The Rolling Stones are one of the greatest bands in rock ‘n roll history.
They formed in 1962. They’ve won dozens of awards, including Best Rock Album and a Lifetime Achievement Award.
They’ve been on more tours after they turned 40 then most bands do in a lifetime.
They are at the top of the field as performers, players, and songwriters.
What you might not know is this.
Most of The Rolling Stones songs came from the songwriting team of Jagger/Richards.
Keith Richards, the legendary, leathery, lead guitar playing ruffian, had a knack for melody and tune.
Mick Jagger, the wiry vocalist, would start with the words.
And in one story I’ve heard about him, he stated that he started to write with a blank piece of paper.
Interesting, isn’t it?
But…
If he was a white paper writer, he’d be screwed.
No offense to Mr. Jagger, but I think that’s a terrible method.
There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank page.
It’s a nightmare.
Most writer’s who do this suffer from writer’s block.
Over the years, writers confess to me they would rather have a full week of nightmares than have writer’s block.
It’s that bad.
And I agree with them.
I’d go so far as to say it’s the most dreaded thing by most professional writers.
Here’s something I was able to figure out a long time ago.
There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
Or, at least, there doesn’t have to be.
In this post, you’ll discover a series of steps that I go through to make sure that I never have writer’s block.
It’s a way to jumpstart your writing.
Before we get into the details, let me tell you…
This discovery didn’t come easy.
I found it by accident.
I was forced to create something out of necessity because I was struggling with my client work. There was so much to get done, I didn’t have time to be creative. I couldn’t stare at a blank page or wait for the sparkle of a magical idea.
So I developed my own way to beat writer’s block.
I use this in my own client work when writing white papers.
In this post is a scaled down version you can use when you’re writing your own white paper.
It’s a powerful tool for all types of writers.
And let me tell you, this technique has saved me a lot of time.
At it’s core is a simple idea.
The only way to prevent writer’s block is to have a step by step system that you use in your writing.
It’s this step by step system that allows you to create a 2 foot high stack of papers that you can use as fuel for the content of your white paper.
It’s been successful for me over the year that I’ve started repeating this mantra:
‘process beats inspiration’
Here’s what that means.
If you create a process – or a system – for creating your white paper, then the task becomes a million times easier.
You’re taking a mega white paper and putting it into bite size chunks. Each of the chunks is much easier to deal with. And it’s much easier to write.
It’s a simple process.
It’s similar to the old joke.
“How do you eat an elephant?”
The answer? One bite at a time.
Every successful writer who works against deadlines or with many projects uses a process.
And I’m going to give you an overview of mine that you can incorporate into your own writing.
Ok, let’s get going.
Here’s how it works.
Use the list of the steps listed below.
Start writing them out, section by section.
At the end, you’ll have a cornucopia of copy that you can use to start your white paper.
Here’s why it works.
After you’ve gone through these steps, you’ll never be stuck for ideas again.
Here’s the list:
* List your features, then, using 2 – 3 sentences, describe the benefits to your customer
* For each benefit, write one page describing each benefit as completely as you can
* Write a one page bio about your company or inventor
* Describe your product, what it does, and how it helps
* Tell a story about a recent customer
* Explain how your product differs from your major competitors
* Write one page about the most common use case of your product
That’s it. It’s simple. But it is powerful.
When you go through these steps, you be blown away with how much material you have to start your paper.
Let me repeat why that is important.
And once you have this starter material, you’re no longer stuck coming up with ideas.
You’re no longer creating a white paper – you’re building one.
That’s the overview.
Next, let’s dig into the finer details of the sections.
It’ll give you a few more of the details and you’ll be able to work out more of what you need to write about in each section.
Listen.
First let me tell you this.
It takes longer for me to explain it than it does to actually write it.
So read through all the sections and just get started!
It’ll all be over in flash and then you’ll have a solid foundation to start from.
Let’s begin.
List your features, then, using 2 – 3 sentences, describe the benefits to your customer
This is the start of the process.
Make a list of every feature of your product. All of them.
Then go back through your list and add in every benefit for your customer.
For this to work, write down as many features as you can think of, then write the benefit.
Each feature will have more than one benefit.
Write down every benefit you can think of no matter how big or how small.
Let me repeat that last part.
Write down every benefit no matter how small.
Remember this point – You are not your customer.
You know a lot more then they do. So what is minor to you could be a big deal for your customer.
With your product, list out everything you can think of.
Here’s what my page looks like when I do this:
Feature 1
Benefit 1-A
Benefit 1-B
Benefit 1-C
Feature 2
Benefit 2 – A
Benefit 2 – B
Benefit 2- C
and so on.
Do this for every feature your service has.
This will give you 5 – 7 pages.
That’s the first step.
If you’re working for a company with an engineering team – Here’s a quick writing tip for this step:
Contact the engineering team. Ask them to list all the features, even the small ones. Tell them you don’t want to overlook one. You want to fit as many product features as you can into the paper. If your team is like most, you’ll be flooded with answers.
Trust me.
When I did this, I had way more material than I could work with. If I remember correctly, we had so much material from engineering we were able to write 3 white papers.
For each benefit, write one page describing each benefit as completely as you can
Gather the key benefits you came up with in the previous step.
Next write one page about each of them.
The key benefits are the ones you believe are the most important ones to include in the white paper.
Take between 5 – 7 of the benefits and write a full page describing them.
Include the why, when, and where.
