How to Write an Award Winning Article
Knowledge, experience and the ability to put it together into some meaningful thought is well beyond the capacity of most would be authors. They don’t let incompetence keep them down. Here is the secret used by most business authors and reporters that know less than you, but make themselves look like freaking geniuses every day. Follow these simple steps and you’ll find yourself in the Harvard Business Review next month.
Step 1 – Come up with something completely obvious. Let’s try this; establishing a personal relationship with your clients will improve your chances of closing the sale. You might embellish this little gem by going on and on about people buying from people they like. You can describe through this personalization process that the client will share more about their motivations, needs and insecurities that will allow you to customize your sales proposition to better meet their needs. This will lead to lengthy discussion of the rapture and ecstasy that is the win-win proposition.
You will have established the value of your concept. Your prospect will be in complete agreement that this makes sense. This is the critical moment. You have buy-in, but they might be thinking this is nothing new. Fortunately, your article is in writing so it has credibility and there are a few moments of self doubt that give you an opportunity to move to the next step.
Step 2 – Clearly affirm that this has not been done before and that the “old” way of doing things was quite the opposite. In this case, you would establish that the old way was strictly business. No interpersonal dialogue took place between seller and buyer. Something about how suits and ties were social barriers and life was ever so dull. People were so regimented that even after their three martini lunches, they kept to the script and talked business. This must be repeated several times before it is accepted as truth.
Describe how in your enlightened world that people are free to let their defenses down and expose themselves personally, share their dreams and recount past mistakes and triumphs. Reinforce that this has never been the case and only a few enlightened individuals are daring to enter this brave new world with you coaching them every step of the way.
You have established the need. They are now convinced that they are not behaving in this manner and that you have only just opened their eyes to a concept that will create sustainable competitive advantage for their business.
Step 3 – Your 12 step plan to actualize the new reality. Can’t coach without a plan. Your 12 step plan must reinforce that your disciples are pioneers in this endeavor. What value is there in teaching someone how to do what they and the rest of the world are already doing? The first several steps must be that they confess that everything they do today is stupid. This is Consulting and Coaching 101, but this teaching is of course timeless.
From there the subsequent steps help them break out of this mold with the understanding that to discontinue your services will in fact lead to an immediate regression. Without knowing it, they will succumb to the “old” way of doing things and lead a life of misery and despair.
Some may be tempted to think this could not possibly be true. You are wrong. I challenge you to think about this as you read business books, articles and posts in the future. Please comment on what you find and share examples of this with other readers.
Richard Gabel
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