Executives need to write

Here’s how to get them to start

Content is more important than ever.

In the modern business world, content is one of the primary vehicle buyers use to find answers to their questions and to solve their problems. Content is how buyers buy, reporters source their next story, and employees find jobs.

Executives set the vision and direction of an organization. No one is in a better position to create content that tells the story of your business.

Executives are the public face of an organization, and their content plays an enormous role in how an organization is perceived. Elon Musk is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. Elon Musk is a busy man with a lot on his plate, but he still does his own writing.

His Twitter account is a window into the culture of the companies he runs, its how he humanizes his businesses. By being present and involved in the content the public has access to, leaders have the opportunity to shape the way their companies are perceived. They can put a human face on their businesses and give voice to the mission, vision, value, and strategies they are pursuing.

Increasingly, buyers choose brands they relate to.

Businesses that mirror buyer’s beliefs create differentiation in ways that product features cannot. Executives have a chance to clearly state to buyers the values they hold and the beliefs of the business they lead.

A great example of this is IMPACT. Both internally and externally, they have created a culture of transparency that permeates everything they do. Their leaders don’t obscure sensitive company information, they share information, even things like monthly revenue, with all their employees. They don’t just talk about culture internally, they get on the blog and write about it for everyone to see. IMPACT’s leaders have led the way in creating their culture, and their public-facing content has played a big role.

Shaping corporate culture begins at the top and content is a great vehicle for showing the world what your company is all about.

The excuses I’ve heard

But writing is hard, right? You’d certainly think so with how tenaciously some of the executives I work with avoid it.

“I don’t have time.”

“I don’t know how to write.”

“I’m a talker, not a writer.”

“No one wants to hear what I have to say.”

“I haven’t written for an audience since my last term paper in college.”

I have heard every excuse in the book for why business leaders won’t write. What I’ve found is that no matter the excuse, they tend to boil down to one of two things.

1.They don’t really believe that writing is important. This encompasses all the variations of “I don’t have time.” By saying, “I don’t have time to write,” what they’re really saying is, “I don’t think writing is important enough to make time for.” If you accept that content is vital for modern business, then you accept that writing is a productive use of time. Believing in the importance of content makes writing a vital and necessary part of your business.

Content, after all, doesn’t come from thin air. And once you’ve accepted that writing needs to be done, then you’ll make time to do it.

2.The second set of excuses has to do with fear. This reason is rarely explicitly stated but may be couched in terms like, “No one wants to read what I write,” or, “I don’t like to write, I prefer to talk.”

Fear of writing may come from fear of rejection, criticism, or from a sincere lack of skill. Putting your thoughts out there is scary for most people. Opening up to criticism and commentary is a vulnerability many executives are reluctant to take on.

Where to begin

Writing is difficult for many people, even very successful ones. But writing is like any other skill, it just takes practice. The most often you write, the better your writing will be.

Over the years I’ve noticed that executives tend to be achievement and goal oriented people. Just telling an executive, “Go write something,” tends to elicit all those excuses I talked about earlier. So, rather than some nebulous idea that writing should be a priority, set goals. Give them something to work toward.

Like all good goals, writing goals should be concrete, achievable, and measurable. Telling someone who’s never written a blog post to sit down and write a novel is unachievable...just telling them to write a blog post can be tough. The goal is too big and broad. Tell that same person to write one blog post per month about a specific topic, and that’s a different story.

If writing for a public blog seems too public and exposed for a first-time writer, then start closer to home. Setting a goal of answering 2 questions on the company Slack or Wiki once a week for a month could be a good place to start. Set an achievable goal and then work from there.

Like any other meeting or project or task, writing should be something that gets its own time and space on your schedule. By articulating the goal and scheduling it into your day, you give yourself something to work toward and time to do the work.

What should executives be writing

One of the excuses that I’ve heard a lot is that leaders don’t know what to write. Even for experienced writers, knowing what to write can be a stumbling block.

What I tell my clients that are worried about this is to simply write about what they are doing on a day to day basis. Write what you know.

Gary Vaynerchuk would say, “Document, don’t create.” The point is to write what you know, what you’re experiencing.

Tell customer stories.

Report new ideas from the field.

Communicate the impact of your company on your partners.

Write about the problems you are solving as a leader.

Write what you are learning.

What new ideas are you introducing to your you company? To your customers?

Write your life as an executive. Authentic, real, from the front lines, your unique perspective.

I see executives that make million-dollar decisions or deal with thousands of employees or manage all of the issues of running a large business in a direct and decisive manner but ask them to actually put their thoughts down on paper, and they run for the hills.

Executives need to add writing to their critical skill set and understand the impact their words will have on their customers, employees, and the direction of the business.

There is no one else in the business than can communicate with the world what your organization is about and what it stands for better than senior executives.

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I’m about to publish a book, Inbound Organization, that shows leaders how to build their company’s future around Inbound principles and strengthen the structural foundations necessary to deal with the changes in buyer behavior. Pre-order your copy today by clicking here.