VOLUME 20, ISSUE 11 – NOVEMBER 2021
THIS MONTH’S MENU:
I. APPETIZER: IS “SLOPPY/FLAKY” THE NEW NORM?
Yours Truly Is Mystified by What Passes for Reliability Today
II. “FIELD” GREENS: THE EMPEROR’S (“BRAND”) NEW CLOTHES?
Marketing Director (& Moi) Collectively Roll Our Eyes at “Branding”
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: TOO MANY REVISIONS?
Small-Biz Writing Coach: 3 Steps to Minimizing Client Revisions
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Do Your Clients Know Your Full Writing Range?
PETER ON A PODCAST!
Earlier this summer, I did a fun podcast with friend and fellow FLCW, OH-based Gery Deer, on his “3-2-1 PROFIT$” show. I ran this link last month, yet despite double-checking it, it gave an error. Take two! Check it out here.
I. APPETIZER: IS “SLOPPY/FLAKY” THE NEW NORM?
Yours Truly Is Mystified by What Passes for Reliability Today
Spoke to a longtime client recently whom I’ve been helping source a handful of writers to help write some content for one of her businesses. She wasn’t looking for brilliant copywriters, just people who could write clearly and cleanly.
I’d posted a listing on a freelance editorial site for her, requesting several writing samples (ideally in that project type) and she’d gotten ~15 decent candidates.
For the work she needed, she was offering a flat fee that’d work out to ~$35-50 an hour per completed module (the higher rate likely after getting comfortable with the process).
Not my kind of rates (nor many of you), but decent compared to the peanuts SO many writers seem to be content working for.
Out of that 15, she’s gotten one decent writer. One. What happened to the rest? In the case of a handful of them, the samples they’d submitted had multiple typos throughout. The others?
She’d vetted three of them by phone, and set up follow-up appointments for them with several other senior team members, to take it to the next step.
All three blew off the appointments with nary a, “Sorry, can’t make it,” and didn’t even return her calls. Seriously?
I’d wager good money if you asked them if they considered themselves good writers deserving of good wages, it’d be yes’s all around. Do they think sloppy writing and flakiness are okay? If so, where do they get that idea?
Have they surrounded themselves with enough other sloppy flakes that that’s become their “normal”?
Do they ever lament the fact that they can’t seem to get out of the writing basement—someone who’s clearly SO talented? Do they never stop and make the connection between how they “show up” to clients, and their struggles?
I have no idea. What I DO know is that those of us who do make the higher wages, and have been in this game making those wages for a long time, know all too well what we need to deliver to earn those wages.
No, it’s not just clean copy and reliability, but it damn sure starts there, if we have any thoughts of moving up the pay scale. On that “this-ain’t-rocket-science” note, let’s eat!
II. “FIELD” GREENS: THE EMPEROR’S (“BRAND”) NEW CLOTHES?
Marketing Director (& Moi) Collectively Roll Our Eyes at “Branding”
Recently had a conversation with a marketing director—and new prospect—that went well. And it went well largely because we found we were kindred (marketing) spirits.
We were discussing the incessant drumbeat of “branding” these days, and he opined that most of the talk about “brand voice” and “brand identity” you hear ad nauseum these days is pretty much BS.
I had to smile as I agreed. It reminded me of some verbiage I’d read recently on a job posting, where one of the skills they were looking for from a candidate was this:
Fine-tuning a brand tone of voice and style manual to foster brand consistency across all enterprise communications, and ensure messaging aligns with our brand values and brand voice.
Wow. They managed to use “brand” four times in one sentence. No mean feat.
Just one man’s opinion (and one that won’t endear me to some marketers), but I say that language like the above is the kind “brand-marketing” agencies use to make what they do seem far more complicated (and hence, worthy of high fees…) than it actually is.
When “branding experts” talk about the non-negotiable need for a company to create a powerful and unique brand (“or DIE”), most of what they’re saying is designed to create job security for them, not necessarily ultimate value for a company.
Both he and I agreed that a voice that’s credible, authoritative, engaging and authentic is what every company is really looking for—and should be looking for. Is there REALLY some “brand voice/identity” that Company A uses that’s appreciably different than Company B?
Sure, you make allowances for the product being sold: Apple, say, has a more casual voice than IBM, but that’s just a matter of asking enough of the right questions to understand who the audience is, and adjusting your copy accordingly.
Maybe we’re saying the same thing in different ways. To-may-to, To-mah-to, etc. But, do you need exhaustive brand studies to arrive at that “brand voice”? Is some “inner-sanctum” knowledge required to do competent work in this arena? Not in my world.
From Bob Hoffman, the Ad Contrarian, and four-decade ad-industry veteran, curmudgeon and someone who has never suffered (marketing) fools gladly:
“Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes.”
One more gem from Bob—one that used to be so blindingly obvious to anyone who dared call themselves a marketer, yet, today, incredibly enough, it’d get blank looks:
“We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.”
