Hiring a Writer? Here’s What You Should Look For …

You’ve chosen to save yourself time to focus on what you do best by bringing in an expert to write for your business.

That’s a brilliant idea. Most people can write. Few can write well.

Not everybody knows how to deliver an important message powerfully and memorably. It’s a bold, playful and inventive exercise. It takes skill and years of experience to do it well – and you don’t want to chance it with the wrong creative service when it’s your business that’s on the line. How do you know that you’re entrusting your brand to the ideal writer?

To start with, it’s important to know that not everybody who says that they can write necessarily writes well. Not everybody who does write well is necessarily the right choice for you, either. Here’s how to tell who’s who in the literary zoo.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF WRITER

Content writers are two a penny. Anyone who has written something and had it published online is a content writer. They tend to stick to their own subjects and styles (academics sound lofty, teenagers sound funky, pet owners sound warm and fuzzy). They can be either brilliant or toe-curling – largely because anyone can self-publish. There’s a lot of nonsense online.

Copywriters are trained pen pushers who can adopt different styles to persuade readers or audiences to do something that you want them to do – visit a website, go to a shop, register online and so on. They, too, can be brilliant. Some can be ineffective, largely because many of them write about products and services rather than about people’s feelings. There are a lot of inexperienced copywriters out there.

Creative writers can use multiple ‘voices’, adopt any tone they like and find a storyline in a lifeless bunch of facts. They get excited about seemingly dull stuff, largely because they ‘see’ possibilities, meanings, characters and scenarios in all sorts of drudgery. These are the grown up kids who can still imagine up a whole world with just a stick and an empty yoghurt pot. There’s always room for more creative writers online.

Whether you want the sort of writing service that helps you keep up with your competition or makes you stand out from it – well, it’s your business.

YOUR IDEAL WRITER

This would be a published creative writer AND an experienced copywriter. Someone who knows how to switch between the two and when to blend them.

Having strong ideas all comes down to the creative briefing. Your writer needs to ask you the right questions to find out what your customers want and need, and you give your writer the information he or she needs to convey your strongest message to them.

Your ideal writer will come up with a bold, playful and inventive way to tell your customers what they want to know from you.

Yes – what they want to know … which isn’t necessarily what you want to say.

You are the expert in your field, writers are experts in theirs. You can think of writer as your ‘translator’ – the one who makes what you do really matter to your customers.

I put the appeal of great ideas down to a subtle blend of psychology and extreme legwork. Research + experience + imagination + draft + draft + draft. A long line of investigative work, feeling out the story. That’s important for the idea.

As John le Carre said, “The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the DOG’s mat – that’s a story.”

Your ideal writer will find the story you need to tell your customers.

Then your customers will respond.