A rite to help you write right

Getting prospects to trust you and respect your abilities is one of your more crucial business-development activities. A business truism that has stood the test of time is this: Unless a prospect knows, likes, and trusts you, she’s not going to hire you.

When you share your expertise through your writing, you’re letting your prospects sample different crucial aspects of you: personality, expertise, and style. Such sampling makes it easy for your prospects to start feeling as if they do, indeed, know, like, and trust you.

Since writing is so important, it’s in your best interest to do the very best work you can (without, of course, falling prey to procrastination and perfectionism). Here are some simple ways to make writing easier and more effective in enticing your ideal clients:

• Schedule inviolable writing time.

Writing blog posts or articles that enable future clients to sample your expertise and style is too important to do when you get around to it or when you feel like it. Creating your marketing communications is a task that deserves a spot on your business-development calendar every week without fail.

What works well for me is to set aside two hours every Tuesday for writing. You may find it’s better for you to schedule 45 minutes two or three times a week, or 20 minutes every day. What’s most important is that you commit time to writing high-value content every week so that your ideal clients have a chance to learn about you – and fall in love.

• Set aside a special place for writing.

This is especially useful if you’re not yet in the habit of writing consistently. You can choose a space in your home that you particularly love, or consider leaving your usual venue entirely. There are coffee houses, libraries, and other public places where you can set up your laptop. If you can find a place in the midst of green space, even better: Being in nature often stimulates creativity.

By designating a special location as the place where you write, you’ll get yourself mentally psyched for this activity and, more than likely, remove yourself from the temptations and distractions that surround you in your regular work space.

• Set the mood with music.

Many people find that having music in the background is a great creativity boost. (This is explored in depth in The Mozart Effect.)  While Mozart’s music may indeed spur you on, you may do better with hard-driving classic rock, or New Age music, or something else entirely. The trick is to find what works for you.

Using music is yet another way to signal your brain that it’s time to write.

• Pay attention to the nuts and bolts!

In the interest of full disclosure, I freely admit that I’m a bit obsessive about proper grammar and punctuation. While your writing doesn’t necessarily have to be flawless, it does need and deserve to be well constructed. Remember that what you write gives your prospects a chance to get a feel for you; do you want them to get the feeling from your sloppy grammar that you don’t pay attention to your work? I’m guessing not.

If you’re not sure about such nuts and bolts, you might check out Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, by Lynne Trusse.  It will not only help you write better, but it’ll re-charge you with some solid pig snorts of laughter.

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So…When you’re preparing to share your expertise through the written word, how do you do it? What strategies do you use for writing clear, compelling, marketing messages? The rest of us will so appreciate your ideas!

(By the way, thanks to Julie Jordan Scott for her image of the river writer and to Kristin Nador for the one of the writer’s resources; I found both in the Creative Commons section of Flickr.)

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