As more and more businesses are shutting shops and offices to concentrate on their online presence, is the Internet really connecting people or is it devaluing the real connections we have and isolating us?

Despite some of our larger clients, I refuse to charge corporate fees to small businesses because I enjoy working with them so much more than faceless executives. This means I am regularly speaking to people working from home offices and around 50% of the time, work alone.

Before the Internet, this wouldn’t have been possible, a lone worker would need an office and exceptionally expensive marketing techniques. Before the telephone they needed meeting spaces and prominent postal addresses. With the Internet here and rapidly growing, the meeting space has gone, the office has been sacrificed, the telephone sits silently and formal office-wear has been replaced by the dressing-gown.

According to retail analysts: Verdict Research, in 2007 online shopping grew by 33.4% to £10.9bn in 2007. They foresee online sales tripling over the next five years. All the major supermarkets now deliver shopping for you. Pubs are closing countrywide faster than ever, real social lives are slowly diminishing.

Meanwhile, as the Internet makes working from home a more convenient and cheaper option, the media and Government are making it as difficult as possible for us to leave our homes, Petrol prices are forever rising, knife crime, war, terrorism, danger danger danger!

To fill the need for social interaction, Internet users are now resorting to Facebook, Myspace, email, instant messaging, online dating, online chat, anything to keep the social interaction going. Using these systems connects us with old friends, clients, suppliers, family and new people from all over the world, but is it enough? Today in 2008, we can wake up, have conversations with family and friends, catch up with clients, and answer a few enquiries all before brushing our teeth. What is the world coming to? We’re dropping human interaction for the convenience of the Internet, then finding a way to replace what we’ve lost through the same medium.

From a marketing point of view, this is not necessarily a bad thing, our demographic is becoming easier to find and reach as they’ve all pigeon-holed themselves to their favourite communities.

From a business and financial point of view, it helps keep overheads down and allows people to work at their own pace, particularly useful for single-parent families or other situations where available time is sporadic.

From a personal point of view, we’re connected to people we never thought we’d hear from again, but in many cases, slightly less connected to our neighbours and family. We see major family news on Facebook before we hear about it directly, with the extra connections and busier lifestyle, we leave family dinners longer and longer, people who should be close family, we see once a year.

Are we isolating ourselves in our homes and offices or are we better connected than ever before? Is networking the new socialising?

Working from home has a lot going for it. What I love most is that I don’t have to join in the rush hour traffic any more. I found that my blood pressure and stress levels actually reduced significantly when I began working from home - even with all the uncertainties of running a small business!

However, there can also be challenges if you work from home, or spend most of the time on your own. The following are situations that you may have come across:

Be at work while you’re at work
If you have, or are just starting, a business that is to provide your main income then you will need some self-discipline. The freedom to do what you want, when you want is wonderful - but take care not to get carried away! You may find yourself tempted to ‘pop out’ to the supermarket, the gym, or even the golf course - because it’s quieter during the day. And those little jobs around the house start beckoning now that you see them all the time. Before you know it, big chunks of your day have disappeared in non-work activities and you’re struggling to get enough clients or sales to make your business viable.

Just as if you were working for someone else, you need to have regular working hours - but you can be a bit creative! You don’t have to be ‘at work’ from 9-5, if you work better early in the morning, you might choose 6am-2pm. Or, if you’re a night owl you might prefer 2pm-10pm. It doesn’t matter so much when you work, as long as you put the hours in and work while you’re ‘at work’.

Set a time for ‘going home’
Some people have the opposite problem and would work around the clock if they could! If this is you, then you will need to set yourself a time to stop work and ‘go home’. It can be very tempting to just do ‘one more thing’ - I know I’m guilty of researching on the internet and losing track of time. But all your efforts could be for nothing if you make yourself ill by pushing too hard.

Believe it or not, having a proper break at the end of the day will actually help you get more done. Have you ever had a problem that you spent ages trying to solve and then find that the answer comes to you the next day while you’re in the shower or brushing your teeth? That’s because your subconscious carries on working while you’re relaxing or asleep - and it actually needs you to stop thinking about the problem while it takes over! 

Set Boundaries for Family and Friends
This is a particularly sensitive and tricky area. When you work from home, friends and family will often phone for a chat or drop in for coffee - just because they can. They don’t understand that you’re trying to make a living or have deadlines to meet. So you have to tell them, and teach them about your hours of business. 

