Episode 36: B2B Writing

Speaker A: This is Growth Decoded to Go, a podcast from a show that helps you grow your business by figuring out the customer experience one piece at a time. We do this to share our findings

Speaker B: with you wherever you are.

Speaker A: Because this podcast is only the audio portion of the show, there might be some references to visuals, but don't fret because we've included links to the video version of the show in the podcast description. Alright, uh, let's get into it. Ahoy there, Internet. And welcome back to Growth Decoded. My favorite show about the customer experience, and maybe yours too. I'm your host, Ernie Santarelli, and this magnificent, pleasant foliage is the one, the only, plantasia. No, no plantasia. I do think that you're magnificent. Truly, I do. Look, writing is hard. Whether you ask a third grader writing a book report, or a college student writing a term paper, or Stephen King, or anyone in a business setting writing an ad, or a presentation or a strategy document, or even an email, it's hard. Red Smith famously said, you simply sit down to the typewriter, open your veins and bleed. Ernest Hemingway once said, easy writing makes hard reading. And Bryan Hutchinson once said, if writing is easy, you're doing it wrong. Well, that's not all that reassuring. But it doesn't have to be so dramatic. Writing is important and writing is hard, especially for businesses. But everyone does it. And that's where today's guest comes in. She's Sarah Griesenbach, and she's the founder of B2B Writing Institute, an organization that helps teach writers how to write B2B marketing content. Take a look.

Speaker B: I am now joined by Sarah Griesenbach. She is the founder of B2B Writing Institute, which is an organization that helps naturally talented writers teaches them how to write B2B marketing content. She's also the principal of B2B Content Studio, where since 2012, she's worked with companies across all industries, all sizes, creating content strategy and bringing it to life. Sarah, welcome to Growth Decoded.

Speaker C: Hello, Artie. It's so nice to be here.

Speaker B: It is great to have you. And before we get into the interview, I actually do want to call out one thing. You have a plant behind you.

Speaker C: It's her big day. Yes.

Speaker B: And what is the name of the plant?

Speaker C: This is Lafern.

Speaker B: Okay, so this is a first in Growth Decoded history where we have two named plants as co hosts on the show. So just wanted to make sure that's kind of a historical moment. Um, for me, I love it. I love it very much. Awesome. Okay, so I'm very Excited to talk to you about writing about B2B, writing about content marketing in general. But first and foremost, let's just kind of start with the basics here. Why is writing so important for businesses?

Speaker C: So your question actually stumped me because you had to write that question to me to get an answer right? So that kind of feels like the answer. Because to me, writing is the most essential thing that we can sell as a business. Um, if somebody's going to buy something, they go to your website and they read about your ideas and they either trust or don't trust you. Even if you're going to do something visual, like an infographic or a webinar, there's a script and there's a wireframe, and it just all starts with the words that you choose. So I think if you're going to have a profitable business, writing should be important to you because that's how you're conveying your ideas. There's no other way to sell.

Speaker B: I love that you had to write that question to me. Is the, like that it's exactly the answer, right? That's okay. Awesome. It's kind of the foundation from which everything else comes to life. Um, so for thinking about this, from business to business versus business to consumer, what makes B2B writing especially different and maybe even more difficult than other forms of writing?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think it does get a rep for being difficult and complex. But in my book it's more like it's mysterious because, um, I tend to talk about this as the top and the bottom of the iceberg because We've been seeing B2C marketing our whole lives since we could turn on a television. So B2B is really the bottom of that iceberg. And it's all that technology and consulting and services that helps those businesses run. So it's like we have this second degree familiarity with it. Um, when you first start writing with it, um, it's really an adjustment to figure out who you're talking to because you aren't talking to yourself or even the person you're trying to get hired from. If you're the writer, you're talking to that customer's customer. So there's these degrees that you have to figure out. And there's two frameworks that have kind of showed me the difference between B2B and B2C. And so for business to consumer, just B2C. I really lean on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And that's where you have that sweet pyramid where it talk about food, shelter, self esteem, physical, uh, needs like sex. And then Seth Godin's hierarchy of B2B needs really summarizes what B2B customers are looking for. And that's risk, profit, um, ROI. Things that are very business focused. I think that's where it can get confusing because we're saying, ah, only humans are reading this content. But the humans are motivated and thinking of very different things whenever they're reading. And that's why we're not going to see things like bikinis and B2B. Like it might be a fun flash. Well, that's a bad choice of words. But it might be a fun experiment to run. It might catch some attention, but it doesn't actually speak to those deeper needs. So it doesn't move the needle in that way.