Tell why they’re important.
How they help.
Why your customer can’t succeed without them.
Tell a story. Use analogy and metaphors to discover different ways to describe the benefit.
You’re goal here isn’t brevity. It’s to fill the page with interesting tidbits and find multiple ways to describe the benefit. Mention specific instances and details if you have them. At this stage, you’re looking for multiple “ideas” to demonstrate and explain the benefits.
This is not the time for holding back or brevity.
This should give you 5 to 7 pages.
Write a one page bio about your company or inventor
Most white papers include a small blurb about the company and about the product.
This page is perfect for a story format.
“Once upon a time, our founder quit her job and started this company”
and so on.
This is the origin story.
Everyone loves to read about an origin story.
Include the beginnings, the hardships, and the background of the owners. Detail the trials and tribulations. The success and hardships. Flaunt the big customer wins. Give details like the office location and headquarters. Discuss business details like growth. Mention the product lines or services offered.
If the owner has industry experience and relevant background, put it in here. If there were one or two major turning points in the company, mention those too.
This will give you one page.
Describe your product, what it does, and how it helps
Similar to what you did above, tell a story about the product.
It’s origins, it’s development. It’s iterations and growth.
You don’t need to go into many details here, since you already did that. This is section is an overview of the product. Try explaining it from many angles.
Some ideas:
Give the history of the product and it’s development.
Try explaining it to a 5 year old.
Try explaining it to your grandmother.
How would you describe the product to someone in the 1800’s?
If this product were an ostrich, how would it behave?
Use this page to create different angles. This should be a fun page to write, not tedious.
You’re only starting in the writing process. You only need one page for this iteration.
But there’s been plenty of times I’ve ended up with 3 or 4 pages of creative writing.
By the way, if you like this kind of thinking, then you should read Edward de Bono’s book, Lateral Thinking.
Tell a story about a recent customer
Social proof is huge.
When a group of social scientists were asked to name the most powerful force in persuasion, they agreed. Use social proof.
Social proof is the demonstration and proof that your product works because other people are using it.
This section is for you to write a little bit about social proof by using a specific customer using your product.
Pick a recent customer (or as many of you like). In one page describe their use of your product/service and their success.
These pages are often easy to write because you include details about the customer’s business. This info can be snatched from their website.
If it’s a multinational corporation, narrow the customer down to the division or a the geographic area. It adds authority if you can be specific.
Try to include as many details about the project as you can.
Ok, here’s some things to watch out for in this step.
Sometimes you run into some snags when you try to use this step. Here are the most common obstacles and how to overcome them.
*It’s Secret project or no legal approval – If you don’t have legal approval to give details of your customer’s project, then write about it in a general and abstract way.
*Can’t use customer name – Describe a fictional situation in the same industry. Change the names and the details. This is perfectly acceptable as long as you don’t give away any trade secrets or competitive information.
*We have no customers – Make up some ideal ‘industry scenarios’ which could use your product or service.
One last note.
Remember that you’re writing these pages as fuel for your final white paper. These examples may not show up in the final paper.
So if you have company names, use them. Just be sure you have approval for the final white paper before it goes public. This shouldn’t be a problem since it’ll likely be proof read by your staff or your client.
This will give you 2 to 5 pages when you’re done.
Explain how your product differs from your major competitors
We’re getting close to the finish line. Just two more steps.
Ok. You’ve gone through the benefits and some customer stories, let’s turn to the competition.
In this stage, write about how your product / service differs from your competitors.
Keep this task to one page per competitor.
Because this is only one page, keep your analysis to the top 3 or so differences.
You can choose anything you’d like as the topic of the differences.
You can choose the difference in functionality. The difference in price. The service. The guarantee. The size of the company. The industry or market they are in. Even the history of the competitors compared to your product’s history.
Pick the biggest differences and write a page about them.
This will give you one page for each competitor.
You’ll usually have 3 – 5 pages at this step.
Write one page about the most common use case of your product
Last one!
If you sell to consumers or a targeted product, then this might not apply to you.
But for thousands of companies out there, writing about a USE CASE is helpful
Here’s what a USE CASE is.
For many companies, especially in B2B, they have a product that can be used in different scenarios, situations, or industries.
The product is “generic.” It can operate in more than one niche or it might have more than one usage.
For example, Excel as a product is useful for accountants.
Yet it’s also useful for financial forecasters. It’s also useful for engineers and scientists. Each of these is a different target market and a different “use case.”
And a white paper targeting accountants is completely different than one for a scientist.
Pick one USE CASE and write a page about how your product in use in an industry or market.
As with the other steps, it’s doesn’t have to be long, just an overview.
This step will give you one page per USE CASE.
Boom!
That’s it! You’re done.
Go through these steps and you’ll have an amazing starting point from which to write.
If you go through these steps, you’ll have a stack of 20 – 30 pages of material that you can use for your white paper.
You’ll never suffer from writer’s block again!
Here’s what makes this exercise so powerful.
Because you’re breaking down the paper into pieces, it’s an easy process to start on.
You aren’t plagued by the monstrous task of writing the entire white paper.
Your job is just to write a few pages in each section.
Since you’re writing about one thing at a time, the entire paper is written faster and easier without any stress or worry.
You then take all these pieces and sit down and start you’re paper.
In the end, you’ll be done faster and with 1,000x less effort than if you had started from a blank sheet of paper.
So what are you waiting for!?!?
Get to writing!