Keep up to date when you write

It is important to keep track of the date and what is happening if you want your writing  (and other communications) to be credible and respected.

I heard a perfect example of this morning. As part of a news item in the 10 am radio news, the newscaster said “… will be announced later this month.” Of course, at 10am on the 29th February, there really isn’t much of the month left for things to happen in! It was probably a simple mistake (perhaps it should have been “… later next month…”,  but it stood out more than the actual news itself.

While people can allow for small mistakes, and sometimes won’t even notice them, mistakes can change the impact of what you write (or say) and that can be costly. So remember to check:

• you have the correct dates
• you refer to the appropriate season (for example, today is summer and tomorrow is autumn in Australia, but not in the northern hemisphere)
• when unusual, but important, changes occur, such as leap years, daylight savings starts/ends and when Easter is

Take particular care when you are writing something in advance. For example, if you write blog or newsletter posts weeks or even months ahead of publishing them, it can be easy to refer to current details instead of the relevant future ones.

Business integrity

As a writer and professional service provider, I consider that my job as helping my clients. I write webcopy or documents for their business, of course, but more than that I use my skills and knowledge to help them. I consider that my clients want my expertise, not just some words on a piece of paper.

So for example, if a client asks me to write a media release on something that I know is not news worthy and is extremely unlikely to get published, I tell them so and might suggest another way I could help them more effectively.

Whenever I approach suppliers, for myself or on behalf of a client, I always make my request along the lines of “Please do x, y and z  – unless you can suggest a better alternative”. I trust suppliers to know more than me and hope we can work together to get the best result.

I hate seeing suppliers that are more concerned with making money than doing what is best for their clients. And let’s face it, it isn’t good business practice either – clients are less likely to come back or recommend you if you don’t do the right thing by them.

One of my clients has been approached by a marketing company with a lot of suggestions. Now, this company does produce some nice work and they are very friendly and helpful.

However, it concerns me that they are more interested in taking over the product marketing than in what is best for the product. For instance, they are suggesting changes to the website to make it more like x and z sites. I did a quick Google search – my client’s site shows on page one of a search for the appropriate term, the x site shows on page 2 and z doesn’t show before page 5. My client’s site get new visitors to the site everyday now, which is pretty good for a site less than 6 months old. And being so young, a branding change now would have limited benefit in my opinion.

To me, they would be servicing my client better to agree the site is doing well and here are some ways to promote it further rather than match it to less popular sites.

Do you have examples of businesses using good integrity in their dealings with clients? I’d love to hear them 🙂

Stick to your topic

When writing, especially if it is an article or blog post, it isn’t hard to get distracted by related topics and ideas. But if someone has chosen to read about a certain topic, that is what they expect to read about.

Changing topics within a piece of business writing can confuse your readers and reduce your ‘expert’ status. This is especially the case if you are presenting a number of points about a topic (such as ’10 ways to save money’ or ‘tips for reducing water waste in your office’.)

As an example, I recently read an article listing various ways to sell a product. It started with market stalls, direct sales and wholesaling, but then went onto networking and advertising which are not sales methods although they can increase the number of sales made.

If you do want to include points that are not part of your original topic, change the topic to indicate the scope of the writing. Alternatively, write two or more pieces, each about a separate although related topic, instead of one piece on different topics.

Saying sorry

On behalf of Australia, Kevin Rudd says sorry to the stolen generation and their families and communities.

This apology may not be a business or writing topic, but it is important and is a significant moment in Australian history. I was proud to hear our Prime Minister say those words, to express the sorrow so many of us feel at what was done to those Aboriginal children and their families.

The suffering of those families is more than I can imagine, and I hope that this apology can help a little of that pain and bring us closer together as Australians.

I was shocked to realise the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families was done as recently as the 1970s – 7 decades of it is 70 years too many.

It is my hope that a positive change will arise from this apology – that people can heal, that positive actions will take place and that we will remember the unity and emotions of this momentous event.

Welcome to a new Australia.

Don’t apologise for being Australian

We all know that spelling varies between Australia and some other countries, notably the USA. We write neighbour, they write neighbor; we write centre, they write center.

Which spelling you should use depends on who your readers are – if you want to attract Australian customers, use Australian spellings, and so on. If your domain ends with .au, then use Australian spelling and metric measurements even if you have an international audience – be proud of being Australian and use our conventions, especially as you have already announced your link to Australia.

