‘The shark is down’
Most approval processes just don’t work day-to-day
by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.
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When my sister, Lynn Wylie, met Richard Dreyfus on a cruise recently, she asked the actor-turned-Constitutional scholar what it was like to work with a mechanical shark.
Almost every day, Dreyfus said, he’d arrive on the set of “Jaws” to hear this message over the intercom:
“The shark is down.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the shark is not working today.”
Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to show up day-in, day-out, ready to do the job you were hired to do, but not be able to get your work done because some system is broken?
Friends, I’ve got news for you. If you work in most organizations:
“The approval process is down.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the approval process is not working today.”
Here are three ways to get a functional approval process up and running in your organization:
1. ‘Step away from the editing transformer, sir.’
Chris Smith is one of my favorite thinkers about writing and communication. I always learn something from Three Things, the hilarious and helpful editing e-zine he writes for his colleagues at the energy company Entergy.
Here’s the senior lead communications specialist’s advice about handling approvals:
“Among your 14,000 co-workers, many know more than I do about engineering, accounting, transformers, law and other things. But only a handful know as much as you about writing headlines, finding the lead/lede in a story, correcting misplaced acronyms or wrongly capitalized uses of commission, company or other common nouns.
“I say let ‘em mangle their own drafts, thank them for the ideas, then edit … before you post a story or release. In return I promise to limit my electrical work to fixing lamp cords at home. Just say, ‘Step away from the editing transformer, sir, it’s a high-voltage process.’”
It’s another way to say, “Let’s respect each other’s expertise,” and I like it.
2. Redefine the client.
The customer is always right, right?
So the division, department or vice president who “hired” you to create their brochure or newsletter should have final say, right?
Wrong.
You and that brochure customer of yours are both working for the same client. And that client, for every communication you create, is the organization, not any one person or department.
As a communicator, you have a responsibility to your real client — the organization — for the messages and communications you create. That means the communicators — and not the bean-counters, lawyers or division heads — must have the responsibility and the authority for communications.
To get out of that “the customer is always right” loop, stop calling your internal “clients” “clients.” Make it “project partners” instead.
Unlike a rose, an approval process by any other name changes the way people think.
3. Come up with a good comeback.
After choosing new eyeglass frames for my pop-bottle lenses, I asked the guy behind the counter whether I could pick up my new specs in an hour.
“Oh, honey,” he said, “I’d never do that to you!”
With that comment, the clerk reframed my perspective. I suddenly stopped thinking of one-hour eyeglasses as a helpful convenience to seek. Instead, they’d become shoddy merchandise to avoid.
That’s a great comeback for a communicator being pressured by clients to deliver work on an unreasonable deadline, to hit “accept all changes” on review copy or to run a 200-word paragraph: “Oh, honey, I’d never do that to you.”
A communicator in one of my writing workshops uses a different comeback when her reviewers start coming up with new material for an otherwise focused piece:
“That is a GREAT idea!” she says. “For another piece!
Thanks for calling it to my attention. I’ll put that on our future story ideas sheet.”
What comeback could you use to reframe your reviewer’s perspective?
‘You’re going to need a bigger boat.’
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that getting a handle on the approval process is our top communication challenge.
Not creating a great brochure. Not getting the annual report out. Not developing an intranet that improves employee performance.
But creating a process that allows us to do those things well.
Improve approvals
Want to master the art of managing the approval process?
- Read Ann’s “Develop an Approval Process That Doesn’t Drive You Nuts” handbook.
- Get dozens of tipsheets on managing the approval process at RevUpReadership.com.
- Find Ann’s out about Ann’s next “Develop an Approval Process That Doesn’t Drive You Nuts” teleseminar.
About Ann Wylie
Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.
Copyright © 2007 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.
Rate your writing skills
New tool lets you score, improve and track your writing skills
by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.
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How do your writing skills stack up?
Find out with Wylie Communications’ new writing assessment. This free yardstick will help you identify where you are and how to get to the next level. Plus, you’ll get free tips and tools for improving your skills.
