In a two-hour delay at LaGuardia, I wrote up a 400-word interview, 2 blog posts for my business and one for my personal blog. I had a little trouble focusing because I was worried about my toddler who was rushed to the hospital earlier that morning due to an asthma flare-up. But if you have trouble focusing on your writing day to day, if you struggle to find the right words, and you just don’t know how to get started, you probably need a professional writer who can focus and deliver under any circumstances. Give me a call, let me see how I can help!
Do You Need a Lemonade Stand Approach with Customers?
It’s never to early to learn how to talk to customers.
Lemonade Stand Proving Ground
My kids are learning to do this at ages 7, 5 and 2 thanks to their very first lemonade stand. We live near a park and have a relatively constant flow of potentially thirsty neighbors walking past our house. So my boys decided they could earn extra cash and my husband and I supported their entrepreneurial spirit.
One of the first things they had to master was not making lemonade (they are old hats at that) but building a relationship with their customers. Each of my children have different areas of skill here:
- One is more articulate and can enunciate clearly.
- One is more willing to engage strangers in their interests.
- One is more aggressive about making the ask.
Working together, they are a flawless team. But when one loses interest or has to run inside to use the bathroom, their sales process slows.
As I oversee their efforts from my C-Suite (a lawn chair on the porch) I realize what a delicate dance it is to engage customers online and try to channel each of the three heads of Cerberus (not a bad name for their lemonade business…) equally.
Since our lemonade stand opened, I’ve become very aware of this when I’m writing sales copy, web copy, customer letters or social media content. I check to see if I’ve allowed one approach to dominate the others. When it does, I just call for a potty break.
Who is monitoring the balance in your content?
Does Your Business Need a Social Media Coach?
I work out a lot – for fun, for stress relief, and because it’s in my nature to set and strive to achieve goals. To help
Work Hard for the Results You Want
me reach these fitness goals, I hired a coach. Having a coach gives me accountability and someone to help me overcome obstacles and celebrate my successes.
For my clients, I’m their social media coach. I don’t always write all their content – many times I’m just laying out their editorial calendar (training schedule) and teaching them how and when to use new platforms (workouts).
But my own training hit a bump in the road when my coach accepted a new job in another state. Now I am meeting her replacement and I have to bring her up to speed on my goals, my philosophy, my strengths, weaknesses, what I’m afraid to try and what motivates me. The good part is – I know what I want her to know.
I try to help my customers with the same thing. One thing I offer my customers is the creation of a social media policy or guidelines. I know there will come a time when I need to move on or they decide to take over these tasks in-house. By working with my customers to build a social media policy, my goal is to make the transition and education of their new social media manager as simple as possible. I can’t make it seamless, but I can give them a sense of history of what customers have hated and what they’ve loved, what we’ve tried (and where we’ve failed) and the overall goals all of this creative work!
Does social media make you nervous?
I found out recently that some employees at one of my customers’ offices are scared to talk around me! They are
Social Media makes some people nervous
worried that anything and everything they say will end up on the Interwebs via one of the nine social media platforms that I manage for their brand. Where did they get that idea?
They are scared to say something wrong and don’t realize they are valuable sources of information.So to counteract the feelings of fear, in this particular office – I have a new strategy.
I now email staff and ask what they are up to that week. Sometimes I ask for their “three most challenging tasks” or “the thing they never thought would be part of this job” or “their favorite activity/what makes it all worthwhile.” I also ask for photos of their day-to-day or that captures what can’t be expressed in words.
This had led to astonishing success and resulted in very engaging and useful info from various levels – like the accountant, the CEO and even the warehouse manager! Seems like all they needed was a little structure they could trust to increase their comfort with providing content.
I know their customers are going to love what I have to share. It’s content gold.
So, how does your enterprise make it easier or more comfortable for employees to give you the content you need?
Bauhaus Advice for Writers
Bauhaus-inspired Bangle - a reminder of utility, economy & a bit of fashion.
On a recent trip to Germany, I visited the Bauhaus Archive/Museum of Design in Berlin. I wasn’t expecting to find great writing advice while on holiday, but there it was, in a summary of the instructional style of weaving master Benita Koch-Otte.