If you don’t set boundaries, you’ll end up feeling resentful and not enjoy their company so much when you are ‘off duty’. They may be a bit surprised at first but will soon get the message if you continue to stand firm. If you feel uncomfortable doing this, practise what you want to say beforehand so you’re prepared when they call. It’s OK to say that you’re busy right now and can you call them back later (at a time to suit you). 

Schedule meetings in your diary
A lot of business owners don’t like the isolation of working on their own. They miss having people around them. So, while it’s important to use your working day productively, you also need to schedule in meetings with a fellow business owner. Have coffee or lunch and bat some ideas around. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Be mutually supportive. Celebrate your wins. Commiserate and pick up the pieces if necessary. You can’t usually do this with friends and family because they don’t understand what it’s like to be in business. 

Do choose carefully who you trust with details about your business - and make sure it doesn’t turn into a mutual moaning session! The aim is to feel less isolated, not become totally depressed.

Make Room to Work
If you’re cramped in a tiny space under the stairs, or perched on the end of the dining table, you will struggle to make headway with your business. It’s important that you have enough room to work, room to keep your papers tidily and room to make and take phone calls in a business-like way. 

Turning up to client meetings with coffee rings or jam on a proposal is not professional. Keep telling your little ones to ‘be careful’ around your papers or laptop, and the result will be nervous dispositions all round. Just as you need to be able to separate work time from home time, so you need to have somewhere that is just for your business and that won’t interfere with family life. 

© Louise Barnes-Johnston, 2008 - Used with permission

Louise Barnes-Johnston is “The Business Accelerator”. She provides business coaching and mentoring for entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses. Get a copy of her FREE report “10 Ways to Boost Your Business” at http://www.frontline-results.com

It is a well known fact (apparently) that men think about sex every six seconds. So next time the guy next to you on the train, plane, tube or bus has a misty look in his eyes you can be pretty sure what he is thinking about.

From a copywriter’s point of view this is a bit of a pain because if you write a sales letter that takes 5 minutes to read, your carefully crafted sales pitch is interrupted 50 times. To be honest, whether the statistic is true or not is neither here nor there – the point is that when someone picks up your sales letter your reader is more than likely focusing on something else other than your sales message.

A good sales writer will know their product intimately and will be able to write about it convincingly. Fantastic, but how does that help with the wondering mind problem? It doesn’t, but it does highlight that to be a great sales writer you have to know your reader intimately too. No, I am not saying that you should dash out and romance every member of your target audience. You’d be far too knackered to write anything but you should be able to understand their idiosyncrasies, their motivations, their innermost fears and desires.

Before you even start writing you should build a psychological profile of your reader, for example:

• What sex are they?
• How old are they?
• What do they want more of in their lives?
• How do others see them?
• Are they head or heart people?

By doing this you will find it easier to write copy that speaks directly to them in a way they’ll find difficult to ignore. Admittedly in some cases their own inner thoughts will still be more appealing but hopefully it will grab the attention of most and get your message across.

In a nut shell, if you do the leg work you’ll reap the rewards with a masterly piece of sales writing that will grab hold of your prospects by the collar and shake them – figuratively speaking of course.

Sally Ormond

Freelance Copywriter

Let me take your business to new heights by making every word count.

This article will hopefully clear up some misconceptions about copywriting. Basically it is sales writing – that’s it in a nut shell. It is primarily about selling, the actual writing is almost secondary. Below are some key ideas that you should always keep in mind when writing.

It’s not about you 

Sorry, but as a writer you come at the back of the queue. You must focus on the reader; it is them that will be doing the buying. What are they like? Are they male or female? What is their age group? What are their likes and dislikes? These are the questions you need to think about. Take an interest in them, find out what makes them tick.

All good things come in small packages 

That’s what my mum always told me and she wasn’t wrong. Many people seem to be under the misconception that sales writing, in any form, has to be impressively high-brow, be full of ridiculously long and complicated words and sentences. Well it doesn’t and in fact, shouldn’t.  Keep it simple. It doesn’t matter who you are writing for or how educated they may be; your audience will be turned off if they are faced with unfathomable words and rambling sentences. The best writing is clear, simple and concise - and don’t use jargon!