Speaker B: M I really like what you said about like writing for your customer's customer. Um, which. That I've never thought about it that way, but that makes a ton of sense because I don't know. B2C, we always talk about like, who is your customer? What problems do you solve for them? But in B2B it's like, who is your customer and what problems do you solve for them? That solves. It's like a little, it's like a Russian doll, almost like one step removed. Yeah, um, I really like that. So what are some common mistakes that you see with, with B2B writing? Um, and I think you just talked about a few of the misconceptions. But like what, what is, what is common? What's a common pitfall that you see?

Speaker C: Yeah, there's kind of two categories that I'll see. So with writers there's an issue and then with marketers there could be some other issues. And so with writers it really is what you said is unlocking that Russian doll and understanding who the actual audience is. Because when you're trying to sell a, ah, writing project or even if you're working in house, we're often trying to meet our clients needs, which is the marketer. But in reality we should be talking to the marketer about their customer and their customer is talking about their customer. So figuring out how to think about those degrees and really represent that on the page can be really hard. And I think, um, one example of that, I was speaking with a customer who's in AI and machine learning and they create products that help businesses do things a lot faster. And the person was having trouble because somebody had turned in a project where the introduction talked about how the CEO should walk out on the floor and just time everybody for how long it Takes them to do manual tasks. And, uh, that's an example where nothing's technically wrong with that. There were no grammar issues in that introduction. But when you think about that scenario, it does not actually make sense for the audience. Like, no executive is going to get out of stopwatch and waste their whole day timing, like, 20 different people to see how long different tasks take them. So it's like that sense of, um, do I really understand what their day is like and what their problems are and what they're interested in? I think that can be a hurdle for writers.

Speaker B: So how do you. I mean, that reminds me of. I mean, Hemingway was famous for saying, like, write what you know. Um, and it's like, you know, it's pretty evident. And to your point, like, it's not a good intro because you can tell right away that the person who's writing the thing either knows what they're talking about or doesn't know what they're talking about. That authenticity, that knowledge really comes through. Um, so I guess, I mean, learn what you're. Or take the time to really learn what you're writing about before you write about it could be one answer to this question. But, like, how do you fix those mistakes? Like, how. How do you get ahead of those? What are the steps that you can take to kind of alleviate those issues?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, the good news is we don't all have to be CEOs to write to a CEO audience. Right? That would be really bad news for thought leadership in general if you had to have that expertise and then spend all your time writing about it. So that process for getting subject matter information from an expert, like a CEO or an executive, um, that's a process that you can learn. And you can learn to represent their knowledge on the page in a way that flows. And that's where that partnership is so important. Because the writer brings the storytelling, the grammar, the. Yes, that's interesting. No, that's not interesting. But the executive and the company bring the ideas, like, the real innovation about what's happening.