She advised students in her weaving workshop to work for “Utility and economy in every piece of work” and to “study of the textile object’s relations to human beings and their needs (psychological and biological) to space, fashion and the economy.”
All writers weave words whether they write journalism, copywriting, or fictional storytelling. A great writer weaves words together and ensures each word has a purpose (utility) and the story is told as succinctly as possible (economy). Great writing is great when it truly relates to the needs of human beings but is also aware of its context and style and how it fits into the big picture.
You don’t need to know anything about the Bauhaus to understand that this advice, though 90 years old, is absolutely relevant to all writing today.
Should You Deliver Bad News in Person?
Emoji add some tone to written messages - but nothing replaces real face-to-face communication
Should you deliver bad news in person?
I would argue yes.
Experts say that 70% of our message is carried in non-verbal communication, that is how we convey meaning without words. The height of our eyebrows, the position of our arms, the volume of our voice, even the rate we blink all carry important information about our message to our listeners. People believe the messages they receive from non-verbal channels more than the words they hear. Purely written communication loses a huge amount of information and is so easily misinterpreted.
This spring, the Cellcom Green Bay marathon was called off due to heat and a lot of runners were angry.
This spring many cities experienced unseasonably warm weather. The well-known Boston Marathon reported that just under 2,000 runners received some kind of medical attention due to the heat. My local marathon, the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon, was at a red flag due to heat.
Unfortunately the organizers of the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon missed an opportunity to connect with their customers – the 51% of runners who didn’t get official results. Only a written statement appeared on their website, explaining their concern for runner safety.
If they were my client, I would have recommended creating and sharing a simple video from the race director, expressing regret for the fact that the weather was out of their control and that runner safety was, and is, their number one priority. And if the race director didn’t have the communication skills to express that perfect mix of regret, compassion and executive decision-making power, then find someone with authority who could.
It’s so easy to share videos today, thanks to smartphones and the variety of social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and via video sharing on LinkedIn) all businesses should be thinking of ways to maximize the delivery of their messages to their customers – not just 30%.
How to Write Positively Without Sounding Fake
Reinforce the Positive
One of my favorite aspects of LinkedIn, besides Answers, is Recommendations. I’m not shy about asking for Recommendations, and all the pundits will tell that waiting patiently for someone to take the initiative to recommend you is fruitless. You must make the request.
And if people are following that advice, chances are you’ll be asked to make recommendations for others at some point. I have! In “How to Write About Something Negative Without Negativity“, I discussed how to write a letter of recommendation that conveys when someone has done a terrible job without coming across like a complete troll.
When you’re asked to write a recommendation for someone you truly feel made a difference, providing high quality work, constantly offered creative and practical solutions and kept up a professional attitude all the while – how do you write a recommendation that person deserves without sounding cliche?
Give that person a STAR.
The STAR approach will help you be specific and really lay out the deserved kudos and endorsement.
- Situation – Lay out the scene. What was the environment or time frame? Were there unusual factors involved like it new product bugs, supply chain failures, staff shortages? Be specific and show you know the facts.
- Task – Talk about the job that needed to be done. Close a big deal with a customer? Implement a new process? Develop a new branding strategy? Again, be specific.
- Action – Highlight what the person did to successfully complete each task and how they did it. Include powerful, positive verbs!
- Result – Did the project come in under budget? Did the team seal the deal on a new account? Focus on the real outcomes and again, be as specific as possible. If you saw really great work, you don’t need fancy language. You just need to accurately and specifically
More advice on LinkedIn Recommendations from Mashable.com
Need social media content? Become an Alchemist
Turn their two cents into content gold!
Can’t think of what to write for that next blog post, tweet or update? Even the most creative writer gets in a slump. I never get “writer’s block” because I’ve discovered that I’m an alchemist. What looks like ordinary matter to some is pure gold to me.
