Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 80. Wordsmith Your Way to Success: Writing Tips for Solo Entrepreneurs with Sarah Sypniewski
Transcript
- Sarah Sypniewski (00:00): Making your brand your own, making your voice your own. It's very important to be specific and authentic because otherwise, we're all just spinning out Grammarly lines of copy and it is boring, and it says nothing because it's trying to say everything. Intro (00:30): Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast, the show for solopreneurs, consultants and contractors who are ready to take charge of their business and reclaim their freedom. Join us as we bring you inspiring stories, invaluable insights and practical strategies from successful solopreneurs and industry experts empowering you to create its thriving business that aligns with your unique goals and allows you to live life on your own terms. Here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries. Carly Ries (00:49): Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries. Joe Rando (00:50): And I'm Joe Rando. Carly Ries (00:51): We often get questions in our community about writing, whether it's for proposals or for their content or business plan, etc. With all the research we do for solopreneurs across the web, writing continues to be something that comes up for one person business owners. So we figured we'd get a writer on here today to talk about it. Today we have Sarah Sypniewski. She is a writer, editor, and empire expander with 25 years of experience across various fields. I'm so excited for this next little tidbit I'm going to talk about, because everybody knows these books. Her clients include publishing giant, John Wiley and Sons, for whom she writes and edits books for the Fou Dummies series. We've all seen the For Dummies. She is part of that, not one of them, but part of the writers for them. (01:45): She also has worked for a hedge fund manager and even celebrity hairstylist. She specializes in working with fellow creative solopreneurs who might consider themselves the square pegs in the round holes. She helps them share their ideas so they touch hearts and change minds, engage their communities and expand their businesses in visionary and innovative ways. Now, just to put a dollar to everything we're talking about with authenticity and warmth at the forefront, she has secured her clients over $30 million in deals and opportunities. She believes everyone has a story and her mission is to help them tell it. So Sarah, welcome to the show. Sarah Sypniewski (02:23): Thanks very much. I'm happy to be here. Carly Ries (02:25): We are so excited, Sarah. Okay, I just need to start with the elephant in the room. It's what everybody's talking about. It's the thing that we're wondering. "Are writers even relevant anymore? Do we even need them?" Let's talk about ai. How has the role of the writer changed and how do writers even stay relevant, and why does hiring a real writer still matter? Sarah Sypniewski (02:50): Okay, so I speak for myself. I could throw in a little bit of industry trends and opinions, but for the most part, I truly believe that AI is a great tool for every industry, and it's here to stay, and we need to learn how to use it ethically, responsibly, and efficiently. The same goes for writing. I think what's freaking out a lot of people is, even though AI has been around, really technically since the 1950s with automation on the assembly lines and all that stuff, we've been working side by side for years with robots. But what has people, I think concerned now is the fact that AI is now into the creative fields such as acting, such as designing, and now writing. (03:37): The way I feel about it is writers are absolutely so relevant and actually more than ever, because if you have played around with any AI platforms, you might notice that they're great at generating ideas and some beginning copy, but a lot of it doesn't make sense or a lot of it sounds like a robot. Where we writers can come in is say, "Hey, AI is cool. I'm glad you used it to generate your ideas, but now let's make sure it maintains your specific tone, your specific personality, and also that it's grammatically correct." Joe Rando (04:15): I just find that from my experience of playing with ChatGPT, and I'll name it by name, it just reminds me of somebody that kind of knows how to write, but has a cocaine problem and just goes off the deep end all the time. Using phrases that are just trite and comparisons that shift in the paragraph, comparing it to going on an adventure, and then all of a sudden you're fishing and then you're talking about remodeling your house, and it just doesn't have that consistency. Somebody said that it was like hiring a mediocre person on Fiverr. So that was an interesting. And that was an AI expert that was talking about that, somebody that builds ai. Carly Ries (05:02): I always know if Delves is in a sentence, it's ai. I feel like delves is throughout all Chat GBT (05:26): Yeah, delves is everywhere. Delves and emojis. That's how you know it's ai. Sarah Sypniewski (05:32): So many emojis and unnecessary bowling and asterisks. They love asterisks. Carly Ries (05:36): Yeah. So there's the cocaine that you're talking about Joe. Sarah Sypniewski (05:43): It is insane. I think that's a perfect example because there's lots of