In today’s episode, we confront the internal and external voices that rob us of the opportunity to do our best work. We identify them and provide strategies to deal with them.

If you’ve ever dreamed of doing something significant, this podcast is for you. You want to start a business, have a show, or lead a movement? The voices of fear and doubt will try to derail you. Silence the inner critic and create.

Listen to the podcast.

This episode is a rebroadcast of a webinar I did several years ago for my photography group. It was one of my Free Photo Webinars series. View the slides I used on the show notes page here: www.lynmorton.com/blog/017-silencing-your-inner-critic.

These days it’s so much simpler to create a website. And when you use a platform like Squarespace, creating a website can be so simple. Here’s why I use Squarespace and think it is one of the best options for creating and maintaining a website.

These days it’s so much simpler to create a website. And when you use a platform like Squarespace, creating a website can be so simple. Here’s why I use Squarespace and think it is one of the best options for creating and maintaining a website.

Remember, I said you need a website?

A website is one of the four pillars of personal branding we discussed in episode 02.

You might be wondering how you get started with a website.

I use a platform called Squarespace. In fact, I’ve been using them for the last 10 years.

Squarespace is an online tool for building and publishing websites. Squarespace uses pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop elements to create webpages.

But it wasn’t always that easy.

In the old days, I created websites from scratch using Adobe Dreamweaver. Back then, you did a lot of designing and coding — page by page, unless you knew a language called CSS or cascading style sheet.

Since then, I’ve tried Wix, Weebly, Wordpress.com & Wordpress.org. I used the blogging platform, Blogger from Google. I tried Apple’s then website maker product. There was one that was native to Apple computers.

It wasn’t until I stumbled onto Squarespace about 10 years ago that I knew I was home. I found it to be the simplest, most intuitive, and complete solution.

I had just spent my entire weekend and then some trying to get my site up in Wordpress because that’s where all the cool kids said you need to host it. 

I downloaded plugins and bought themes and clunked around them with no discernible process. 

In sheer frustration, I Googled to see if there were any simpler options, and Squarespace popped up. I logged on and had a decent site up in a couple of hours. It was too easy and looked the way I wanted it to look, with drag and drop simplicity.

We’ve grown together over the years. Squarespace has added lots of features and upgraded its platform a few more times. Now I wouldn’t use anything else.

Here are some reasons it’s worth a look.

Beautiful, professionally designed templates. It is easy to have a website that looks like a professional designer did it, even if you don’t know a lick of code.

A modular system makes it not only easy to make them look good but hard to mess up.

Everything you need is built in. You know it’s there, and you know it works.

Unsplash Images + thousands of web fonts

Mobile-ready, fully responsive - out the box. No resizing all your images yourself or making any adjustments to load AMP. Squarespace takes care of all of that behind the scenes. Just upload your image, and you’re done.

Blogging options are superb. This is where it shines. You can create so many different options for your blogging/podcasting platform (CMS). You can even add more than one blog to your site if you choose. Multiple blogs give you lots of layout & design options, even if you don’t use them as a traditional blog.

SEO - Squarespace makes it very easy to create more searchable pages. The platform tells you exactly what to do to make your content more searchable by Google.

Built-in marketing features — Announcement bar, pop up email, newsletter blocks

Support — Chat and email very responsive. Tons of help videos to do everything imaginable.

They also offer complementary services

Logo design

Email marketing

Creating social stories

Scheduling 

Website analytics

Memberships

Commerce - You can sell any product or service. Even offer free downloads.

Mobile apps

Squarespace - manage your website

Analytics

Commerce

14-day trial, no credit card required

Built for

Small to mid-sized businesses

Photographers

Bloggers

Artists

Restaurants

Musicians

Weddings

Students

Not easy to export a blog to another Squarespace site

No staging site. Everything publishes as you create.

(Update 4/22/21) - The new Squarespace 7.1 now lets you save and publish separately. This is no longer an issue after you upgrade.

Can’t create pretty link URLs

We know that consistency fuels the engine of a brand’s success, but how do you ensure that consistency when you have to work with new employees, vendors, or freelancers? 

Creating a brand style guide can help us ensure consistency.

As a marketing professional, when you join a new organization, one of the things they first give you is their brand style guidelines. This style guide is the bible for everything you publish and create for them.