In these days of enormous changes in media technology, vast increases in information overload and almost complete transformation in readership habits, monitoring and improving your writing skills is essential.
Take the next step
Not where you want to be yet? Use this tool as a professional-development yardstick. Here’s how:
- Identify your most urgent skill — something you need to do well every day, but that you couldn’t give yourself the highest marks on.
- Focus on developing that skill for the next six months. Read books and articles, attend workshops and teleseminars, or do whatever you can to master that single area of expertise.
- Retake the assessment and identify your next area for development.
- Repeat. As you continue to polish your skills, revisit this assessment every quarter or so. You’ll track your progress and identify the next area to focus on for improvement.
That’s what the best writers — the masters of their craft — do.
Good luck!
Polish your writing skills
Want to master the art of writing better, easier and faster?
- Check out Ann’s Power Pack of learning tools.
- Get more than 1,750 tipsheets for improving your writing at RevUpReadership.com.
- Find Ann’s out about Ann’s upcoming writing teleseminars and workshops.
- Bring Ann to your organization for a writing workshop.
- Work with Ann to improve your writing skills in one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
- Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.
About Ann Wylie
Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.
Copyright © 2005 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.
So your writers can’t write?
Five ways to help struggling communicators
by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.
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“What’s worse than training your workers and losing them? Not training them and keeping them.”
— Zig Ziglar,
motivational speaker
I was having lunch with the vice president of corporate communications at a California-based Fortune 500 company when the topic of bad writing came up.
He detailed the problems his company was having because so many communicators struggled with their writing skills. Among the problems he mentioned:
- The VP spent one-quarter of his time rewriting copy instead of focusing on communication strategy.
- Employees didn’t receive and act on key messages because they didn’t read employee newsletters and intranet stories. The result: Employees didn’t support — or sometimes even know about — corporate initiatives.
- Press coverage was mediocre because press releases were mediocre.
“What’s all this costing your company?” I asked.
“Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said, “in lost productivity, lost opportunities and wasted executive time.”
A good writer is hard to find
My California client isn’t alone. Communication executives bemoan the lack of good writers:
- Senior public relations practitioners believe writing is the area where young professionals need the most improvement, according to a survey by the Public Relations Society of American’s Counselor’s Academy.
- “Our client surveys have consistently shown that good writing is one of the five top performance measures in gauging client service,” Bob Druckenmiller, CEO of Porter Novelli, tells The Strategist. “At the same time, we’ve seen a growth in concern about the quality of writing by our clients and, of course, by us.”
- “Young people don’t enter the field as skilled in writing as they once did,” Ann Barkelew, senior vice president, partner and general manager of Fleishman-Hillard, tells PR Tactics. “The overall level of proficiency has declined.”
What’s a business communicator to do? Here are five ways to improve your team’s writing skills:
1. Place a value on writing.
If you want better writing, you need to value better writers.
But in most organizations these days, managers value strategic skills far more than technical ones. No wonder your most talented communicators are writing communication plans instead of newsletters and brochures.
Instead, give your top writers a path for success.
Back to the drawing board: Hallmark Cards, the social expression giant that boasts the world’s largest creative staff, offers creative folks two career paths. One is the traditional hierarchical path, where a successful artist becomes a manager, then a director, then a vice president.
But the second path is a creative one, where a successful artist becomes an illustrator II, III, senior illustrator, master illustrator and so forth. These top artists never plan a product line or manage a staff (though they do lead by example); they climb the career ladder while staying at their drawing tables.
Distinguished tacticians: AT&T uses another approach. It designates highly successful communicators “Distinguished Members of the Public Relations Department.” The program was designed to reward communicators who weren’t eligible for promotion for one reason or another, including that their expertise was too tactical, technical or specialized.
The organization’s top leaders nominate communicators who make ongoing, significant contributions to the department and discuss the nominations until they reach consensus. In addition to the nice title, the honor also comes with a pay increase (about U.S. $10,000) and an office space and furniture upgrade.