As an Australian, I can read US spelling and understand it without too much effort (even when it annoys me on an Australian site!) and I believe that the Americans can cope with reading our spelling, too. I recently saw an Australian site with an explanation of the two spellings – to me, this implied that any Americans visiting the site were too stupid to understand ‘colour’ means ‘color’. That, or our spelling is somehow inferior and should be apologised for in case the Americans don’t like us.

Either way, it is not a good message to send and was a complete waste of the site owner’s time to prepare the table. So, be proud of our country and our conventions, and give others the courtesy that they are intelligent enough to respect and understand that.

Work/life balance…

A survey conducted last year by a software firm called Reckon indicated that over 50% of respondents judge their success by having a life/work balance rather than high profits (as preferred by 33% of them.) The survey questioned 1300 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) across Australia.

In comparison, a survey by the Business Mums Network, also last year, discovered that nearly 65% of respondents (mostly micro businesses run at home by mothers) started a business to be with their children and 44% started to earn money.

In both cases, it appears that small business owners are interested in a life/work balance, including more family time, that they believe is available as employees. Although the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008 (released last week) indicates that employees have reduced their working hours in the last 6 or 7 years (41.4 hours per week in 1999/2000 and 39.4 in 2006/07)

The Reckon survey also pointed out that 18% of SMEs found the accounting aspect of business to be holding them back from success (that is, accounts take up time that could otherwise be used for family time) and 17% found a drop in personal drive to be limiting.

What do you think? Do you run a small business for control and life balance, or primarily for profits? Is there a certain aspect of your business that you find particularly difficult or time consuming?

PS A new survey is currently underway to find out how small/micro businesses view their finances. It will be interesting to see if the micro business responses again differ from the SME responses.

Does it make sense?

I recevied an email about some workshops. In the description of one workshop was the following:

The workshop is an afternoon teas are included introduction to the advantages of web accessibility.

It doesn’t make sense! And doesn’t bode well for better web accessiblity if that is their standard!

Yes, we can figure out they probably mean “The workshop is an  introduction to the advantages of web accessibility and afternoon teas are included” but they obviously didn’t proof read their own information so it doesn’t give a very professional image to their courses.

Of course, most of us would also assume there was only one afternooon being given, too!

Link to relevant information

When writing about a product or information elsewhere, ensure people know what you are referring to. Your words will then make sense, especially if you are giving instructions or reviewing the item in question.

For example, I just read an email that said “Just go to the very bottom of the page and find my items” There was no link and there were no items listed at the end of the email, so I had no idea what page I should be looking at the bottom of!

If you are sending an email and referring to a particular product, webpage, article or whatever, include a link to it or attach it to the email. That way people are not confused and don’t have to waste time trying to find what you are writing about.

Likewise, if you are writing in your blog or on your website, add links to your products, articles and testimonials instead of referring to them and letting people find the information themselves. For example, my article about clear communications may give you more information about why to include a link. But are you going to search for it? Much easier if I say the article is available by clicking on this link, isn’t it?

Media release stories

Writing a media release for your own business is quite possible, or you may want to get a professional writer/PR or marketing person to do it for you.

The key part to any release, however, is the story in the release. It must be newsworthy if it is to gain any interest or publicity. And it must be newsworthy for the media outlet you are sending it to – an article about an innovative tractor part would be newsworthy in an agricultural magazine but not so much in a women’s fashion magazine.

With a bit of spin or a changed perspective, many stories can be made more interesting than they first appear, but a journalist still has to get an article out of the story for them to follow up the release.

I have seen instances where the interest of the story, its newsworthiness, is listed as the be all and end all of a media release. But there is one other important factor in a successful media release.

The story in your release must be relevant to your business if it is to benefit your business. So you could write a release about that great tractor part, grab the attention of a journalist and see the part get some publicity. How does that help you if you sell shoes or books? Of course, if you sell food and can add “This new tractor part means we harvest sooner so your food is fresher” or if you are a web designer and can add “Since we redesigned their site, this tractor part has sold millions” it has relevance.

So before starting a media release, you need to ask yourself:

Will this story interest a number of people?

Is there a media outlet that will reach those interested people?

Is this story relevant to my business?

If they are all ‘yes’, get writing!