hyperbole, lots of jumping from topic to topic and lots of imagery that doesn't always make sense. Carly Ries (05:51): I'm so glad you clarified this because technically haven't talked to a writer, I haven't talked to a career writer about AI yet. It's cool to hear your take on it and that you're just like, we need to join it, but here's why you still need me. On that note, I know I gave you a brief bio, but how did you become a ghost writer, copywriter, editor, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How did you fall into this role? Sarah Sypniewski (06:20): So I don't know. I've been interested in writing for a long time. When I was thinking about this and trying to pinpoint where it all started, you have to go way back to sixth grade. I didn't become a professional writer until I had gone through college. I went into the nonprofit world actually for 10 years after college, and then I finally took the leap and decided I wanted to try writing because it's something that I really loved. I didn't have a plan. I just had this voice inside of me, this drive inside of me that said, look, if you don't try writing before you die, you're going to regret it. So in 2010, I left my nine to five and I was like, okay, universe. I'm going to be a writer. I don't know how or why or what this is going to look like. And literally a week later, John Wiley and Sons emailed. At the time, my now wife and I, we had a pet photography business. She's a photographer, and we were doing pet photography and they contacted us. They wanted to do a Pet Photography For Dummies book, and they wanted us to throw our hat in the ring. So I said, "well, funny enough, I just left my job to be a writer. I would love to put forward a proposal." (07:42): We got the contract, and after we did the book, t"hey were so pleased with how we wrote it. Kim did the photography, I did the writing, and they said, Hey, Sarah, we would love to have you come on board as an editor, you get the tone, you work well with people. What do you think about that?" So I've been working with the Dummies people since then. And from there I've met all these wonderful subject matter experts from across different fields. When you work for Dummies, you come on as an editor. They have all these experts and maybe they don't have time to write, they can't grasp the skillset or they can't grasp the tone of the brand. So they put me with them and we go off and we make a book. From there, I've got into all these other fields. And then within the last two years, I really realized that who I am best suited for are entrepreneur and solopreneurs like me. I've had a dozen of other kinds of businesses, which are beyond the scope of this discussion, but I love working with people who are visionaries, who are creative, who are innovated, and who are trying to do everything themselves, and I'm here to help them through that process. Carly Ries (08:51): That's so great. I wanted to ask you that question and start with this, because one, a lot of solopreneurs are writers, and so I wanted to hear your story on how you made it a career, but also for solopreneurs listening, you might be able to help them. Now that we have that foundation, I kind of want to throw you those questions that I said I just pulled from our community, pulled from other solopreneur, so we can just get so much of this answered for people who own their own businesses. Just to kick things off, what common writing challenges do you find solopreneurs face and how can they overcome them? Sarah Sypniewski (09:31): Okay. I'm really trying hard to make my answers concise, but I'm finding it challenging. So please feel free to jump in and cut me off when you need to. I think honestly, the biggest obstacle that solopreneurs face in their writing is an emotional block. I think that people are great at writing. They have so much to say, but somewhere along the line, probably very early in their schooling, maybe in elementary school, somebody told them their writing was terrible. They didn't learn how to write properly, they didn't learn how to read. Somebody made fun of them for reading their writing out loud, and they carry that. And it's a bit of trauma, honestly. So my first order of business with solopreneurs who are having problems writing is to say, "look, you are brilliant. you have something to say and what you say matters. Nobody else in the whole wide world has your perspective or your story so we're going to tell it. It's worthy of telling and you are enough the way you are." So a lot of that we have to work through those sort of emotional, mental blocks first. Once I give them permission to just express themselves freely without worrying about how it sounds, because I think people, especially solopreneurs, they don't want to look stupid. They want to appear to be an expert in their field. They want people to hire them. And if they make one little mistake on their website or the materials, it's all over. Well, no, it's not that serious. Joe Rando (10:57): That reminds me of a guy that we work with, George B. Thomas. He helps the Solopreneur Problem Solvers event that we do every six weeks, but he talks about being an authentic human. And if you look at George, he'll show up in a Marvel t-shirt. He was at Inbound, the HubSpot conference a couple of weeks ago, hiding Marvel characters around the place and giving