Insights from My 2020 Writing Survey

February 19, 2020 by Kent Sanders | Leave a Comment

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One of the key values that I have in my business is partnership. What do I mean by that? I mean that I see you as a partner—or co-creator, if you will—in this journey of helping others with business writing.

This is why I value feedback and communication so much. I never want this to be a platform where I’m just blasting out content and hoping for the best. My biggest priority is to create content and other opportunities that actually help people with their needs.

I recently created a very simple writing survey that I mentioned a number of times on the show over the last few weeks. I also sent this out to my email list and talked about it on my blog. I thought it would be fun to go through the results of this survey and let you know how I’m responding to it.

This was a simple one-question survey. The question was, “What are your biggest needs as a writer?” There were 16 different responses, and people could check as many options as they wanted.

I want to quickly go through the results and how I will apply these results moving forward.

First of all, let’s look at the top 5 answers.

The Top 5 Answers

Three were tied for the top place, with 41% of the respondents each selecting these:

I want to make money with my writing, but don’t know how.
I need help making more time to write.
I would like to develop better writing habits.

Two were tied for 2nd place, with 37% of the respondents each selecting these:

I would like to improve my storytelling skills.
I need motivation and accountability to reach my goals.

This tells me several things:

Money, time and habits are the three main concerns. I’m going to be doing a podcast series on ways to make money with your writing, and how to make time to write.

In addition, I’m considering making my new lead magnet on the website something related to making money as a writer. That is an issue that speaks to almost everyone, and is probably more of a direct pain point than time. We all want more time to write, but why do we want more time? Because ultimately, we want to make more money with our writing.

Habits are tied in with time, but I know it’s a separate topic. I will likely do a series on habits, but I think this deserves something different as well—maybe a course, or a mastermind, or group coaching that I will offer.

Storytelling is a very hot topic in the business world right now. And for good reason—we are wired to love stories. Stories are also a great teaching tool. I’m going to be addressing this more on the podcast, and in other ways.

Now let’s look at the bottom answers, because these were interesting as well. I find it fascinating to see what people don’t seem to be struggling with.

The Bottom Answers

Three were tied for the second-to-last place, with only 19% of the respondents each selecting these:

I feel alone and need a mentor, coach, or community to help me make progress.
I need help with networking and building relationships.
I need help with the process of self-publishing my book.

And in last place, with only 15% of the respondents selecting this, was:

I struggle with the business side of writing.

This tells me several things:

I’m having trouble meshing the fact that almost half of the people say they want accountability and motivation … but most of them DON’T believe the way to accomplish this is through mentoring, coaching, or community.

The hidden message here is that people want to reach their goals, but don’t want the messiness and hassle that comes with relationships. That is also reflected in the fact that only 1 out of 5 people want help with networking and relationships.

This doesn’t really come as a surprise because these are writers talking. So what they’re saying is, “I don’t believe relationships and community is the pathway to my goals.” And I’m going to completely disagree with that. My experience is that relationships, networking, and community are THE pathway to becoming better and more successful. So, I’m going to be seriously thinking about ways I can help you with this.

Now here’s the other strange thing I find about these results: almost half of people say they want to make money with writing, but don’t know how … yet a much smaller percentage of people say they struggle with the business side of writing.

This is very similar to my last point about the connection between reaching your goals and having community. Here, you have people who want to make money, but they don’t see the business side of writing as the pathway to getting there. Which is, of course, the pathway to making more money as a writer—thinking like a business person instead of just a writer.

The best way for me to address this business aspect right now, I think, is by having excellent guests on the podcast who can help us be better business thinkers and entrepreneurs. But I’m also going to be giving through to some other ways we can address this … because the business side of writing is clearly a need from my point of view. It’s just a matter of educating people on why it’s important and how to be better at it.

So … all this is to say … I’ve got my work cut out for me!

I hope this has been helpful for you. I know it’s been very eye-opening for me.

What are your thoughts on the survey results?