So, the next time you hear “branding blah-blah-blah” similar to the above, just know there’s likely nothing particularly deep, weighty or inscrutable about it.
III. MAIN “MEAT” COURSE: TOO MANY REVISIONS?
Small-Biz Writing Coach: 3 Steps to Minimizing Client Revisions
Clients often want to make endless edits to your copy, and they will, if you don’t put some safeguards in place. Small-business writing coach, Ed Gandia serves up some solid strategies to keep those edits to a minimum, and not surprisingly, they all happen early on in the project! Thanks, Ed!
If you’ve ever been asked to make multiple rounds of revisions to your submitted written work (and who hasn’t!), then you’ll know how time-consuming and frustrating it can be.
After all, you’ve done your research and asked lots of questions. But the client still comes back with revisions you didn’t anticipate.
Why does this happen?
Sometimes the client decides to change direction at the last minute. Or they consulted with others in the organization who requested changes. Or maybe they decided to exclude information (or include new information) at the eleventh hour.
Given how hard it is to anticipate these kinds of changes coming, what can you do to avoid them? I have three recommendations:
1) Be clear about the number of revisions you’ll allow
At the outset of every project, make clear how many rounds of revisions are included. Write this directly into your contract as part of your revision terms. Generally, I suggest one standard round of revisions and up to two additional rounds of minor revisions.
Putting this into your contract will have clients take the process seriously and make firm decisions from the start. They’ll know that if they later want to make a bunch of changes, those changes may fall outside of scope and end up costing them more.
Essentially, having this provision forces them to have some skin in the game.
2) Get better info from your clients
Another way to avoid late-stage revisions is to get better information from your clients before you start writing. Use a questionnaire to guide your conversation with clients when scoping out a project.
Since there’s no “magic” questionnaire for every project, customize each questionnaire (to some extent) for each project, including such questions as:
- What are the objectives?
- Who’s the target audience?
- What key points do you need to hit on?
- Which benefits should you touch on?
- Whom should you quote?
About 70 percent of the questions will be the same for every project. The rest will be unique. In kickoff calls with clients, use this questionnaire as a guide to make sure you’re collecting all the information you’ll need.
3) Check in with clients earlier in the project
It’s always easier to make edits and changes earlier in the creation process than later. By creating an early “check-in” point with your client, you can catch small problems before they develop into bigger ones.
One way to do this is to get sign-off on an intermediate deliverable before proceeding.
For example: Say you’ve been asked to write a white paper. After you scope out the project, you create an outline and submit it to the client for sign-off. The key is to do this BEFORE you start writing.
With this extra step, you’ll catch problem areas earlier in the process and create a paper trail. If the client asks for a bunch of changes later, you can use it as evidence for a change order and charge an additional fee.
You CAN Keep Revisions to a Minimum
We expect clients to ask for a few edits to the work we submit. But repeated rounds of major revisions shouldn’t happen.
By taking these three simple steps, you’ll set yourself up for a much smoother handoff of deliverables—with way fewer revisions.
PB Note: Ed notes this above, but just being crystal clear: if a client does change direction in the middle of a project, necessitating the writing of new copy to replace copy based on an earlier direction that they “greenlighted”, that is NOT just a “revision.” Rather, it’s a new direction that requires extra time and an additional fee.
IV. DESSERT: COMBO SUCCESS STORY & TIP
Do Your Clients Know Your Full Writing Range?
I have this client, for whom I do press releases, sales sheets, and web copy. Whenever they need one of the above, I’m their guy. A blessing, for sure, but also a bit of curse.
When you have clients that you do certain projects for, it’s easy for them to just start considering you “The Press-Release writer” or “Our Sales-Sheet copywriter.”
Yet, unless we have a strict project-specific focus to our copywriting practice—i.e., case studies, speeches, etc.—our project range is likely to be pretty wide (even folks with a project niche typically branch out a bit).
Yet, do your clients know about that range?
Sure, if they like your work, they might ask, “Do you also do____?” But, why wait for them to ask? After you’ve done a decent amount of work for them, and you know they’re happy with the results, make a point to let them know of your other skills.
I knew that, as a relatively new company (~10 years old), they’d never done a big capabilities brochure (but they do trade shows, so they definitely could use one as a “leave-behind”). Ditto for an annual report (a.k.a. “impact report”).
So, a few months ago, at the end of a phone call about an in-progress project, I broached the subject of my other project skills, and she was very receptive.
I followed up by emailing her links to some of my larger pieces on my web site (bigger capabilities brochures, annual reports, etc.), so she knew I had chops beyond the one-page variety.
Barely a month later, she emailed me asking if I could do a short white paper (~2000 words)—my biggest project for them so far. Maybe she would have asked anyway, but I have to imagine that seeing my comfort level with larger projects turned an “If” into a “When.”
Never forget: clients do NOT want to hunt far and wide for good writers, and if you show them what else you’re capable of, I’d bet on you getting the nod.