It can be hard to keep your writing team motivated. Writing isn’t like other tasks. It doesn’t involve just moving boxes from one shelf to another and calling it a day.
Writing is often about taking chaos (which can be in the form of massive amounts of information or bosses who don’t know what they want) and making it work. It is easy to feel frustrated, which can lead to a lack of direction and motivation. How can you guide the boat to smoother, more fluid waters?
My experience shows that clients and marketing directors are the most frustrating things for writers. They don’t know what they want.
How can you fix this?
Client:
You probably don’t know what you want. What do you do?
Communicate with your writing team to communicate your ideas. Include the desired outcome, tone, and audience. Be sure to emphasize the most critical points and set clear deadlines. It may be helpful to give them an idea of the space in which the content will be published or posted. Are you looking for article style or bullet points? These may seem like too many things to consider, but how will the writer “guess” your thoughts? They can’t. They need as much information from you as possible, and even then, there will still be some guesswork. It is sometimes helpful to give them samples of pieces that are similar to your vision.
Writer:
It is possible to work with clients and employers who don’t know what they want but still want it to be done perfectly. Your job is to help clients or employers figure out their goals.
Ask as many questions as you can about a project, and try to get them to think more clearly. Unless you’re a good mind reader or a great psychiatrist, you can’t guess what they believe. And even then, how do you make that product reflect their ideas?
Encourage them to participate in the direction and creation of content. Give them options and rough guidelines to help them decide. This will ensure that you don’t waste time creating marketing materials or content they don’t like. You must be clear about the main points they are trying to cover and the most important goal.
Listen to their language, their presentation, and how they feel about their products. Take into consideration their business history. Use this information to help you get a sense of their preferences for the content, the type of language that will be most comfortable, and how they would like it to be presented. Ask …. as many questions as you can.
You can also write multiple versions of the paragraphs or introductory lines and have them choose which one is most appropriate. You can also have numerous writers from your team create samples and then let them choose. It’s hard, it’s time-consuming, but they often don’t know what they want, so it is essential to guide them.
You can also keep your team focused and motivated by these other things:
Divide large projects into manageable parts.
Encourage group thinking. Multiple brains can view a task more effectively than one.
Establish firm deadlines and intermediate deadlines.
Keep your word, don’t let the ball drop and run. Follow through with your agreements.
Create a strong writing team that understands each other’s talents and can trust one another to meet deadlines.
Flexibility is key. Some writers may need 6 hours to complete a task, while others might take 10 minutes.
Your writers are worth what you pay them. Writers who are underpaid will produce less. You should not pay low-quality writers more than they are worth.
You can let them know when you like something they do so that they can plan for the future.
Communicate, communicate, communicate…..
Your writers who are experts in the product or subject matter can help you to figure it out. Their hours of research should be used.
Ask your writers to research ideas and strategies before you assign them a task.
The team should work together in the way they prefer. For example, some writers might be good at marketing, while others may like technical writing. You shouldn’t give a marketing email blast or privacy policy to your tech writer. Diversify your team.
Remember that it is not easy to figure out what you want. Let your writers take a break from the keyboard and let them go on walks or to the gym. It would be better if they went for a walk as it would clear their mind.
Overanalyzing is a common trait among writers. It is essential to communicate your goals and the level at which you expect them to get into a project. If you don’t want them to dig in, let them know. Otherwise, they might spend too much time analyzing it and waste their time.
Pamela Stevens