I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
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Qualify your statements
In business, there is a hope that in some way we can be the biggest and best so that clients will come flocking to us. And some businesses give into that temptation and make claims that are not exactly accurate, or even true.
Too much hype just makes people switch off, and being caught out in a lie or false claim does not build am image of professionalism or integrity. In other, these behaviours do not build a strong business foundation.
So before you make any claims, be sure they are accurate and that you have checked them out.
Be very careful using terms such as ‘best’, ‘most popular’, ‘biggest seller’ and so on unless you have statistics and research to back up your claims.
If you say you are the first – don’t just check that no one else has done it before, check that your wording makes it clear what no one else has done before. For instance, saying I run the first business directory in Australia is not quite the same as saying I run the first online business directory in Australia. Likewise, there may be two interpretations of some words – online support could mean forums, a mail group, an information site, chat room discussions or some combination of the lot. So you may be the first online forum but not the first online support group.
And remember, it isn’t just to maintain your image and integrity – if you stray too far from the facts, you may face legal issues, too.
Presentation checklist
A few days ago, I posted about the importance of checking presentation as well 
as details of your content. Today, I am going to list the details I check for when reviewing a draft for a document’s design elements.
This list is in the order I think of them, not necessarily in any importance.
- does the design complement your other materials, such as a website or business card? Does it suit your brand?
- is your logo and/or business name included and in an appropriate way?
- does the design match your message?
- do any paragraphs end with a single word on a line? Professional designers call these ‘orphans’ and do everything to avoid them! I have often adjusted text to pull that last word onto the previous line
- are headings and contents together? A heading at the bottom of a column and text in the next column is disjointed and looks strange
- do headings stand out enough? This includes table headings, too
- is there a consistent font size throughout the document? Headings may be bigger than the text, but should be the same as each other
- are any tables, diagrams or pictures clearly labelled? Sometimes formatting pushes labels away from the item
- can the design be adjusted to fit everything into one less page if it is currently an odd number? For example, printing is usually done in multiples of 4 pages so a 5 page document will actually need 8 pages printed
- does everything match any relevant rules or style guidelines?
- do contact details stand out sufficiently? People having to search for them are less likely to contact you
- are the right things emphasised? For instance, if you have text in highlight boxes, do they stand out from the text? Are disclaimers and privacy statements attracting more attention than your main message?
- are colours and fonts consistent throughout, except as design elements?
If you are happy with all of these details, you will be very close to the correct design for your needs.
The value of being a guru
Maybe its just me, but the business field seems to have more than its fair share of guru claims – that is, people claiming to be a ‘business guru’ or ‘marketing guru’ and the like.
Some people would think the guru title is a beneficial way to promote yourself and your business to the business community, thereby building a customer base and high profits. However, I think there are serious downfalls to the idea, and I would never call myself a guru; even if others were calling me a guru (and they aren’t as far as I know!) I would not use that on my website or in my marketing, at least because others may think I gave myself the title.
What do you think? Does someone calling themself a guru impress you so you respect what they say immediately? Or are you more cynical about them so that they have to work harder to impress you with what they say?
Would you call yourself a guru in your field (assuming you have a high level of knowledge)?
Branding is in the details
Branding is a big subject, covering how you use your logo through to how you give a presentation. But did you know that the words you use in documents, on websites and in presentations also form part of your brand?
For instance, if your brand is to be young and funky, you don’t want web copy that reads “In our experience, prospective partnerships are best developed through a commonality of interests…”
Some factors to consider to ensure your written communications enhance your brand are:
- using language to suit the audience you want to attract
- use Australian spelling and conventions if your brand is ‘Australian owned’
- point of view – do you say ‘you’ or ‘clients’?
- how do you write the business name? Can you abbreviate it under certain circumstances?
- the tone – casual, formal, academic, legal
- the focus – business people, families, students, employers, professionals, etc
This can all come into preparing a style guide, too.
Business integrity
As a writer and professional service provider, I consider my job as helping my clients. I write webcopy or documents for their business, of course, but more than that I use my skills and knowledge to help them. I consider that my clients want my expertise, not just some words on a piece of paper.
So for example, if a client asks me to write a media release on something that I know is not news worthy and is extremely unlikely to get published, I tell them so and might suggest another way I could help them more effectively.
Whenever I approach suppliers, for myself or on behalf of a client, I always make my request along the lines of “Please do x, y and z – unless you can suggest a better alternative”. I trust suppliers to know more than me and hope we can work together to get the best result.
