Why Outsourcing Messaging is the Wrong Paradigm for Chrysalis Companies

Some startups grow up to be unicorns, but before that, in the early phases, all of them are butterflies—fragile, beautiful business concepts. As Stephen Blank so eloquently puts it, “A startup is not a smaller version of a large company. A startup is a temporary [...]

Three Takes on Why It Pays to Wrestle With Your Messaging

What do Madonna, a leading expert on growing your business, and a Roman Catholic theologian all have in common? To use Madonna’s words, they all believe in the mantra “Express yourself.” Self-expression isn’t just about letting your “true colors” show in a gushy, Cyndi Lauperish [...]

My Eureka Moment About How (Not) to “Niche Down”

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of delivering a workshop for the Native Women’s Association of Canada. Our topic was writing web copy, so of course, our first order of business was to discuss the challenge of zeroing in on your target audience. Through [...]

Five Critical Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Writer

No two writing projects are alike, and the differences don’t always show up in the statement of work. Much of what determines a writing project’s success comes from the chemistry between writer and client. Differences in personality and working style make each project unique. You [...]

Five Writing Rules that Deserve to Be Broken

Being a parent teaches you a few things about psychology. One of them is this: telling a child NOT to do something is the surest way to get the behavior you don’t want. When my children were toddlers, I learned early on that saying “Don’t [...]

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Why I wrote “Business Writing for Innovators and Change-Makers”

Business Writing for Innovators and Change-Makers was born out of a frustration I’d been nursing for a while. One of my favorite activist-authors, Shane Claiborne, says that frustration is something we should actually be grateful for. He says: “If you have the gift of frustration [...]

Five Fail-Proof Ways to Generate Fresh Blog Ideas

Yikes! It’s Tuesday, and your blog is due Wednesday. You need an idea fast. Where can you find one? If you’ve been in this spot (I know I have!), here’s the first thing you need to know: you don’t find ideas, you GENERATE them. Here [...]

Three Powerful Ways to Simplify Complexity Without “Dumbing It Down”

We live in a world where sound bites rule the airwaves and tweeting contests among political candidates have replaced intelligent public debate. In business, the one-pager rules. Strategic plans are now compressed into placemats and funding requests into short pitch decks. At the same time, [...]

Why “New” is Seldom your Strongest Selling Point

One definition of innovator might be “someone who’s in love with the new.” When you see the world through innovator eyes, you see the potential to do things differently. While everyone around you thinks things are running along just fine, you see how they could [...]

Do you hate writing as much as I hate exercising?

A young engineer recently confessed to me, “I hate writing. I’d rather get my fingernails pulled out.” I get it because I feel the same way about exercising. But I’m five-foot-two with a chocolate habit and an underactive thyroid, so I don’t really have a [...]