Writing for your business: How to avoid being stale in your writing.

Last year I had to make a trip to the Far East on family business. The trip was sudden and in some ways unwelcome. But like any experience rather than concentrate on the negative parts of the trip, I’ve found myself more and more thinking about the positives.

One of these was a change of perspective. Not only on a personal level because of the nature of the situation but also as a writer. When writing for your business it’s so easy to become jaded and think along the same lines all the time.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been down in the dumps about a business problem and had the chance to run it past someone else. Don’t you find that even if they know nothing about business, talking the problem through suddenly offers you a solution?

By extension being out of your normal setting can make that even more of a benefit. That distance from all the day to day stuff like the firefighting you have to do that leaves no time to consider the bigger picture.
Being out of my business for a week certainly had an effect on me and it led me to think about some pointers that maybe you can weave into your writing to give a fresh approach or feeling to what you do.

1. What does it look like from over there?

However much we try to put ourselves in our customer’s place it can be difficult. Needs time and sometimes energy.

One way of doing it is to physically move. You may have come across this technique in a therapy setting but it’s very useful in business too.

a) Place 3 chairs in a triangle shape facing each other.

b) First position is that of the service or product provider. From here outline what you have to offer.

c) Now move to the chair facing you (2nd position). Imagine that you’re a person who needs what is offered and make an instinctive response to the offer.

d) Now move to the chair in between (3rd position) and reflect on the two positions, the offer and the response.

It’s surprising what can come up in this exercise. If you feel embarrassed to do it, nobody else needs know about it. You can do it when your home is empty of everyone else. Be open to what might come up. If it’s an objection you haven’t previously thought about then you’re gaining valuable feedback to address in your writing.

2. What can you learn from another type of business?

We often look at our competitors to see how they are writing about the business we’re both in. It’s more fun and offers a different dimension if you look what other people do in another type of business.

You may remember about the delivery companies such as Fedex and UPS who moved to using hubs having seen the idea work to great effect in other businesses.

What businesses can you learn from in writing about your business?

3. Why do the same as everyone else?

The series Mad Men became a runaway success and has influenced so many areas of life such as clothes and decorations. We’re often fascinated by other periods of history.

Some of the most successful marketers of our time have produced great results by using what might be considered old fashioned ways of approaching customers.

If you check out the internet, you’ll find many websites devoted to older styles of advertising and marketing. Not that I’m not pretending that every approach will work in our time. But what you find is that the emphasis was on building relationships with prospective customers and talking to them in language they understood. No barriers of jargon or cleverness.

We know the old saying don’t we, ‘If we carry on doing what we’ve always done, we’ll carry on getting the same results.’  This applies as much to our writing as any other aspect of our lives so a change of perspective could be all you need to make a breakthrough.

Writing; what's genuine

New article about writing in business over on http://eileenparr.blogspot.com/

What results do you want your business writing to have

Note down 3 results you want then think about how you can write to have that result.

Writing for fun is exactly that. Fun. But why can't writing for your business be just as much fun?

After all your business is your passion so you can be inventive, creative and passionate about it when you write.

Knowing what result you want from your business writing sharpens your approach giving you clarity and focus.

How to write in the therapy market

This week I've been writing an article to appear in a therapy journal in December.

I loved being a therapist- it was something I'd wanted to do for a long time so qualifying was one of the best experiences of my life. Then I had the chance to pass on my knowledge to others who wanted to be therapists. What I found was they didn't by and large qualify as business people.

Coming to therapy work from a background in business meant that from the beginning I treated being a therapist in the same way as anything else I'd done. Set out my goals, focused on the market and tried to solve problems. Often I found with students that they were so focused on the caring that they couldn't treat themselves as the product or service being marketed.

That's why so many don't prosper as they should. It's difficult placing a value on what you do to gain a decent reward for your services. It sounds clinical and I don't want to undervalue any therapist's work, but if you can't work out a price that allows you to receive at least a living wage then other people will set your prices for you.

Whether you're a therapist or in some other one on one service, there's no shame in being upfront about your expertise and experience. Training doesn't come cheap and it demands investment of time and energy on top of fees paid.

Be fearless about what you think you're worth - but then be prepared to give the value in return. And think about it always in terms of 'what solutions can I offer clients.'

Why write a book

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=783Cm4DE_3E&feature=related

Writing for the media

At a recent networking event, I listened to 2 journalists, one ex BBC and one current on the Working Lunch business programme. They were talking about what it takes for businesses to be featured in the media.

I thought it might be useful to summarise some of what they said.

1. It's about the audience. Just as any business writing should be targeted to the audience's needs, so is any media coverage.
2. Be interesting and most important. . . understandable.
3. If you can't write the introduction to the story in a couple of sentences then it's a rubbish story. Like writing a clear, crisp elevator speech that reaches the heart of what you can offer people.
4. What's the connection? To current events, what people need and how you can help them.
5. Think about where is best for your idea/information to be seen. Many people think about only the top programmes and media. You might have faster coverage in industry magazines than in national newspapers.
6. Journalists are now more prepared to use PR releases as they stand because there are fewer staff in newsrooms.
7. Weekly newspapers are now in effect daily newspapers because of their online versions so are looking for more content all the time.
8. And last but definitely not least, be passionate about what you have to offer. Enthusiasm sells faster than formal pieces.

Business writing

Are you a writing phobic. If so how is that hurting your business?

I've been working this week on my new book on business writing to be published at the end of April so I've been thinking a lot about how people I meet networking think about writing for their business.

They seem to fall into 3 categories:

• People who loathe the thought of it and put it off until they're pushed to do it - like writing for their websites
• People who quite enjoy it but it comes at the bottom of a long to-do list
• People who understand the impact it can have on their business

I have to say the third category are the rarest and usually include those who are on top of their marketing strategies.

It's easy to understand people who loathe writing because many of them have been put off in school because they didn't 'get grammar' or enjoy writing essays. But writing for your business is quite different and what I find difficult to understand is how they won't then pass the work on to someone else who could do it for them.

I meet a lot of people running their own businesses who feel they should do everything themselves, especially if it saves them money. What we often don't cost in though is our own time. For instance, I could do my own tax affairs but it would cause me stress and take me longer than my accountant who is doing it all the time.

One of my clients employed me to write a letter for them, but not till after they'd spent 10 hours struggling with it. At their hourly rate that actually cost her £1,000 in lost client fees because she wouldn't spend the considerably lower amount I charged her for something I did in a fraction of the time. Crazy situation.

Tomorrow I'll look at the second category of writing phobics