A business colleague said something astounding the other day.
He said he would rather speak to an audience of 10 people than write for an audience of a thousand. I thought that sounded a bit strange, so I challenged him on it.
It turned out that he had written an article for a magazine with a good circulation, but hadn’t received any feedback. He felt he had spent his time crafting a wonderful, informative piece that no one appreciated.
He also felt that if that message had been delivered in person, he could have seen the response from people immediately, in their eyes and their body language.
It’s true what my colleague said, so how can we justify putting time into writing when we don’t get feedback? That, my friend, is the nature of writing.
Sometimes you get to find out what your readers think of your material, but many times you don’t. It’s my view that we have to be OK with the fact that writing is one-way until we get a response, and we must continue to put good material into the market.
There are some excellent guidelines for one-way communication that I have seen business experts use to their advantage. Here are my favourites:
1. Keep your outcome in mind at all times
Hone your message according to what you have to say as well as what your reader needs to hear and decide what kind of information you are imparting. For example, if you need to teach people with your writing, you would probably choose a style which puts your ideas across in a reasonably straightforward way and allows you to get into plenty of detail.
You will probably also want to offer the reader a chance to test his or her learning in the form of questions or even exercises. This differs tremendously from writing which aims to influence or persuade.
That would need to sound more exciting and compelling; it would possibly use psychological elements to make the key points. Being conscious about your desired outcome will make whatever you write clearer and more effective.
2. Deliver your message as passionately and authentically as if you were speaking
I prefer to see writing as an extension of speaking and, in fact, for people who will not get the opportunity to hear you in person or even on the phone, your writing must do the same job. It has become very trendy to write conversationally, spurred on by the advent of blogging and newsletters.
That style can be used effectively in books and articles as well.
It’s no secret that one of my favourite authors is marketing guru Seth Godin. I love the in-your-face, direct style he uses.
It feels like he’s in my living room talking to me one on one. It seems from his book sales that others also respond to that style.
And it happens to be the way I prefer to write, in case you hadn’t noticed!
There is one caveat here which I must stress. Delivering your message as if you were speaking does not mean that it’s the same as speaking.
There are excellent ways of recording material for books and articles by using digital recorders and voice-to-text software. If you choose to use those methods, you really do need to take extra time to get it sounding right.
I know some people who record their books and take hours to tidy the text up and edit it. That can work and I have even had some clients making excellent progress by recording parts of their books.
However, I just think you can be more careful and precise with your wording when you write or type.
3. Get feedback
That may sound like it contradicts what I said earlier. Actually, there are some clever mechanisms to get people interacting with you, even though you are not there.
Starting with the most basic idea, get people in your network to review your book – honestly. Even though we are all busy, we find time to help friends, don’t we?
Once your friends’ reviews are published, it will encourage more readers to post reviews. You can also get readers to go to a web page and complete a survey – with or without an incentive.
You can put an email address at the bottom of the piece asking for comments – again, with or without an incentive.
This can work equally well for books. I show many of my clients how to capture people’s contact details and feedback by including CDs with their books.
Never include bonuses with your book without also engaging with readers to gauge what they thought of it.
If you know your subject and deliver your message well, if you write powerfully and authentically, people will listen. And they may even respond.
Let me know all about your success by writing to me at mindy@bookmidwife.com – I offer lots of fabulous bonuses for my readers.
