some things I write + send are going to be Ds/Cs in addition to As/Bs has helped a lot.
• Reuse Content — Be shameless about reusing content you’ve written elsewhere. Create a great Twitter thread? Turn it into a blog post. Write a great comment? Turn it into something else. (For example, this letter started out as a Slack message.)
  

Excelsior!

Kai