“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
– Anne Lamott

Successful businesses need good writing.

Words are the oxygen that breathes life into your sales and marketing.

Unfortunately, “having” to write vs “choosing” to write often turns this valuable exercise into a time-consuming energy drain.

I get it.

Years ago I came across one of Anne Lamott’s books, “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.”

It’s a great read.

The book’s title comes from Anne’s story about a family vacation as a young girl. Her older brother (10 at the time), was struggling to write a report about birds for school. Despite having 3 months to write it, he hadn’t started and it was due the next day. Anne’s father sat next to him at the table, put his arm around him and said:

“Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

As business owners, it’s common to feel overwhelmed when something is due and heavy writing is involved.

In those moments, having systems and reminders to guide you are a tremendous help.

My Small Business newsletter, (Wisdom on Wednesday) recently crossed the 6-month mark of weekly publishing.

As I look back on it now, the first few weeks of getting started and practicing new habits was the most difficult time by far.

This week I thought I’d share a few lessons I’ve picked up from writing and sharing this newsletter with you.

Many small business challenges are about overcoming overwhelming situations one step at a time.

You just gotta take it bird by bird.

2 Takeaways:

1. Where Possible, Avoid Starting With a Blank Page. It really helps to have proven, familiar templates on hand for the types of writing you’ll be doing over and over again (email marketing, sales presentations, RFPs, etc). Working with trusted templates and formulas that you’ve approved helps your mind before putting pen to paper. It’s something of an idea/content cheat code. Eliminating the blank page stage with a fast start is huge for your momentum.

2. Good Writing Ends with Better Editing. I spend way more time editing than actually writing. My first drafts are always way too long before I go through the exercise of putting myself in the reader’s shoes and re-reading. When you do that with a specific goal in mind (persuasion, engagement, transaction, etc.), I’m sure you’ll end up cutting stuff. This goes for everything: an email to a customer asking for a sale, website pages to audiences you haven’t met yet.

1 Action:

Run your important written pieces through the Hemingway App. It’s free and instantly provides recommendations on how to improve what you’ve just written:

• It highlights very hard and hard-to-read sentences.
• It mentions instances of passive voice and simpler alternatives.
• It gives you an instant score on grade level.

This week’s article (the one you’re reading right now) received a Grade 6 score.

As always — thanks for reading!

Hubert