prizes to people that found them and took a picture with them and just having a good time. Now he's getting major companies to come and hire him, to help them with their HubSpot implementations, but having a good old time. So you're right on the money. You're dealing with people no matter what it is, and people really like knowing they're dealing with a human, not with a machine or a company. So good advice. Carly Ries (11:46): Yeah. So tying back into that, everybody has their own story. You were saying, being your authentic self that comes with being a storyteller as well. What role does storytelling play in copywriting and how do you help clients tell their stories better? Sarah Sypniewski (12:03): Okay, so as a marketing concept, copywriting is different from content. Copy is generally meant for sales. It's meant to make your customer, client perform an action, whether that's sign up for more information or buy your product or service right there on the spot, and people purchase and make that click only from a place of emotion. They don't do it cognitively. It kind of isn't counterintuitive. You think, we go out there and we research prices, we do cost analysis before we even invest in some type of product or service, but that's not where we make these purchasing decisions from people. Humans are touched in their heart, their pain points. We all know about pain points where there's a need that is unfulfilled, that is activated when we read the right type of copy. So when you are writing copy, storytelling is very important. You want to put your reader, aka your potential client or customer into that moment of pain, unfortunately, to show them that you can be the solution to their pain. (13:14): Even if you look at my website, it's a very small example, but I'm sure many of us have the same type of thing where you give them a scenario. You're writing in present tense and you're putting them as the main character of the story. It's a paragraph, two paragraphs, and it describes them in that very moment of pain and suffering and how you can get them out of it right away. So compelling copy does have to absolutely be 100% story and then at the end be a logistical solution that they can reach out and grab right away. Carly Ries (13:48): Is that the best way that people can effectively convey their brand's message through their writing, just storytelling, storytelling? Or do you have any other tips? Joe and I have actually been struggling with this a little bit recently. The people we're trying to attract are solopreneurs who have created their business because it compliments their lifestyle, not because they want to be millionaires by 12:00 PM in their pajamas type thing. And we realized that we haven't properly conveyed that in all of our messaging. What's the best way to do that? What's the best way to get that out there through writing? Not for us specifically, but in general. Sarah Sypniewski (14:24): I don't think all business writing is not copy. There's a lot of content, and in fact, your guest, Sarah Murray was talking about this recently about value added content and no strings attached content that you can offer freely to the community as a way to help them improve something in their life. I think that type of writing is absolutely needed. Social media writing is absolutely needed. Copy is one thing to drive sales, but it's not all about sales. As you said, making millions of dollars is not on the docket for some of us. And what's more important to us is forging these connections and relationships, and if you don't have that type of writing at some point in your branding, then you're not going to have that connection, that real connection Joe was just talking about Joe Rando (15:16): Funny quick story. I was just interviewed by Kevin Price, the Price of Business. I dialed into the interview line and he was finishing up a previous interview with Sarah Murray. (15:27): So check out that podcast. Carly Ries (15:29): Yeah. So something you've been noting is that there are different types of writing throughout your business. It's not all the same. One question that people get or that we get crafting a business pitch and a proposal, because as a solepreneur, that's on you. Is there anything that you would recommend specifically for pitches and proposals that may not be relevant for your marketing or brand? Sarah Sypniewski (15:58): Yeah, pitches and proposals are something totally different. You're looking to write for a very specific audience, which are investors. You have to be concise and clear, and you have to be really to the point. You do include a little bit of story, but it's not as flowery and emotional as it might be in the copy we've been talking about. In a business proposal, and this is actually something AI could be potentially good at, helping you generate an outline for a business proposal, but you generally want to have a very clear statement of problem and solution right at the top. The solution is obviously your product or service. You want to talk about the value, your specific product or service ads, and that will be in comparison to the rest of the market, similar products. How is yours different? (16:45): You want to talk about market research. You want to talk about your potential trajectory and what you're going to do with the investment money, should you get it? What