After I get my feet wet working for clients with several employees, I turn on my nosey side. Actually, that side is rarely turned off, so let’s say I ramp it up a bit and market it as “the natural curiosity of a writer.” I will actually linger in the kitchen and strike up conversations with folks I haven’t met. I’ll start a hallway conversation and invite passers-by to comment on a topic I’m covering. I’ll pop my head into someone’s office, asking if they’ve seen so-and-so (who I know isn’t around) and then casually get their opinion on a current project. I rarely talk – my goal is to get them talking. And each time I engage in one of these tactics, which could appear to be time-wasters, I’m turning what could be ordinary information into writer’s gold.
No one person knows the complete ins and outs of a medium to large organization. There are tiny pockets of useful information stored all over the staff and as a writer and social media strategist for several clients, I know you cannot sit at your temporary desk or in your cubicle-on-loan waiting for people to drop juicy details in your lap. You’ve got to go and uncover them, sometimes with the delicate brush and other times with a pickaxe. As an outside consultant, I’m fortunate to see connections that others inside the organization take for granted and overlook. It’s probably a little easier for people to share things with me than to share with their co-workers or managers. I’m thrilled when someone begins a sentence with, “No one else really knows this but…” That usually means they are about to share something really exciting and I can bring it to the attention of eager customers and loyal followers.
I also never take the credit for content I get this way. I share the love. I mention to my point person how valuable it was to speak with the lady in accounting, or the man in tech support, or the folks in operations who pointed out a new system they are trying to streamline a project. I want to person who hired me to realize what a great team they have in place. I also want the people who shared ideas and thoughts with me to realize they have a lot to offer.
So if you’re trying to go it alone and create all the content for your business blog, Twitter feed, Facebook posts, Pinterest images, Google+ page, or YouTube channel – take a step away from your computer and become an alchemist. Turn that ordinary material into social media gold!
Are Grumpy Kids Driving You Crazy?
The Bumpy, Grumpy Road, available in paperback & e-book
Mine was, and sometimes still does. But as a mom, I am always looking for the solution that fits the personality of each child (much the same way I work with clients). And as a writer, I know a well-told story can really convince a potential customer to become a satisfied client. So I combined both perspectives and wrote my first children’s book for my grumpy son. It’s called The Bumpy, Grumpy Road.
It tells the story of a boy named Dylan who drives a car. As he makes bad choices (angry words and behavior) his road gets very bumpy and unpleasant to drive. As he makes better choices, the road gets easier. I used this story to illustrate to my son that our actions and attitudes are choices. We can choose the easy road, or the hard. He really got it.
And after FamilyFun magazine printed my essay about the story, other parents wrote to me that their children understood the concept, too.
Never underestimate the power of a well-told tale!
Who Edits Your Tweets?
“I wish I could convince our staff to send all their tweets to an editor like you before they went live,” a friend said to me recently. He’s the Assistant Director for Legal Affairs for a large university and often has to discuss inappropriate tweet content with other university staff.
He’s not the only one. Many managers and CEOs struggle with how to handle tweets from their employers that could reflect poorly on the brand.
Most people don’t think before they speak, so it’s not surprising they don’t think before they tweet.
I asked what the university’s social media policy said about tweets in bad taste. He said they didn’t a policy! Basically, they apply existing rules about inappropriate content, brand use, communication and non-harassement policies to monitor and police social media activities.
No social media policy in place! Shocked? Don’t be – again, this university isn’t the only one.
One of my tasks for a recent client was to put together a reasonable social media policy. They also struggled with a situation where employees made rude, inappropriate or immature comments on their personal social media platforms and worried it would negatively impact their brand.
To put together a policy that would work for their needs, I tapped into some great examples from companies like Ford and Best Buy highlighted by one of my favorite sites, Hubspot, and assembled an easy to read guide that explained the expectations of the client for their employees.
It’s unrealistic to tell people they can’t have personal accounts, use them during the workday, or discuss difficult topics on their personal social media accounts. But you can ask employees to be clear that not all their statements represent the voice of the brand. Savvy employers can learn a lot from employees by paying attention to their social media content.
Does your company have a policy in place? How did you decide what worked for your organization?