Podcast 120: Introduction to Smart Business Writing

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Today is January 1, so happy New Year! It’s a great time for a fresh start. I don’t know what your 2019 was like but mine was honestly pretty bumpy. But I wouldn’t frame it as a bad year — in fact, I’d say it was a very good year in that it was a year of major growth, clarity, and learning.

It’s also appropriate because this is a fresh start for this podcast. This is the introductory episode to the Smart Business Writing podcast, and I thought it would be good to take a few minutes and give you an overview of what the show is all about. I want to cover several things such as who the show is for, what you’ll learn, the show format, what this show is NOT, and some guiding principles that form the foundation of the show.

What’s with episode 120?

But first: If this is an intro episode, why is it labeled episode 120? If this is your first episode, you might be wondering what that is all about. The answer is that this used to be called the Born to Create podcast, which was a show all about the process of creativity. However, I wanted to pivot the podcast and “niche down” to focus on writing, specifically for business leaders and entrepreneurs.

I talked a lot about writing on the Born to Create podcast, and if you go through the episode archive, you’ll see a lot of episodes where either my guest or myself am talking about writing. So this was a natural transition.

I decided to keep Smart Business Writing on the same podcast feed because creativity and writing are closely related—in fact, I’d say that writing is one specific expression of creativity. Plus, there is a lot of good stuff in the Born to Create podcast that in many ways is foundational to what we’ll be talking about in Smart Business Writing, so I’ve left the archive in there … even though it may be a little confusing to some people. All things being equal, I’d rather leave the old episodes in there than start a whole new podcast from scratch. Thankfully, it’s easy to change the title, artwork, and other items for a podcast and update it across all the platforms.

And by the way, I’d also recommend that if you want to dive into my reasoning for pivoting the podcast, go back and listen to Ep. 119 that I released last week. I think you’ll find some good insights there.

OK, now let’s get into the meat of this episode. First, let’s break down the title of SMART BUSINESS WRITING. What does that actually mean?

What the title means

“Smart”

This is how we are approaching the topic. I want us to be SMART. This means we learn from the best. We pursue excellence. We want to be good at what we do. We want to serve our audience, clients, customers, and readers well.

I’m in an awesome online community called Total Life Freedom, led by Vincent Pugliese. (You can listen to my interview with Vincent on Ep. 95.) One of our group members, Andrew Mundy, gave an excellent suggestion in our group as we are doing our planning for 2020. He suggested going back and reading your journals from the past year.

I did that, and wow, that was a great suggestion because I had forgotten so many things that happened this past year. In my journal, I came across an insight that I really liked. I don’t know if this was original with me, or if I had borrowed it from somewhere. Either way, I liked it.

I had written down that many times, our writing is all about NOTICE ME. We want others to see how creative and intelligent we are. But the most effective writing is all about NOTICING OTHERS. We write to address their pain points and needs, and also give solutions.

In short, we write to serve and help others. At the end of the day, isn’t that what business is all about anyway? Serving and helping others?

So by saying SMART, I mean that we should seek to be better, to learn from the best, and to give our best to others. That means we’ll also be taking a lot about topics like mindset, attitude, perspective, personal growth, and related topics.

“Business”

Here’s what I believe: Fundamentally, every business is a writing business. Therefore, if you are in business then you need to use writing to communicate and to grow your business.

So, this show is for business owners of both large and small companies, employees, entrepreneurs freelancers, pastors and church leaders, freelancers, and even educators, which is the world I come from. All of us need to use the power of writing to get our message out to serve our customers and clients, as well as market and sell our products and services.

So in other words, if you are in a business of any kind, this show is for you. We’ll talk about a lot of different ways to use words to serve others and grow your business. That brings me to the last word in the title.

“Writing”

Writing refers to any kind of content creation. I anticipate we will be talking about email, blogging, books, self-publishing, social media, editing, productivity, podcasting, speaking, course creation, marketing, copywriting, and many other topics related to content creation.

Show format

At least for a while, I envision this show to have 3 weekly episodes. On Monday and Wednesday, I will do shorter episodes where I essentially teaching on a topic. It may be based on a listener question, or something I want to talk about, or an area where I know people are struggling.

Then on Fridays, I’ll have a guest interview. Generally, the guests will be authors, creative leaders or business leaders, or other leaders and authorities who have something valuable to share with us.