can the investors expect for ROI? Then talk about your method, talk about your business actual operation, not just the product or service, but how you operate behind the scenes to tell them, "well, this is how we're going to succeed". Then at the end, of course, you plop in all of your financials. That's a part that I don't usually help people with, but you obviously want to include all your profit loss, revenue streams, all of that stuff. It's pretty straightforward, and you can get it done in five pages of text and a few addendums of numbers, but it's frightening to people. It's intimidating to people because a lot of us, we don't come from business schools. Joe Rando (17:38): The hard part there I think is that old saying, "sorry for writing such a long letter, but I didn't have time to write a shorter one". I remember years ago we were looking for venture capital for a startup I was in, and we produced a PowerPoint and I'm pretty sure it was 45 slides. Yeah. Didn't work. And I heard this rule from Guy Kawasaki, which was the 10, 20, 30 rule, 10 slides, 20 minutes, and 30 point font minimum. I don't know what rule we followed, but it's really what you're pointing out, just a few pages. Keep it to the point and don't go into the weeds. Carly Ries (18:30): For a company I used to work for, we'd respond to RFPs and I mean our presentation, the printing and everything we'd have to go into! I don't know if it's the same now, but it's just like "keep it short, keep it sweet". I'm so glad you said that. Sarah Sypniewski (18:43): It's true. You think of it as a cover letter for a resume, you might apply for a job somewhere in the nine to five world. People don't have time to read a whole thing. They're just looking for key points enough to get them interested, and then you can tell them the rest of the story when you meet with them. That's all. Carly Ries (18:58): Such a good point. I want to ask you some things for people that want to do the writing themselves for their business. Then I want to ask some things about hiring a writer and things people might need to know. So for solopreneurs that want to do the writing on their own, do you have any recommendations on how they can improve their writing skills? Sarah Sypniewski (19:19): Yes. Read, read, read other people's websites and materials and take screenshots. Keep a file on your computer of all the things that you are responding to, things that you notice that are very polished or have the tone that you like. And practice. If you feel like you want to develop your own writing skills and they're not quite there yet, find a colleague. Find somebody in this solopreneur community who you can be writing buddies with. Somebody who you trust and who maybe is a little bit better than you that you feel at writing, and they can give you notes. Write a paragraph of copy or content that you think you want to use, have them look at it, give you a little feedback and meet about it and try again. That's something you can do for free. There are all kinds of free webinars out there. (20:06): All you got to do is Google rewriting seminar for entrepreneurs, and you'll come up with a bunch of stuff. You can pay for stuff, of course, you can go to places like UB and e-course and all this stuff and actually take courses if you are super serious about it. But a lot of times you don't need a full course. You just need to keep exposing yourself to great writing and take out of your feed bad writing. You can cultivate what you're consuming, your emails, your social media streams. Only follow the people who sound good to you, who look good to you, who are getting the results you want to get. Surround yourself by the people who you want to step up to. That's what I do, Whenever I find somebody online. I'm like, oh, follow, follow, follow. Then I just watch and I read and see what works for them and reinvent it for myself later on down the line if I need to. Joe Rando (21:02): What do you think of Grammarly? Sarah Sypniewski (21:05): I like it. I don't use it personally. A lot of people use it, but I don't. A lot of writers do, and a lot of writers use Hemingway's, another great app. Joe Rando (21:19): I started using it yesterday, writing an article. I actually sent it to Carly to look at, and then I read it again and I'm like, this is so boring. It's got to do with trying to keep it, I think they want it at eighth grade reading level, but it does take away personality. Some expressions we use aren't necessarily perfect grammar, but they kind of make it ours. That's one of the things that confuses me now about writing. I have ways that I speak and I like to write with those patterns. And I get criticized, it appears by Grammarly and even by Microsoft Word that could be more concise or whatever, Sarah Sypniewski (22:02): Because they're boring robots and they don't have a soul. So it's absolutely true. That's to our earlier point too. We can use all of these AI things, all of these websites, and in the end, we will have to keep our voice. If you want to write against grammar rules, yes, I say yes. I write how I speak too for myself. Obviously for clients, I write how they speak, but that goes to our earlier point of making your brand your own, making your voice your own. It's very important to be specific and authentic, because otherwise we're all just spinning out grammarly