I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Monday Marketing, I research, plan, and evaluate my marketing and promotion activities.
On Day 17 of my 365-day reinvention project, I shared Maria Veloso’s blueprint for writing web copy from her book Web Copy that Sells. At the time, I planned to offer career advice to women thinking they might want to leave tech. I’ve pivoted from that idea to the one I have now: sharing dating and relationship advice with people at midlife, and later reinvention advice, based on the same reckless approach.
So it’s time to redo the blueprint, as I get ready to launch an author website to promote the book, build an email list, and provide regular content around the topics I’m addressing in the planned books.
Veloso writes that by answering these five questions, you will develop a mini version of your web copy:
- What is the problem?
- Why hasn’t the problem been solved?
- What is possible?
- What is different now?
- What should you do now?
So here’s my attempt at it for my new business plan.
what is the problem?
Many people, both men and women, reach midlife without the romance, love, and intimacy they crave. Standard dating advice especially that aimed at people using online dating platforms directs them to be cautious and careful, seeking an optimal match and relationship, and quickly filtering out people who don’t fit their predetermined criteria. This is counterproductive. Being too cautious and careful closes people off from the serendipitous connections with unexpected others and unthought-of relationship possibilities that could bring them the romance, love, and intimacy they want.
Why hasn’t the problem been solved?
Modern dating, especially using online apps, makes it seem that being more and more careful and calculated–what I call being reckful–is the best way to protect yourself from hurt and harm while ensuring the best outcome. The apps encourage a focus on appearance, age, and other personal qualities that don’t always matter to the establishment of a satisfying relationship. The number of online profiles available leads to people thinking things like “it’s a numbers game” (i.e., keep swiping and meeting and discarding more and more people until you find “your person”) or “I don’t want to settle” (i.e., I’m not willing to accept the real person here before me because I can imagine someone better) or “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” (so I’m going to throw this one back and take my chances with the seemingly thousands of other people available online).
There is plenty of advice online as to how to structure your profile for maximum likes, how to message potential matches, how to set up initial meetings, and how to determine whether to continue that is all based on the idea that you need to identify your wants and desires up front, for both your ideal partner and your ideal relationships structure, and then make a plan to go and get it.
But this isn’t how life works, and this isn’t how people succeed in finding love and intimacy.
What is possible?
It’s possible to find romance, love, and intimacy far beyond what you’ve dreamed of at midlife, by following the nine principles of recklessness I outline in my book, Reckless Romance: Find the Love and Intimacy You Crave at Midlife, coming out in February of 2026.
What is different now? (the unique selling proposition)
The principles of recklessness break out of the paradigm that online dating has handed us, that finding romance is similar to shopping for a printer on Amazon, that you must determine your desires up front then make a plan to fulfill them, and that you should act out of your own authenticity to find love. They offer a new counterintuitive effective way of approaching the search for love.
Everything you feel like you should be doing with dating at midlife is WRONG. You need to do the opposite, go against your instincts for safety and get reckless.
What should you do now? (call to action)
Download the guide “Five Ways to Break Out of Your Midlife Online Dating Rut” and sign up for my email newsletter. You’ll get a monthly newsletter with advice about a new way of approaching dating at midlife, and you’ll be the first to hear when my book Reckless Romance: Find The Love and Intimacy You Want at Midlife is released.
Well, it’s a start. Now it’s time to set up the website!