Rewarding writing: Of course strategy is important. But it’s not enough. (After all, the best strategy combined with the worst writing will fail just as will the worst strategy paired with the best writing.)
Find a way to reward great writing in your organization, and watch the writing get better and better.
2. Don’t try to fix bad writers.
Writers are like husbands. It’s a mistake to take on terribly flawed ones with the intention of fixing them later.
The solution: Hire better writers in the first place.
Nobody’s ever accused me of being overly modest, but as a trainer, even I know I can’t transform a shaky writer into a Shakespeare during a writing workshop or two. Instead, I follow the rule of 10 percent — figure you can help your writers improve by 10 percent through training. Add another 10 percent a year if you offer consistent, ongoing, follow-up training and coaching.
That means you can help a B writer become an A writer and an A writer become a master. But if your writers are failing, you can only hope to help them attain a low C — and that’s with your daily hard work and support.
I’ve been there, tried that and trashed the T-shirt. It’s a miserable way to live and work. Instead, consider only good and excellent writers for your writing posts.
That means you need to get better at evaluating potential writers and rewarding them.
Evaluate potential writers: Don’t even think about looking at published clips. There are a lot of great clips out there with writers’ names on them that are really the work of editors and managers. You know that. So what to do?
- Request first drafts as well as published clips.
- Talk in detail to the manager who edited the project — not just about the candidate in general, but about the piece itself. You want to learn what the candidate contributed to the piece. Be specific: Ask about particular phrases and anecdotes.
- Assign the candidate a writing project, if possible. I’m not talking about some ridiculous little writing test you give during the interview, but an actual piece for your newsletter or brochure. Plan to pay the going rate for freelance writing, and plan to use the piece. If the copy isn’t usable, the candidate probably won’t be, either.
- Develop an assessment tool for evaluating writing samples and projects. Mine includes a three-point scale (great, OK, not a clue) and covers 40 categories, from positioning the story in the readers’ best interest, to structure, to creative elements, to display copy.
Offer excellent salary and benefits: Enough said.
3. Attend your own writing workshops.
Here are three reasons to go to the writing workshops you schedule with outside trainers:
- You need to be on the same page. If you’re not there, you can’t lead folks in implementing the trainer’s ideas.
- You might learn something yourself. One of the highlights of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism at Harvard University is the throng of Pulitzer Prize winners. Not just behind the microphone, but in the audience. These folks have earned the highest U.S. honor their profession bestows — but still seek ways to polish their skills. Shouldn’t you, too?
- Your writers will complain about you behind your back if you’re not there.
4. Offer ongoing coaching and training.
Writing training is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Keep up the momentum after your workshop with lunch-and-learns, coaching and assigned readings. RevUpReadership.com is a good resource for continuous learning.
5. Celebrate success.
Now that you’re seeing better writing, spread the word. Share your team members’ great work with each other to model what you’re looking for (and, frankly, to generate friendly competition).
As famous writing trainer Ann Wylie likes to say, “The behavior we celebrate is the behavior they replicate.”
How to improve your team’s writing skills
So: Recruit a good writer. Give her a career track. Pay her, train her, coach her, and show off her great work.
That should be business as usual in business communications.
Polish your writing skills
Want to master the art of writing better, easier and faster?
- Check out Ann’s Power Pack of learning tools.
- Get more than 1,750 tipsheets for improving your writing at RevUpReadership.com.
- Find Ann’s out about Ann’s upcoming writing teleseminars and workshops.
- Bring Ann to your organization for a writing workshop.
- Work with Ann to improve your writing skills in one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
- Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.
Copyright © 2007 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.
Recession-proof your writing career
Write copy that sells
by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.
In tough economic times, the communicators who thrive — and those who help their organizations thrive — are the ones who know how to write copy that sells: not just products and services, but programs, plans and positions, as well.
Let’s face it: In this environment, organizations can’t afford to communicate just to get the word out. They need communicators who know how to move the needle on the bottom line.
Sadly, most communicators were taught to report and inform, not to write copy that drives readers to action. In fact, many of the standard practices in business communication and PR writing today actually do more to put readers off than to persuade them.