lines of copy and it is boring and it says nothing because it's trying to say everything. Carly Ries (22:47): So quick question. What role does speaking to or writing for SEO play in all of this? Because we have the way we speak, but then we also, for online platforms, we need to factor that in as well. Sarah Sypniewski (22:59): It's true. Joe Rando (23:00): Like the search engine optimization. Sarah Sypniewski (23:01): Yeah. I have mixed feelings about SEO. I also think it's changing. Like AI, it's shifting. AI is shifting SEO value and behavior because now we're all using the same phrases, so it's going to have problems ranking our copy. So yes, we still have to pay attention to SEO and try to work in these specific phrases, but I think it's going to become less and less of a priority in the next year or two. Carly Ries (23:36): Interesting. I just thought I'd shed light on that since solopreneurs are also their marketers, so I thought I'd throw that in there. You were talking about courses and everything, but do you have any tools or resources that you find indispensable for work as an editor and writer that solopreneurs might be able to use? Sarah Sypniewski (23:55): Yeah they're not glamorous and they're not unique. I am very old school here. I keep it very simple. I use a lot of Googling because I do a lot of research of my own every time I'm assigned to a project. And it's always on a subject I don't have an expertise in. I do a lot of Googling. I was just writing a medical book, so I was on all kinds of sites, CDC, FDA, all the government health sites. It's so easy. You just open Google, you type in your question, and then you kind of go down the rabbit hole. I hate to bring it back to this, but ai, seriously, if you can get on chat GPT and type in a preliminary idea, and it just spits out a little bit of something so that you can get your juices flowing and you have a direction. That can be invaluable. (24:52): That's what I often do when I'm like, okay, well, how do I start this one page? Or how do I start this white paper? White paper about dogs? Then it just gets me going. We've already talked about Grammarly and Hemingway, and those are all good, but I really think it comes down to whatever you're comfortable with using. Anything that's collaborative. If you're a person who is looking for writing help and you're working with someone else, use Google Doc, use Slack, use whatever feels right for you to work within. I do caution people on trying to learn a new platform just to take on a writing project or something like that. It's just going to frustrate you. Use whatever you're comfortable with to start out, and then once you feel better about your writing and editing, then you can move to something different. But if you're comfortable in Word, keep it in Word and track changes or whatever. Comfortable in Google Docs? Keep it there, but use what works. Carly Ries (25:53): Or if you're Joe and I, I make edits in Google Docs, he makes them in Microsoft Word, and then we just go back and forth. Sarah Sypniewski (26:01): That reminds me of the client who only does emails, and then the vendor only does calls, so they go back and forth. One calls and the other one responds on email. It's really funny. Carly Ries (26:16): Yeah, it works so far. I am most comfortable in Google. He's most comfortable in Microsoft, so I just download my Google and send it to him in Word and vice versa. It works well. So let's say people are like, "oh, these are all great tips and everything, but I don't know if I have the time to do this and all that jazz". What advice do you have for solopreneurs who are hesitant to delegate the writing task to a professional? Sarah Sypniewski (26:46): First of all, tune in and make sure that you want to actually do it. If you're hesitant because you don't want to give up control or you're afraid of something, then it may not be the right time. But if you're just wanting to give it a go and you just don't know if it's a good use of money and resources, here's how you should do it. First of all, ask your network for referrals. Has anyone here been a writer, is a writer or knows a writer who has done a great thing? That's where you want to start. Once you start there, then you can get a little list going. Two or three, don't get overwhelmed. Don't look at a list of 20 writers. Two or three to start, and then read everything on their website, get a sense of their voice, get a sense of their qualifications and experience and see if they're jumping out at you. (27:39): Then schedule a discovery call. Most writers, like solopreneurs of all types, they offer free discovery calls. So jump on a 15 minute call, 20 minute call, get a sense of each other and see how you might be a fit. Be sure to ask about their fee and see if it fits in your budget, and then start small. If you want to go forward with a selected writer, give them one thing, not a whole website, one homepage or one paragraph. Give them your bio. That's always a nice little starter like, "Hey, I need to update my professional bio. Can you give it a go?" and then just see. Or a one page, "can you make a one page about my business?" That's another way to see how well they can take a lot of information, distill it down into the very basic components and make it into an engaging document. It will also give you insight into how they