Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

Inner Circle Bulletin

February 202

By Tony Shepher

All Rights Reserved © Hippy Marketin

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

“How Lazy People Like Me

Create Products”
(Or - If it requires a lot of discipline it probably won't work

 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

T his isn't a sermon from me about laziness

Far from it

I am the most undisciplined, easily-bored, downright

flaky marketer I know

I've had to build my entire business around my lack of

discipline

Sure when you read my emails and content I talk about how
I set up my businesses to be 'in line with my strengths,
weaknesses and personality

That basically means that for me, if it requires a lot of

discipline it won't work

Take this piece I'm writing right now for my Inner Circle
members

As soon as the idea sparked, I grabbed some coffee, sat

down at my desk and started it while the inspiration is
still strong

And I'll finish it in 20 minutes because at exactly that

time I have to take my daughter to the gallery she works
at as a Saturday girl while at college, then get back in
time to treat myself to mushrooms on toast for lunch

Yum

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

So what I've basically done is

1. Given myself a time limit to finish the piec

2. Promised myself reward when I did finish i

It's like having some big 6'4'' hairy child with me at

all times

Parents - you know when you have to promise your kids ice
cream if they behave well during a boring shopping trip

That's my life with me :

But it's a good thing

Because I KNOW I'm far from being unique in this

Most people these days have the discipline of a randy

goat

Which is why if you can find a way to 'Pay yourself

first' (in terms of business not finance) you'll have a
huge advantage over your competitors

Humans aren't designed to deprive ourselves of instant

gratification in order to reap some hypothetical reward
at a later date

We have to FORCE ourselves to do it

And find a strategy, bribe or trick to ensure it happens

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

Basically I have to find workarounds or hacks to get

creative work finished

When I sit down to create a product I know there'll be

that least ten grand in my bank account within a week of
when it's finished

But even knowing THAT, I find it verging on the

impossible to create it all in one go

It simply requires too much discipline and too much

bloody work

Now for a few years I felt guilty about this

Then I thought ‘Nah, balls to it' and started looking for

a workable solution rather than worrying about how bad I
was as a human being

And I found the solutio

It works for m

Has worked for me for year

And you can have it right now so you can use it yourself

Here it is

I pinched the idea from the new online bank

The app-based ones that appeared some years back when

open banking regulations changed

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

I use a couple of 'e

And they all have something called a scrape, or a swipe,

or a roundu

Different names for different banks but the idea is the

same

Every time you spend something from your account the app
automatically rounds up the pennies and adds it to a
separate pot or account

You know what I mean right

When you spend £2.20 buying some apples they round the
amount up to £3 and put the 80p in a savings pot

It's only small amounts at a time but when you come to

check your pot later on you might find you have £200 in
there

You knew it was accumulating, you just didn't realise how

quickly or how much

Well that's my system for creating products

Chunks at a tim

I find that initially I don't write in MS Word or OS

Pages any more

I write (just like I'm writing this) in a simple text

app

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

On my Mac it's simply an app called Notepad

On my desktop PC it's also called Notepad

And whenever I have the time, or the inspiration I'l just

write a few paragraphs in Notepad

I don't worry about word count or time spent

Literally in 15-20 minutes of feeling 'in the groove' I

can write two articles for my newsletter or half a
chapter of a course

It's a lot less disheartening than opening MS Word and

finding you're only on page 17 of a 120 page course

I bash it out quickly too - don't worry about typos or

grammar as I go - those are corrected later (well MOST of
the typos are :) and I also jot down ideas, references,
subjects to link to as I go too at the bottom of the
text

It looks like an unholy mess but here's the thing

When it comes to to create the actual course or

publication in my proper word processor, along with all
the images, web links, pretty fonts and page numbers..

...it's a LOT easier when the actual content is already

written and all I have to do is cut and paste it into my
word processor then edit it and make it look nice

In effect I'm avoiding excess discipline

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

Because to me, sitting in front on a blank word processor

and trying to 'create' from scratch is horribl

Whereas typing manically fast into notepad because I'm

excited by a concept or idea that is flowing so quickly I
can hardly keep up is just a lovely thing to do

Best of all, it means I can create when the muse hits me

I can be building a squeeze page or adding buy buttons to

a sales page and all of a sudden I get an idea, or the
next part of the course suddenly hits me and I can dump
everything, open Notepad and get it down while it's still
hot

Sure I already have have chapter titles, an outline and

notes, but working like this means I can be fluid and
adaptabl

And hopefully it means my content is relatively fresh and

doesn't read like a university text boo

And the truth…

Well the truth is that I have to work like this

It might be nice (although I don't think it's for me) to

sit down at a crisp blank word processor and just 'begin'
the creation proces

But I find it hard, impossible probably

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

So instead, like creating tapas, I much more enjoy

breaking my creative process down into smaller, tasty
parts that are wonderful when they all come together into
a meal

And I'm no tech expert but I don't see why this wouldn't
work for video creators either

Surely you could just make little 'clips' when

inspiration hit you, and somehow edit them together with
some fancy graphics to make it flow

I dunno - not my area technically. I know they use this

technique in some films and it works wel

Anyway, this might not be your way of working

You might prefer to set aside a 'power day' (which I also

use now and again) and really hammer the creation process
and get it done in 24 hours

But if you're finding you're having a block when it comes

to creation, maybe give the piecemeal approach a go

And if you want a final, pretty solid recommendation look

at most of Seth Godin's books

Small (tiny even) chunks of work

Small chapter

Small sections with their own headings

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 Inner Circle Bulletin © Tony Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

I'm sure I read an interview with him about his creative

process somewhere (can't find the link sorry) and he sai

'I'm only skilled at that in small bursts

I get tha

I DO tha

And it works for me :

Maybe give it a go rather than giving yourself a hard

time if you’re struggling to create

Speak soon - more next month

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