B2B or B2C? 

Whether your audience is Joe Public or another company your style should be the same. Many people think that selling to another business requires a different approach. But at the end of the day it is still a person who will be reading your sales letter or brochure.

Forget the F-word

No I haven’t gone barking mad. By the F-word I am referring to features. Your audience aren’t going to be impressed if you write about a list of features. By doing that the only reaction you will get is ‘so what?’ You must show your audience why the product is for them.

You have to sell them the benefits. If a guy wants to be a better football player, and you sell him your latest top of the range football boots on the basis that they’ll make that happen, he’ll buy them. OK, daft example, but you get the idea. It is all about tapping into the buyer’s emotional need.

Whatever you write you must grab the readers attention (a killer headline), get their interest in what you are selling (that’s where the benefits come in), create a desire (if they want something they’ll convince themselves they need it) and finally get them to act (buy, sign up etc).

Sally Ormond

Freelance Copywriter 

Let me take your business to new heights by making every word count.

Another fantastic website related blog from one of our favourite Copywriting sites; Copyblogger.com. This one talks about the psychology of passive selling, a sales method which all business websites work with no matter how well the website design is done where visitors are anonymous and make the most of that fact. Copyblogger I found fairly recently but after reading from article to article I found much of the content was well worth noting. They state facts and give advice to website owners and marketing alike and make the most of those facts… Anyway waffle over as per article, the blog starts here:

Have you ever stood in a store with something in your hand and then looked up to see if there was a clerk nearby you could ask for help?

Sure you have. We all have. Good help is hard to find.

Companies have been cutting costs by moving towards self-serve more than ever. Depending on where you live, you may have to bag your own groceries, pump your own gas, or bottle your own water.

Put yourself in the mind of the consumer. Consider what happens at that very moment you realize you need help. You were focused on buying two seconds ago, but then something happened—something very important.

Your brain skipped a beat.

“Find someone,” it said.

“Don’t buy. You have questions. Get answers.”

Your focus shifts. You aren’t thinking about buying anymore at all. You were almost ready to shell out your money, but now you’re in search mode. Now you’re seeking answers.

“Hello… Can anyone help me? Anyone at all?”

Now, think about your website. There are no clerks. No sales associate lingers nearby. The store aisles are empty and the cashiers are gone. There is no one who can help – not immediately, anyways.

The copy on your website is the single solution. Useful content mixed with meaningful messages is the only salesperson on staff. If your site content isn’t meeting, greeting, and convincing people, then it isn’t doing its job.

You need more than a website… you need a website that sells.

And to help you sell more, here are seven copywriting tips for a website that operates like a well-staffed store:

1. Get a professional salesperson – Overexcited content full of exclamation marks and sunshine-bright enthusiasm very often has the opposite effect of calm, confident copy. It just doesn’t work well. Tone down the cheerleading and collect your wits.
2. Eliminate the dress code – Calm and collected doesn’t mean bland and boring. It’s fine to show some personality, so get naked with your content. In fact, most consumers enjoy a good peep show (minus the pom-poms, that is).
3. Tell staff to talk less– Readers quickly lose interest in long, verbose paragraphs and end up walking away. No one likes the guy who can’t shut up, after all. Trim your content. Use concise sentences that create impact - not unnecessary fluff.
4. Inform consumers better – Tell consumers about your company. They want to know your story – the way they want to hear it. What makes you special? Why should they choose you? What can you offer more than the competition?
5. Bring in the specialist – The quality of your content reflects on your business image. If it isn’t well written, it isn’t going to help you sell. Do-it-yourself copywriting is fine for people with the skills. But if that isn’t you, then hire a writer to help.
6. Hire a clerk – Make sure people can contact you quickly and easily with a visible contact form. Ditch the coded (emails) supposed (to) cut spam, as well. That just forces consumers to take extra steps to contact you – steps they may not be interested in taking. There are other ways of verifying that a user is human without having to type out badly displayed letters!
7. Don’t goof off on the job - There’s a time and place for playing the class clown. Snagging a customer lead isn’t that time. Give straightforward information, offer a clear message and cut the clowning around.

Ending here, I would also like to mention a related article from the same blog entitled: ‘I don’t care about you’ which in principal states that your website viewers want to find out how you can solve their problem and don’t want to sit reading about how wonderful you say you are!