communicate, because they're going to have to ask you questions. So do they do that on email or do they call you? Do they text you? Is it a million questions or is it like five questions? Do you find that they understand what you're trying to do within a couple of tries, or does it take more like 10 tries? (28:55): These are really good ways to get insight into how they work. Once you have the final document, you kind of weigh out, well, how long did this take? But you do have to keep in mind that it's a first go and firsts are always going to take much longer than any work you do together in the future. So if you liked how they worked, if you respect them, if they respect you, if you have a good rapport, I would stick with them and give them another assignment that's slightly longer and maybe something different. Carly Ries (29:23): And just to prove your point, how beneficial writers can be if you bring them on, do you have an example of let's say your writing services and how they've directly contributed to the success of one of your clients? Sarah Sypniewski (29:34): For sure. One of the signature things I offer, which is just random. I didn't set out to do this, but specifically for real estate developers, I can put together their executive overview so that they can take it to their investors and pitch. Those are usually in the multimillions of dollars, and I've done probably 25 of them, so I can easily get them the 5 million seed capital that they need for their project. (30:08): If you want to move out of the real estate sector, one of my clients right now is on tour for his book that I edited for him, and it's going to go beyond the book. Everyone's loving this book and from this book, it is going to create a whole different brand that he didn't even realize was in him before this book. What I did was I helped him put together his sponsorship package for this tour, and from that sponsorship package, he was able to secure partnerships, corporate sponsorships that will be with him probably for the rest of his professional career as they develop this next stage of offerings together as a unit, which is very exciting for him. (30:49): That's going to be millions in cash, but more than that, invaluable reputation and invalue community building. How can you put a price on living, who you were supposed to be? He has found his purpose in life, and you can't put a price on that. That is the kind of stuff that keeps me going, and AI can't do that. Carly Ries (31:24): Well, this has been so great. I feel like I have learned so much throughout this. I have written in the past, I've been a ghostwriter in the past. I do marketing now, and it's just fun to talk to somebody else about it and get your take. You spend your career helping other people find success through your writing so we have to ask you, what is your favorite quote about success? Sarah Sypniewski (31:47): This took me some time because I love quotes. I don't really have an overall favorite one for my lifetime, but I did find one that spoke to me for the right now. This is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it's "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment". Carly Ries (32:08): I love that. I think selfishly we keep this question on our question list for guests because I just like to learn new quotes. I really like that one. So thank you. Joe Rando (32:19): Speaking of writing, Carly wrote a quote book of famous quotes about business and success and actionable items you can do based on the quote. Sarah Sypniewski (32:29): That's super cool Joe Rando (32:30): That's on our website and it's free, Carly Ries (32:33): We'll link it in the show notes. Joe Rando (32:36): Shameless plug. Carly Ries (32:37): Thank you, Joe. Well, Sarah, you sound like you know what you're doing and you know what you're talking about. If people want to learn more about you, hire you, all that jazz, where can they find you? Sarah Sypniewski (32:49): You can find me at theempireexpander.com. There are a lot of double E's in that. Don't be afraid of them. Spell it out like it sounds. You can also find me in the Solopreneur Community Facebook group. I just joined a week ago and I'm getting in the mix with everybody, so you can always hit me up there. I just love collaboration and I love community. I think there's so much we can all do together. There's an incredible synergy that can happen, so you can shoot me a dm. You can also email me sarahsypniewski@gmail.com. Anybody in this community is welcome. Let's make it happen together. Carly Ries (33:25): We didn't even have to do a shameless plug with the community. She just did it for us, so thank you for that. (33:30): This has been so fun. Please do not be a stranger. You're not, because in the community. I'm sure say a year from now, maybe even less, writing may have changed and the landscape may have changed, so we may have you back on again. Sarah Sypniewski (33:45): Yeah, it's going to be exciting, for sure. Carly Ries (33:48): Well, thank you so much for coming out today. (33:52): Listeners, we appreciate you tuning in. We'll catch you next week on the next episode of the One-Person Business Podcast. See you soon. Closing (34:03): You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. At LifeStarr, we're creating a one-person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com