I specifically chose this format because I am both a teacher and a student. I love the opportunity that a podcast can give you—you can connect with great people and have a conversation, then share it with the world on a podcast. So on Fridays, I’ll be joining you as a student in the classroom of business writing.

Now that I’ve talked about the content of the show, who it’s for, as well as the format, let me take a second and talk about what the show is NOT. This helps give you my perspective on how I’m approaching the show.

What the show is NOT

It may sound kind of strange, but I think it’s important to articulate not only what a show IS, but also what it’s NOT. There are two specific things:

1. This is not a place where we have all the answers.

As I mentioned, this show is a place of learning and growth. I am right there alongside you on the journey of learning and improvement. In fact, doing a blog or podcast is one of the best ways to learn because it forces you to put out regular content.

I mentioned that we will have leaders and authorities on the show on Fridays to help teach us. I specifically did not use the word “expert” because in a sense, no one is an expert if they are continuing to learn. I want our posture to be that of a constant learner who is seeking wisdom, growth, and answers. The world is changing really fast, and we all must constantly learn.

2. This is not a place for comparison.

When you hear people on a podcast, or especially when you listen to interviews with successful people, let’s be frank: it’s easy to feel bad about yourself for what you feel you haven’t accomplished. But I want to be clear up front: your journey is your own journey, the only person you should be comparing yourself to is who you were yesterday, last month, or last year.

You can learn from other people, but you must travel your own path and take your own journey. When you hear from other successful people, don’t use that as a reason to feel about yourself, or feel jealous because of their success—use that as a chance to learn something and improve yourself.

As my friend Andy Storch says, don’t compare your life to someone else’s highlight reel. (You can listen to my interview with Andy on Ep. 106.)

5 Guiding Principles

I want to finish up by sharing 5 guiding principles that form the basis of this show. We’ll come back to these from time to time, but I want to consolidate them here. Who knows, they might change over time.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Citizen Kane—which happens to be one of my two favorite movies of all time (the other is It’s a Wonderful Life)—these are sort of like the “Declaration of Principles” that Charles Foster Kane wrote on the front page of his newspaper when he became the new owner. (Of course, he ended up becoming a total jerk who alienated everyone in his life … but be that as it may, the Declaration of Principles is still a great idea.)

1. Every business is a writing business.

We have covered this already, but I’ll say it again: If you have a product or service that you are selling, if you have a message to get out, you must use words to help do that. So by definition, you have a writing business.

2. You are a writer.

Jeff Goins wrote a fantastic little book a few years ago simply titled, You Are a Writer. And that is so true. You ARE a writer.

Many people don’t view themselves as a writer. I think a lot of this goes back to many people not doing well in English class in school. Well, forget all of that because you ARE a writer, and you can learn to do better, just as we all can.

So, a big part of your growth begins with simply acknowledging and affirming that you ARE indeed a writer.

And this is a pretty cool thing. You know why? Because writers change the world. Who writes songs? Who writes movies and TV shows? Who writes history books that determine how we view every past event? Who writes the speeches given by leaders and Presidents? Who writes the novels and stories we love to read?

That’s right … WRITERS create all of that. That’s why writers rule the world.

3. You can learn the systems, processes, and tools for business writing.

A lot of people are very intimidated by blogs, email marketing, social media, self-publishing, and so many other things. But you can learn it. Right now I’m working with a client who had zero experience with websites, email marketing, and so many other things. Now I’ve set her up with a website, Clickfunnels (marketing software), and ConvertKit (email marketing). And she is doing great getting used to those tools. So don’t be intimidated by the tools.

4. Habits are a major key to success.

We will talk a lot about habits on this podcast. As with most things, it’s the little daily steps in the right direction that produce big results over time. It’s great to have big lofty goals, but it’s the small habits that will get you there.

5. People are another major key to success.

That’s why we have guests on the show. My biggest growth comes when I hang around successful people and learn from them. It’s not just about getting around other writers—it’s also about learning from other successful business people.

I come from the church ministry and education worlds—those are two arenas that are often slow to change, and are often slower-paced. I knew that it was important for me to start spending more time with business people who moved at a faster pace and challenged me more. That is part of the reason I’m doing this podcast—to challenge myself and put me in a situation where I’ll grow more.

OK .. I know I’ve covered a lot of ground here, but I hope this is helpful and gives you a clear idea of what to expect on the show.

What are some principles that help guide YOUR writing?