The Cornerstone of Successful Writing
You can work hard at writing, but that’s not where to start.
Successful at what?
This is the critical question, to be asked and answered first. What’s the goal for that writing you spend so much time at?
If you can’t answer that, you might get a little lost on your writing journey. A map is useless when you don’t know where you want to go.
In my day job, customer success is top of mind. Writing, content strategy, information architecture, they’re all geared toward making our customers successful, and we have ways to measure that (see Good Business Content is Gold and Quality Content + Customer Value = Gold). They succeed, we get paid. That’s what our writing is for.
The basic path to success for any goal-oriented non-fiction writing is the same: provide value.
Let’s rephrase that critical question: What value can I provide?
I want to …
If you’re publishing, chances are you’re writing with a goal in mind: To connect with people, to provide a service, to teach something, to help someone, to make a little money, to become famous, to be adored, to stir things up. Whatever it is, success is reaching that goal.
Imagine you’ve worked in human resources, been a career counselor, and now you’re on a new path as a career coach.
Start with a statement: I want to … help people navigate their work lives better.
Now add more statements:
Because … work is a giant part of most people’s lives, but they don’t always know how to approach finding and keeping a satisfying and rewarding career.
And writing about that will … reach more people with useful advice and possibly help generate new clients.
And there’s the value: people who want help with figuring out their career path will benefit from a seasoned professional’s advice.
This is how to find what value your writing offers.
But is anyone reading?
Congratulations, you’ve found the cornerstone to your writing: The Value.
Now, is anyone going to read what you write? If an audience is provided for you, like at my day job, you can skip this question.
If not, this is where reaching people really matters. Let’s use our career-coach example.
At some point in their lives, most people are in one of these positions:
- searching for a career
- feel stuck and want to advance the career they already have
- want to switch to a career they’d like better
Where are they going to look for advice? That’s where you meet them with your writing. It could be here on Medium, and Linkedin, and a thousand other online groups and forums where someone might seek career advice.
Or how about writing an article for a local newspaper or magazine? Getting interviewed on local radio show? Being a guest on a podcast? If you self-publish a book, that may be a way to get into one of these.
Once you’ve discovered the value you have to offer, then you can start working hard on the writing and doing the legwork to get yourself out there.
Even if you start small, whoever you provide value to will appreciate it when they start to do a little better. And maybe you’ll do better, too. A book deal, bigger speaking engagements, a significant social media presence. It sounds too incredible to be true, but exactly this has happened to professionals I’ve worked with.