Speaker B: So thinking about our audience and the people who kind of watch this show, a lot of them might not. Be. A lot of them aren't writers. Right. They're not. Or at least not by education or not by practice, not by job title. There are all sorts of different things. They're. They're business owners. They might have started in a completely different area, and now they're kind of transitioning into a new area, yet they find themselves in charge of marketing efforts to some degree. So for non Writers who have to become writers. Do you have any rules of thumbs? Rules of thumb or thumbs? I suppose we've got two that. There we go. Uh, rules of thumb, best practices, quick, like little steps or strategies that you can give them to kind of take their writing to the next level.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: I think there's kind of two parts that I wanted to share. The first is just really thinking about, um, providing thought leadership and ideas instead of just like a product pitch, which I know is so hard I almost can't look people in the eyes if I'm going to say that to someone who's a founder or in charge of sales or something. But the what and the, the what doesn't super sell in content. People have a very fine tuned BS meter, so they're not going to read very far into something if they know they're being sold to. But if you can really get your ideas out there and show the why behind what you're doing, that's what's going to have somebody read to the end of the page and then actually look at the features and benefits on your website. So taming that instinct to talk about your product and how you're unique at every turn, um, is a really powerful way to start. So kind of scanning your content for that. And then I also wanted to say you're just asking someone who's the complete opposite of you to scan anything that you write personally. Um, I've been doing this lately because my husband and I are complete opposites. And so I'll write something for my audience and think it makes total sense. It's super clear. Isn't that clever? And he'll have no idea what the heck I was talking about. Just truly stopped reading. I can see he looks bored. He looks away and it's like, where did you lose interest? What did I not communicate? What, um, you know, what makes sense to me but doesn't make sense to you because you're not in my head and have them call that out. And I think that's something you could do really informally just with some coworkers like once a month or you can find some other entrepreneurs or founders to kind of exchange a copy review like that. That can be really helpful.

Speaker B: Yeah, Um, I completely. That that is such an important call out. I think, um, the like the curse of knowledge idea. Right. Like just because I know something, once you know something, you expect everyone else to kind of know that thing. And so that really manifests itself in writing. I found where it's just like, oh, I'm skipping From step one to step six, because it makes sense to me and I've done this, but it might not make sense to you. So I mean, I completely agree. The editing portion, um, is where the magic happens for sure. As far as, like, style goes. Right. So you're thinking about, you know, you hear a lot of like, write like a human. Write like you would talk to your friend. And I think a lot of that is, you know, the B2C for example, like you are talking directly to an individual. But with B2B it gets a little bit different, maybe a little convoluted in terms of like writing like a human. Right. Like you would talk to your friend. Is there some distinction or style difference between B2B and B2C? And like, what can you do to make your B2B writing a little bit more casual, if you will, or easily received?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think the difference is maybe the bar for informality is just a little bit higher. In B2B, where we do want people who feel comfortable and passionate and informed, but we don't want people who are going to seem flighty or sassy or dramatic. There's this tendency to go for the pain points and to exacerbate or, um, what's that word? PAS. Your problem agitate and then solution. B2C is often trying to agitate problems. Where in B2B, I think it's more about explaining problems and informing and showing a new way around problems instead of into that emotional space.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Okay, so we have this thing at activecampaign, um, on the blog team that we used to call the barstool test. So it was like, are you familiar, you know, if you wouldn't say this.

Speaker C: Yeah, briefly.

Speaker B: Yeah. If you wouldn't say this to your friend, you know, sitting um, on a barstool next to them at a bar or in a cafe or wherever, then you probably shouldn't write it that way. Write it in a way that you would say it like that. And hearing what you just said about the difference between B2B and B2C, I'm thinking about it like, okay, maybe that's B2C is like the barstool test. But like, B2B might be like at a, at a nicer sit down dinner kind of deal. Is that.

Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah. Because the problem is I wouldn't talk about B2B at a bar. Like I'll, I'll just pause and kind of stare at someone and say, you don't want to know. Like if I'm in a social situation. But If I'm at dinner, like, and I'm passionate about how B2B can help someone or how they could shift what they're doing in B2B to have their marketing be more effective, I'm going to get really into it and I'm going to start talking the way they talk. So I think that's a great analogy.

Speaker A: I like that.

Speaker B: Ah, there might be something there. Um, so with today's day and age, there are so many different channels that you can get your words and your messaging and everything out, right? There's like all the different social channels. There's email, there's your website. There's a tendency to want to be everywhere all the time that I found. Um, or at least there's like a FOMO that if you're not on this channel, you're missing out on all of these opportunities. So where does your messaging and your content have the biggest impact? Like, where. What are. What are, like, the table stakes or like, the sort of the givens, the unquestionables. Like, I need to be on these channels for business.

