Empower Good

Hiring a professional writer - what you need to know

Hiring a professional writer can help you get your message across. A professional writer can improve your credibility, extend your influence, craft your public image, help you get customers or donors or partners, navigate you through treacherous waters, help you resolve conflicts. People hire professionals to write books, brochures, speeches, ads, sales and fund raising letters, resumes, letters of every kind, fliers, mission statements, scripts and the list goes on.

You want a good professional writer, and you don't want a bad one. What's the difference? Let me suggest five things you need to consider:

First, does this writer get results? You want to hire a writer who gets results. For example, for 20 years I focused on writing resumes for clients. I wrote thousands of them. But I always knew that the real issue is not the resume itself. That piece of paper is worthless. The real issue is what the resume does for you. Is it getting you interviews? Is it getting you hired? Is it getting you grants or whatever you want it to get you? Over the years, I got call after call from clients telling me that they never would have been hired if it had not been for the Creative Advantage resume I wrote for them. Don't be fooled; ask what kind of results the writer is getting.

Second, will this writer work with you? Some writers have trouble with revisions. Avoid writers like that. These days I mainly focus on writing books for clients. I figure when someone is paying me $10,000 to write a book that's going to improve their credibility and extend their influence, they deserve to get it the way they want it. So I don't mind working through revisions with people. In fact, it's kinda fun!

Third, can you walk away? On a small project, like a resume, you're probably stuck. You shell out $100, $200 or whatever, and if you hire the wrong person, you learn a life lesson and move on. But on a large project, like a book, you need to know that you can walk away if it isn't panning out. I typically set people up on an installment program - usually $2,000 a month and write the book over a period of five months. I build into the agreement that either one of us can walk away. That way you have an escape clause. Nobody wants the nightmare of realizing part way through the project that you've hired the wrong person, but you're stuck for the entire fee.

Fourth, is your writer any good? For every professional writer, there are a hundred wannabes. As a national award winning writer who has worked with thousands of clients, I know that anybody can hang out a shingle and call themselves a writer. But that doesn't make it so. Even a PhD in English doesn't make you a professional writer. Professionals know how to get your point across. They know when to break the rules - not ethical rules - but grammar and syntax rules, and when not to. They write for results.

Fifth, does your message resonate with your writer? While, yes, a pro can write about anything, when your writer shares your passion, something magical happens. For example, I just finished writing an inspirational life story (book) about a woman from an abusive background who overcame her past and is now in Christian ministry. I loved working on it, and she loved working with me.

I wish you well on your writing project!

If I can be of any further help, email me!

Dwight Clough