But here are three ways to write copy that moves readers to act:
1. Put the reader first.
The secret to writing to persuade is to position your messages in your audience’s best interests. (Most communicators position their messages in their organization’s best interests.)
So write about the reader and her needs instead of about your organization and its stuff. One simple trick: Change the structure of your messages from “We offer this” to “You’ll receive that.”
To focus your copy on your readers’ interests, put the reader first. Start your sentence — and your story, for that matter — with the word “you.”
| Instead of leading with your organization and its stuff … | … lead with “you” — the reader and her needs. |
| XYZ Corp. announces a new disability insurance program. | You’ll get back to work faster, thanks to ITT Hartford’s new Ability Assurance. |
2. Write in verbs, not nouns.
People don’t buy products, services and ideas. They buy what those products, services and ideas will do for them.
So instead of writing about your organization’s stuff, write about the benefits that stuff will deliver to readers.
That takes verbs.
Benefits are verbs (“get back to work faster”), not nouns (“ability assurance”). So when you’re writing about things, you’re not writing about benefits.
The headline writer for a conference ad almost got it right. The deck — that essential one-sentence summary under the headline — is a benefit. How do we know? It starts with a benefits-focused verb:
Revitalize your sexuality
and justify your chocolate obsession
Sounds good to me. But the headline — “Women’s Health Conference” — is a yawner. So is a tertiary head naming the speakers. That’s because the conference and speakers are features, not benefits. They’re nouns, not verbs.
Want to sell your products, services and conferences? Write in benefits, not features.
And that takes verbs, not nouns.
3. Use “that means you will …”
Having trouble finding those reader benefits?
Try prompting your subject matter expert with the line “that means they will …” The end of that sentence is likely to be a benefit.
Your subject matter expert says, “We can handle our client’s internal audit functions.”
You say, “That means our clients will …?”
Your subject matter expert says: “That means our clients will free up their own employees for bottom-line projects and better control the costs of producing internal audits.”
“That means you will …” also makes a great way to present your benefits:
“XYZ Company can manage your internal audit function. That means your management team will no longer have to worry about day-to-day responsibilities like recruiting, training, planning, execution, reporting or methodology. And that means you can focus management talent, capital funds, overhead and other resources on your core business. …”
Try it. “That means you will …” can help you discover — and deliver — reader benefits.
Move your audience to act
Want to deliver copy that gets read?
- Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to handle a persuasive writing or editing project.
- Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a Think Like a Reader workshop.
- Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to Think Like a Reader in one-on-one writing coaching. Or find out about Ann’s next Think Like a Reader webinar.
- Learn more: Read Ann’s Think Like a Reader toolkit. And get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.
- Join the club: Find dozens of persuasive writing tipsheets at RevUpReadership.com.
About Ann Wylie
Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.
Copyright © 2009 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.
Think Like a Reader toolkit
The Think Like a Reader cheat sheet of formulas and checklists provides you with all the action steps of the Think Like a Reader Toolkit on one piece of paper. Keep the checklist by your computer to use on every piece you write and edit. Our clients tell us that this job aide is one of the most valuable tools they use for applying new skills to their daily writing.
Improve your communications with our training, consulting, and writing services
Wylie Communications Inc. works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with companies that want to get the word out.
We do that through:
- Training to help you improve your writing, editing and communication skills
- Writing and editing your newsletters, marketing tools and feature articles
- Consulting to help you improve your writing, publications and websites
- Learning tools that help you improve your communication skills
What’s new?
- Self-assessment: How do you rate as a writer?
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Check out our resources:
- Sign up for our FREE email newsletter, packed with ideas for improving your writing, publications and online communications. (Find out what people say about “Wylie’s Writing Tips.”)
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- Find articles, ideas and information in our press room
- Download our brochure
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Revitalize your publication
A step-by-step look at one magazine makeover
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Publications that delight their readers — those that offer fresh information in unique editorial and design packages — are the ones that stand out in this crowded marketplace.
