niedziela, 18 grudnia 2011

Skills Before Knowledge - Secrets To Being An Effective Freelance Business Writer

By Quinn Harris


We don't think that there's anybody who doesn't agree that effective communication leads to long-lasting and profitable dealings with clients and customers. However, it must be mentioned as well that when trying to create hard-hitting articles, knowledge of the subject only comes second to your skills as a writer.

And unless you help your clients understand the value of your skills, you limit your opportunities to sell those skills again and again.

Companies have certain individuals in their employ who can be best termed as specialists, people who are supposed to know everything that has to be known about its products and services. So what's keeping them from creating awesome marketing tools such as user guides and advertisements, and why do they keep befuddling co-workers with their training methodologies?

Because they don't have the skills that you do, the talent for communicating with impact to achieve specific results. In life, we cannot avoid encountering individuals who simply do not have "what it takes" to share their knowledge despite their repository of information in their cranium - these are our doctors, lawyers, business associates, computer technicians, or even the teachers from our younger days who had "what it takes"...to put us to sleep in Physics, Algebra or Literature class.

Every company reaches a point in its existence when they would be behooved to find somebody to help them in communicating a pithy message to customers and employees about their products and services, how they work and the values associated with said products/services. They go looking for outside help . . . and then they forget why!

Your success over the long haul is predicated on how well you remind people about the need for effective communication. Most of these experts, whether clinicians or programmers or engineers or legal experts, are more comfortable talking to people just like themselves, rather than creative types like artists and writers.

If it were up to them, they wouldn't care much about those "bohemian writer types" - they'd rather get somebody conversant in their specialization, never mind if he or she is a so-so writer. And a year or two later, they'll be looking for someone else to help them when they realize that all the copy and training content and documentation they have churned out has produced mediocre results.

If you know how to help yourself, you can help your clients out as well.

Always stay in control of the conversation whenever you get the chance to let a prospective client know about helping them foster effective communications - you want to focus on helping them develop those skills. Make sure they understand their own need for someone different from the resources they already have in house. Emphatically tell them that with your writing expertise and their technical knowledge, you two can work in concert with each other to improve corporate revenue, gain more customers and keep the existing ones, and improve employee morale and performance across the board.

Even if you know their subject matter well, your skills are more important. After all, should their product line change, or new markets open, they may be dealing with a new body of knowledge in a year or two.

Despite the numerous changes that can happen in the world of business, you can ensure that a company stays relevant by meeting their constant need for effective communication as their freelance business writer AND communications specialist.




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