In one company, on my first day at work it arrived on my desk in a three-ring binder, about three inches thick.

Fortunately for us entrepreneurs and creatives, we can create a document that is just as helpful but not quite as voluminous.

There is a sermon I find myself preaching to any new business owner or creative I meet. Like any evangelist, I offer the sermon whether you asked for it or not because I believe so deeply in its truth. I also believe this small action can have one of the biggest impacts on your business or creative endeavor. 

It’s the sermon that says you need an email list for you business, and if you don’t have one, you should start it today.

Buckle up. Here it comes again.

How can you keep in touch with hundreds or thousands of your closest friends and customers efficiently, while nurturing the relationship in the process? You have to create an email list.

Listen to the podcast.

Take the 5-Day Challenge

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Hi there, I am glad to be back again. This is a short promo to let you know I’m still here and give you an update on a few things I have coming down the pike.

Last week I finished up another free resource. I tell you all about it in this episode.

Take the video series & 5-day Challenge designed to not only help you discover where you might be going wrong, but arm you with the tools & information to get back on track.

Enroll for free here:

5 Mistakes that could be killing your brand

By the time I hung up the phone with her, I was fed up, frustrated, and exhausted. I'd spent 30 minutes trying to convince her to business with me, and it went nowhere. Worse, it descended into what was almost adversarial. Quickly.  

How did I end up there? Once I had time to regroup and think about the experience, I came to the premise of today's show. When you encounter someone who needs your product and has the ability to buy it, but they choose not to....they are telling you one of three things.   

But what do they have to do with personal branding? Let me tell you a story.

Have you ever arrived at a website, and after a few minutes of looking around, couldn't figure out the point of the site and just clicked away? We know that happens far too frequently. We only hope it doesn't happen to our sites.  

When most people find your website, they have at least three questions in their minds. If you can answer those questions upfront, you have a better chance of having them spend some productive time with you.  This audio is the first part of a two-part video where I discuss the three questions, and then we look at three websites that execute on this concept well.

You can see the videos here: https://www.lynmorton.com/blog/yourwebsite

If you ever stared at an empty screen and wondered what content you would create or post to social, the tool that is missing from your life is an editorial calendar.

What is an editorial calendar?

• An editorial calendar allows you to plan and schedule your content ahead of time so you can keep in sync with your products and promotions, reference important holidays, or keep consistent themes.
• In a word, it helps you to be more strategic. There is no greater sin that to promote randomly, and this tool helps you always ensure that all your efforts are aligned and working.

Why would you need an editorial calendar and how is it helpful?

Listen to the podcast

“That sounds great,” will you send me a proposal?

I paused and let sink in what should have been a cause for celebration.

“Sure thing. I’ll send it right over.

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this gig. I had been approached by the friend of a colleague to do some marketing consulting. It was flattering to be asked, and I thought it could be a decent revenue stream. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it.

There were some red flags about the industry, with which I wasn’t very familiar. It also sounded like I would have to do some educating on my approach, which included regular content creation. I wasn’t sure how that would go over.

I pitched it anyway and got the contract. Great.

I contrasted that with another client where I knew I was in sync. I understood his business - the challenges and opportunities. We were also in sync on how we would work together. It got me excited to support this client and work with him on his business.

It made me wonder -- how do I get more of the clients that I connect with and avoid the ones where there is a gap?

Believe it or not, that’s where having a niche can be helpful.

If you feel misaligned with your business, the work you are doing, or the people you serve, you might need to narrow or adjust your niche.

She said I was only making more work for her, and that was not the feedback I was expecting.
Several years ago, after reviewing the results of a listener survey, I was surprised to see that eight of 10 listeners did not have a photoblog to share their images. I decided that this needed to be addressed and recorded a series of episodes designed to convince them that they needed blogs. They needed to be creating and sharing content that attracted their ideal followers.

A fair number took me up on my challenge and launched their photo blogs, as I suggested. I ran across one and asked how it was going?

“I created the blog just like you said, and I realized that you just created more work for me. Now I don’t know what to put on it!”

Creating content can seem like a daunting challenge, but when you do it correctly, it’s just as if you are talking or sharing with the people who follow you. The conversations should flow that naturally.

Here are some ideas.