I always know that if my clients can write, that they have a better chance of succeeding on a shoestring budget. Writing well is a tremendous asset to any business owner, but especially to a sole proprietor who is starting out with minimal resources.

What we were taught in English usually isn’t enough to produce good quality marketing or instructional materials. A few other skills are necessary to learn how to optimize writing for marketing and web audiences. But those skills are mere polish. When the core of good writing is there, teaching the finer points is fairly quick.

I’ve had many clients who deplored their poor writing skills, yet when they sent me information that they had written for their site, it was quite good. I needed only to lightly edit. We tend to be hard on ourselves where writing is concerned. We tend to think that if we get writer’s block each time we sit down to write, that we must be bad at it, even when the results aren’t bad at all!

I find that most of my clients overlook one key factor in writing success:

Practice

They often come into their business from an average life where they’d write emails now and again, or a letter to a friend, but where they’ve not practiced at writing on specific topics, to a specific audience. They assume that because it is hard at first, that it will always be hard.

I’ve always found it fairly easy to write, but not necessarily easy to write WELL. My ability to channel my thoughts into “writing mode” has improved steadily. I can now sit down to write, and my brain sort of shifts gears so that the quality of what was produced is 90% good on the first go ’round.  I can whip out an article just about as fast as I can type (and correct my typos!), edit it once, and publish. I still have the occasional error, and my writing is by no means perfect, but it is professional enough to accomplish the purpose.

Writer’s block has been less of a problem also, partly because I’ve developed strategies to overcome it. One of those is that I’ve learned to look at life as fodder for my writing. When I deal with a client situation that has applications beyond that particular client, I make a note to write about it. I often use spare moments of quiet time to brainstorm writing topics, or ways to present a topic that I’m stuck on. I have a good notes system (Notesbrowser is a free download at http://www.notesbrowser.com), so that I can make lists of potential future topics for blog posts, site articles, newsletter articles, and other purposes. I write down the title, then a few notes about key points that I want to include.  This gives me a powerful reference list when I come up dry when I need a topic for my blogs or for fresh content on a website.  I use the same system for client marketing articles.

Most business owners are better at writing than they feel they are. Practice can help them to hone a skill that will provide a measurable asset to their business. Just dive in and give it a shot, and keep trying, because it truly DOES get easier with practice.