I hate seeing suppliers that are more concerned with making money than doing what is best for their clients. And let’s face it, it isn’t good business practice either – clients are less likely to come back or recommend you if you don’t do the right thing by them.
One of my clients has been approached by a marketing company with a lot of suggestions. Now, this company does produce some nice work and they are very friendly and helpful.
However, it concerns me that they are more interested in taking over the product marketing than in what is best for the product. For instance, they are suggesting changes to the website to make it more like x and z sites. I did a quick Google search – my client’s site shows on page one of a search for the appropriate term, the x site shows on page 2 and z doesn’t show before page 5. My client’s site get new visitors to the site everyday now, which is pretty good for a site less than 6 months old. And being so young, a branding change now would have limited benefit in my opinion.
To me, they would be servicing my client better to agree the site is doing well and here are some ways to promote it further rather than match it to less popular sites.
Do you have examples of businesses using good integrity in their dealings with clients? I’d love to hear them 🙂
Work/life balance…
A survey conducted last year by a software firm called Reckon indicated that over 50% of respondents judge their success by having a life/work balance rather than high profits (as preferred by 33% of them.) The survey questioned 1300 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) across Australia.
In comparison, a survey by the Business Mums Network, also last year, discovered that nearly 65% of respondents (mostly micro businesses run at home by mothers) started a business to be with their children and 44% started to earn money.
In both cases, it appears that small business owners are interested in a life/work balance, including more family time, that they believe is available as employees. Although the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008 (released last week) indicates that employees have reduced their working hours in the last 6 or 7 years (41.4 hours per week in 1999/2000 and 39.4 in 2006/07)
The Reckon survey also pointed out that 18% of SMEs found the accounting aspect of business to be holding them back from success (that is, accounts take up time that could otherwise be used for family time) and 17% found a drop in personal drive to be limiting.
What do you think? Do you run a small business for control and life balance, or primarily for profits? Is there a certain aspect of your business that you find particularly difficult or time consuming?
PS A new survey is currently underway to find out how small/micro businesses view their finances. It will be interesting to see if the micro business responses again differ from the SME responses.
Media release stories
Writing a media release for your own business is quite possible, or you may want to get a professional writer/PR or marketing person to do it for you.
The key part to any release, however, is the story in the release. It must be newsworthy if it is to gain any interest or publicity. And it must be newsworthy for the media outlet you are sending it to – an article about an innovative tractor part would be newsworthy in an agricultural magazine but not so much in a women’s fashion magazine.
With a bit of spin or a changed perspective, many stories can be made more interesting than they first appear, but a journalist still has to get an article out of the story for them to follow up the release.
I have seen instances where the interest of the story, its newsworthiness, is listed as the be all and end all of a media release. But there is one other important factor in a successful media release.
The story in your release must be relevant to your business if it is to benefit your business. So you could write a release about that great tractor part, grab the attention of a journalist and see the part get some publicity. How does that help you if you sell shoes or books? Of course, if you sell food and can add “This new tractor part means we harvest sooner so your food is fresher” or if you are a web designer and can add “Since we redesigned their site, this tractor part has sold millions” it has relevance.
So before starting a media release, you need to ask yourself:
Will this story interest a number of people?
Is there a media outlet that will reach those interested people?
Is this story relevant to my business?
If they are all ‘yes’, get writing!
How much to charge?
New business owners often find it hard to set prices – and it isn’t always easy for others to change their prices over time, either.
I think the key criteria are:
- cover your costs – and remember that costs cover running a website, paying insurance premiums, postage, your time and business equipment as well as the materials you use
- be competitive – that doesn’t mean be the cheapest or discount everything, but don’t put your prices so high that no one will pay them
- make a profit – or what is the point of being in business?
Overall value will have a huge impact on what you can charge, and many factors come into that.
Offering a service rather than selling products has different factors to consider, and a belief in yourself and your services is important to setting prices that reflect your worth. As you set or reset your prices, some things to consider are:
- will customers expect an hourly rate or a project rate? If you use an hourly rate, make sure you allow for your speed (if you are faster than your competition, a higher hourly rate can still provide customer value, but if you are new, you may be slower and your prices reflect that.) If you set project rates, you will need to learn how long things should take AND factor in additional time for client interactions and unforeseen extras
- what do your competitors charge? This is just a guideline for what customers are paying and will compare you against – don’t set your prices by this alone as it may not meet your price needs, can anger your competitors (if you charge just less than them) and doesn’t account for differences in what you offer
- do you have experience or skills that are uncommon? You can charge more for this. For example, having written a number of annual reports, I can do them faster and know what to look for so can charge more per hour than a novice writer.
