Category: WritingCategory: Writing

Tweaking headlines, re-writing copy, adding testimonials, changing the color the button – you’ve done all these things, but you’re still not making the sale.

Two things – maybe your offering isn’t something that people need, or maybe there’s not enough trust yet.

I got talking about this in my conversation with Deanna Seymour, about sales pages. Well, long sales pages. You’ve seen them; two miles longs, 9000 words, and they don’t say anything.

Like Deanna says during this conversation, by the time she’s on a sales page, she already knows she wants the thing, to which I replied:

“I think it’s a trust thing. The trust that (is) built. Like, there are people that we both know, they could send a Google Doc with a PayPal button on it. Yes, I’m signing up because we built that trust. We trust them now. I don’t know that an 18-page sales page builds trust. I think the trust comes way before someone clicks on your sales page.”

You don’t fix trust with more copy. You fix trust by, well, building trust.

You build trust by showing up and doing what you say you’re going to do. By fixing the things you say you fix, and showing how you do it. Every step of the way, you’re reinforcing the belief that you’re the right person for the job.

I’ve seen a bunch of coaching websites with the “click here to book an intro call,” but not a single video showing their face, their tone, their vibes.

How do you build trust with a “book now” button?

Why would any woman hop on a call with a man in 2026 without seeing some videos?

Why would anyone sign up for a virtual yoga class without hearing your voice, or seeing how you manage an online session?

These things aren’t fixed with 5,000 word sales pages, or reading testimonials from people we don’t know. Trust is built brick by brick, by showing up as your full human self, and sometimes that includes seeing your face and hearing your voice.

Listen to “Building a Business Without Social Media with Seth Werkheiser” on Deanna Seymour’s Big Fun, Small Business podcast here.

Everything you post, big or small, can inform the next thing you post. This from Debbie Weil, emphasis mine:

“I had decided not to publish this week; my editor Erin Shetron was taking a week off to drive across country, as she moves from Oregon to Philly. So I figured I’d take a week off too. But I missed writing and publishing; I pulled out my laptop yesterday afternoon and wrote this in about three hours. It’s not deep or difficult (it’s partially based on some Notes I wrote earlier).”

Your ardent supporters are on your email list, but most will never see your Note on Substack, or a random post on Threads, so repurpose that work for your subscribers!

I’ve said this for years – if you’ve been posting on social media for years, writing your next newsletter is easy, because it’s already written.

Most of your followers didn’t see your latest social media post, so re-use the photos and text and ideas and craft them into your next newsletter, where more people will see it. Give those “random posts” oxygen, new life – you never know where they might lead with the right attention!

NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS ZOOM CALL
Thursday, May 14 at 2:00 PM EDT
Replay available if you sign up.
Pay what you want, starting at $3.00
Register for the Zoom call here: https://luma.com/fku24gz8

I get to talk to a lot of creative people, and whenever I mention the whole “having a website,” folks tune out. I think this happens because for the last decade we’ve been hammering our creative round pegs into the templated square hole website builder platforms, and they feel gross.

Not to mention we’ve been throwing our best work onto social media platforms, where at least we get some LIKES and replies on occasion, right (even when hardly anyone sees them).

For me, posting to my site (like right now) is lower stakes writing. I don’t need to think about if an algorithm will pick it, or if someone might misinterpret me and leave a nasty comment.

This site exists between something like Morning Pages, which no one will see, or a full-blown email newsletter, which goes to thousands of people.

Here is where ideas germinate, in public, with just enough tension. Something I write is likely to be referenced a week from now, or even a year (or more) later.

“My blog posts inform the posts I haven’t written yet, they become the solutions to problems I didn’t know I had. They get referenced in member calls and workshops. They become subconscious scripts for future conversations I’ll have months from now.”

Good ideas have to start somewhere.

This came up in yesterday’s Break Up 💔 With Social Media call.

“I’ve had (group) calls with one other person… “but I have all these thousands of subscribers, this should be bigger,” I’ll think… but that one conversation might be the seed of something you post two months later that turns into something else.”

If four people show up for your Live stream, or 10 people read your newsletter, be present in the moment and realize you’re still building even when it doesn’t look it. I know it’s hard because I’ve been there, but we can’t always hit home runs every time we step up to the plate.

Come to our next Let’s Break Up 💔 With Social Media call with Chuck Marshall, where he’ll be talking about Why Every Artist Needs a Website.

I drop post ideas into WordPress drafts throughout the week. Then, on the weekends, I flesh out those posts and schedule them.

That’s over 100 posts so far this year on this site. Just four have 100+ views. But this is the practice, something I do regardless of who shows up.

My blog posts inform the posts I haven’t written yet, they become the solutions to problems I didn’t know I had. They get referenced in member calls and workshops. They become subconscious scripts for future conversations I’ll have months from now.

Blogging is lower stakes writing, and the payoff goes far beyond views.