Do you enjoy a challenge? Some people live for challenges - especially of the eating competition variety! Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs makes a fortune off their hot dog eating competition and the brand recognition it brings to their company each and every year. One challenge I can never forget was portrayed in the film Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman.

Paul Newman stars in the title role as Luke, a prisoner in a prison camp. Luke refuses to submit to the system! His inability to conform drives the entire plot of the movie. You may recall the famous line "What we have here is... a failure to communicate!" Classic! Did you know that in 2005, the United States Library of Congress deemed Cool Hand Luke to be "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant". The film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. But I think it was probably selected for this scene alone ...

Luke: I can eat fifty eggs.
Dragline: Nobody can eat fifty eggs.
Society Red: You just said he could eat anything.
Dragline: Did you ever eat fifty eggs?
Luke: Nobody ever eat fifty eggs.
Prisoner: Hey, Babalugats. We got a bet here.
Dragline: My boy says he can eat fifty eggs, he can eat fifty eggs.
Loudmouth Steve: Yeah, but in how long?
Luke: A hour.
Society Red: Well, I believe I'll take part of that wager.

Did you also know Cool Hand Luke's egg eating challenge can teach you about writing articles for your website or blog that bring people flooding back to your website day after day, month after month, and year after year...

Writing for a website or a blog is a lot like Luke's challenge to eat 50 eggs - *Yuck* I can hardly stomach one hard boiled egg! The only thing standing between Luke and the finish line was one egg. Well ... of course there were 50 of them, all lined up one behind the other, but the challenge was still met - One Egg At A Time.

Try to write your website or blog in chunks. Don't get overwhelmed. Or you'll go down like a chump - and miss the opportunity to win a lot of customers just by telling them about your company, products, and services.

Think about it this way - what is your top selling product? Can you think of seven (just 7) features of that product that excite people when they learn about the feature. Can you think of seven (just 7 now...) benefits that win the customer over EVERY SINGLE TIME?

If you can think of just seven small chunks of information surrounding your product - jot them down in a list. Now, expand on those seven small chunks. Try to stretch out the details you share with your customer into three small paragraphs. Don't kill yourself Luke - Slow down a little bit! All you have to do is write three or four sentences to have a quality paragraph. Most people won't read much more than that before moving on anyhow...

So grab that first item in your list - and start your first paragraph with a question! If you product saves time - put yourself in your customer's shoes and ask a question like ... "Wouldn't it be nice to save more time around the house, freeing you up to enjoy your family & friends?" Well, heck, yeah it would! Take just a second to expand on that thought. Paint a picture made of words for your reader. Illustrate the frustration from lost time your potential customer is currently experiencing.

Next paragraph! Keep going Luke, only a few more to go... Write another short paragraph - this time describing your solution to the problem of lost time. Highlight the primary feature that your product delivers to save customers the most time. Don't waste time on expanding past the single most time saving feature. Focus only on one feature! Save all those other features for additional blog entries or website articles.

Finally - deliver on the promise! Swallow the egg! This is the last step to devouring your first hard boiled 'content-egg'. Tell your customer exactly what they need to do to save time. Give them the exact steps to call your office and order, visit your store and buy, or click on a button to download the product you plan to put in their hands.

Great! You swallowed one egg out of seven. Don't stop now - snatch up the next egg and break it down the same way you did the first one - and then just keep right on going ... Don't stop until you reach seven eggs... uhhh... I mean blog posts or website articles! Before too long you will have a week's worth of content ready to publish to your website or blog about a single product or service.

Step back a moment and survey your entire product catalog, or service offering. Can you see twelve or more products or services. You can?! GREAT! Then you can quickly develop a WHOLE YEAR'S WORTH of content in the course of an afternoon! Just break the eggs down one at a time ... Product by product, seven articles by seven small articles. In no time at all you will have enough content to stagger over the course of twelve long months.

These website articles and blog posts don't have to go on the site all at once. You can stagger their delivery to the world. Then let customers know when a new article is posted using email or social networks. Soon customers will be looking for your insightful short articles to tell them more about your company and products. And over the course of a week, a month, or a year - those visitors translate into qualified prospects that you will turn into happy customers!

Way to go ... I guess you can rise to the challenge!

Challenge: Eat 50 Eggs!