- is your service presented in an unusual way? For instance, if you email the work instead of hand delivering it you may be able to charge less, and I may charge differently for providing content if I add it to the client’s blog or website rather than in an email
- do you include some value-add items? If so, make sure they are covered in your prices.
- how much time do you have? If you only work a few hours a week, you may need to charge more to make sufficient money. Some people advice you to work out how much income you need and divide it by your working hours to get an hourly rate, and that may work for you although I think it is rather simplistic.
- how long have you been in business? The more experienced you are, the more you can charge – within reason of course! That’s because experience generally makes you faster and better at what you do so people are paying for a premium service from an experienced person*
- is your business reliant on lots of customers or a solid base of repeat customers? Finding more customers all the time is costly and time consuming so you may need to charge more to cover this
* I have to add that time of doing something is no guarantee of someone being good at it, but it should help! To be worthy of the experienced label and price tag, you should actively try to improve your skills through learning as well as doing.
How can you pick a good writer?
Once you have decided that you will outsource the content writing for a project, how can you select a good writer to help you? Yesterday, I sparked a discussion on writers being professional and skilled so I thought it best to help you recognise good writers!
Especially if you are outsourcing the writing because you don’t feel comfortable with grammar and sentence construction, it isn’t easy to pick a ‘good’ writer from a poor writer.
So how can you tell?
Read some samples of their work, not just their marketing brochure/website, and preferably samples of the same type of writing – writing for websites, children, media and manuals all require different writing techniques.
As you read these samples, take note of the following:
- do you notice a lot of spelling or other errors?
- did you read the content easily (without really noticing the writing itself) or did you have to reread sections to understand them? (Assuming the content was ok, rereading complex ideas is a different thing altogether!)
- look at the entire text – are paragraphs all the same or in different lengths? How many start with the same word?
- was it a struggle (content matter aside!) to finish reading the work? Were you loosing interest during the first paragraph?
- did you notice any jumps in tense (present/past/future) or style (casual, formal, personal, etc)?
- did the language seem appropriate to the audience?
Look and ask for testimonials and referrals. Don’t just rely on those the writer provides in marketing materials – ask to speak to previous clients or talk to other business owners who may know of the writer. A writer with poor results or who is otherwise unprofessional will struggle to maintain a good name.
Research the actual writer. Read articles they have on their site, their newsletter, their blog and their articles on other sites. As well as judging their writing skills, such articles should give you an idea of their knowledge and expertise. A newsletter and blog may also give you an insight into the writer’s personality so you can determine if they are professional and trustworthy. You can also decide if you can work with that writer – an effective relationship will produce better content than one where you and the writer don’t ‘get’ each other.
You can also do some formal checks, such as checking if they have a registered business name and number.
Have you had any experiences with picking the wrong writer?
Achieving goals
You may not be running for gold, but your goals are important
Earlier this month, I wrote about new years resolutions and SMARTY goals.
There are two more things that can really help you achieve your goals.
Wording goals
One is how you word your goals. It is important to focus on the end result and train your mind to see life as if you have already achieved the goal. So it is worth setting your goals in positive terms.
So instead of “I will lose weight” make it “I will weigh xkg”, or replace “I will get out of debt” with “I will have a positive bank balance”
You can take this even further by using the present tense in your goals – and this is particularly useful if you repeat your goal to yourself frequently as an affirmation. So our above two examples become “I weigh xkg” and “I have a positive bank balance”.
Adding a reason in the message can also be helpful – such as “I have lots of energy now I weigh xkg” and “My positive bank balance gives me security.”
Acknowledging efforts
The other way to increase your chances of achieving your goal is to acknowledge your efforts. Every so often, look back and acknowledge how far you have come even if it is not as far as you had hoped. It can just be a private “hey, I’ve done this much” or you could share with a trusted friend or give yourself a reward.
If the goal is going to be tough for you or is a long term goal, make sure you give yourself mile stone rewards, too. Maybe for every month you exercise you treat yourself to a massage or for every 25 cold calls you make you can watch your favourite DVD.
With a SMARTY goal written in positive terms and acknowledged and rewarded, I don’t need to wish you luck as your goals are practically achieved already!
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