That’s what communicators at the Saint Luke’s Hospital Foundation (Kansas City, Mo.) had in mind when they turned to Wylie Communications, Inc., to make Saint Luke’s Report more engaging and easier to produce. Here are the steps Wylie took to achieve those objectives — steps you can replicate with your own publication:
- Develop a logical issue flow
- Commit to feature-style writing
- Create multiple layers of information
- Give the magazine a face-lift
- Communicate clearly
- Get the bottom line
Develop a logical issue flow
“A magazine is like a restaurant dinner,” says Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications. “A good one includes appetizers, or little nuggets of savory information; a meat-and-potatoes course, or a robust feature well; and, of course, dessert, or something short and sweet to top off the experience.”
Wylie transformed Saint Luke’s message points and coverage needs into a series of standing departments. Among them:
- Saint Luke’s Index: easy-to-read facts and stats about health care. The Index also allows the Saint Luke’s Hospital Foundation to communicate some of its successes
- Leadership in Caring: a one-page, “Dewar’s Profile”-style look at a Saint Luke’s staff member
- New & Noteworthy: a roundup of news items. New & Noteworthy helped clean up the feature well, making it the place for in-depth stories, sidebars and boxes, instead of bits and pieces of unrelated information
The results: The magazine flows more consistently, feels more like a “real” magazine, costs less to design because of the standing layouts — and is easier to plan.
Commit to feature-style writing
“New research detailing the benefits of feature-style writing is piling up,” Wylie says. “Still, too many communicators make the mistake of sticking with the inverted pyramid, regardless of the topic, the vehicle, the audience and the frequency. Saint Luke’s Report is definitely a publication that demands strong storytelling skills to draw readers in and make them care about the issues.”
Wylie Communications’ team of award-winning writers specialize in the feature-style structure. They relish the opportunity to write compelling human-interest narratives, as they were able to do for Saint Luke’s Report.
Create multiple layers of information
“Handled well, presentation copy — headlines, decks, callouts, cutlines and subheads — performs three functions,” Wylie says. “It draws readers into the copy, breaks up copy so it looks easier to read and communicates even to flippers and skimmers.”
Wylie Communications writers develop presentation copy designed to achieve these three objectives for every piece they write.
Give the magazine a face-lift
Wylie Communications brought in a design firm to create an attractive, attention-getting look for the magazine.
The centerpiece of the new design: simple, full-page, black-and-white stock photographs with very subtle tints, used on the opening spread of each article as well as on the cover.
“I didn’t know whether to be more delighted that the designer came up with such an elegant, dramatic approach or that Saint Luke’s leaders were sophisticated enough to buy it,” Wylie says.
A nice side benefit: The designer’s decision to use stock photos and to use fewer photos more dramatically not only made the publication look more sophisticated, but it also reduced the photography budget.
Communicate clearly
“We were pleasantly surprised that, despite all the changes we were making in the magazine, the publication met its production schedule,” says Saint Luke’s Millard.
“We also appreciated Wylie Communications’ ‘no-surprises’ approach to the budget. Ann and her team work on a project rate, which means that if you don’t change the parameters of the project, you know to the penny what the final invoice is going to be before the project begins.”
Get the bottom line
“You really put your reputation on the line when you work with vendors,” says Saint Luke’s Millard. “If the vendor you choose doesn’t perform, that reflects on you and your organization.
“So I was extremely pleased when our executive director joined us for a one-hour debriefing meeting after we’d finished the first issue. ‘We have a real problem here,’ he said. ‘I don’t have enough time to tell you how much I like the revamped Report.’”
Plan powerful communications
Want to master the art of effective communication planning?
- Get expert advice: Bring Ann in to help you adopt a strategic editorial approach.
- Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to handle a write or edit copy that helps your organization achieve its business objectives.
- Boost your own skills: Work with Ann to improve your strategic writing skills in one-on-one writing coaching.
- Learn more: Study Ann’s communication planning learning tools.
- Join the club: Get the full story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of communication planning tipsheetson RevUpReadership.com.
About Ann Wylie
Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.
Copyright © 2011 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.
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