Speaker C: M. Yeah. And the way you said that made me think about it a new way, because it feels like we're supposed to be in all these different places. But what came up for me is that I feel like I already am in all those places and I'm just not doing it intentionally or I haven't, like, protected myself in those places. It has this extra layer of stress with it. Um, I'm borrowing from the greats, because I know a lot of different people have said this, but I think vanity metrics can be a real problem with that because we see the numbers from TikTok and we see the numbers from Twitter, and then we think how great that would be for our business and what the conversion would look like. Um, but in reality, if you didn't get a customer from those a hundred thousand TikToks, but you did get a customer from a really simple video that had 100 views, the one that's more effective for you is the smaller game, like the smaller fish and the bigger fish and the smaller pool. So I think making sure that you're actually looking at metrics that matter for you and not just looking at the numbers is the most important thing with figuring out where to go.

Speaker B: Okay, so, like, in that same vein, as a content marketing strategist, what are, like, big mistakes that you see people making when it comes to their content marketing strategy?

Speaker C: Yeah, something that comes up so much both in an agency context, where I'm Working with an agency on behalf of a brand and then with brands directly is this pattern of really trying to follow trends and like jump on the bandwagon with big trends, which that can be a helpful thing to start with, but I really think it needs to be a jumping off point for what's actually relevant for your customers and your brand and the example, because that might not be super clear yet, but when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, pretty much every kickoff call I have starts with how that's an important topic to address right now. But very few of the brands have a real relatable, vulnerable, important story that's going to move the needle around that topic. So it's kind of like you don't want to just jump on the headlines for the sake of having attention. You want to find ways that that topic, like diversity, equity, inclusion, interview some of your customers and look at what is actually happening in your company and be a little vulnerable about it to make that actually valuable.

Speaker B: Mhm. I like that a lot. And I think that that ties the idea, the concept ties uh, back to sort of what we were talking about with all the different channels where it's like, don't just do the thing to check the box and say you did the thing because it's like a trend now or you feel like you have to be here because everyone else is here or doing the same thing. Um, I think that that's like a huge, certainly something that a lot of people are talking about right now, but it's definitely a mistake that a lot of businesses make just because it's like you get kind of swept up in the wave and the commotion of it all. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker C: Um, it feels like you are making a bold choice and changing direction and really going to turn around and there's that hope that that um, kind of invisible payoff could come up whenever you switch gears like that. But in reality it's kind of like Seth Godin's the Dip. Like it's the consistency and really building something that's in alignment with what you're trying to help your customers with that's going to give you the results no matter what platform it is.

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Speaker B: Chuck em.

Speaker A: Um, complex sentences. Trash at least three to five sentences for a paragraph. Wrong. Adverbs. Respectfully, no. Or at least try to avoid them. Passive voice. This should be eliminated by you. Instead, use simple words. I'm talking about. Use instead of leverage or utilize. Helps instead of assists or remediates. Solves instead of alleviates or elucidate. Basically, if there's a smaller, simpler word, use it. Next, simple sentences. No complex clauses. No compound syntax. No subordinate clauses or syllogism or epizuxis. Look that one up. Write simple sentences. Write the way you would talk. Not in slang or with incorrect grammar, but say it out loud. Does it make sense? Is it clear? Good. Next, simple paragraphs. Maybe even one sentence.

Speaker B: Paragraphs.

Speaker A: Use the white space. Eliminate the big blocks of text. White space makes your writing more inviting. Long paragraphs look intimidating. Scary even. Looks like work. Finally, clarity over cleverness. You could be witty, you might be clever, but here's the thing. No joke. Witty, insight, quip or one liner is worth risking a misunderstanding. Clarity first. Clarity always. If you can find a way to make something clever and clear, by all means do it. But clarity should always take priority. Alright, back to the interview.

Speaker B: You said something before about like being vulnerable, um, which I think is. It's sort of. I don't know if it's like a direct correlation, but it feels like it's a very important piece to like. Are you actually invested in this channel or are you not? Because I think the difference between being vulnerable and just being somewhere is like you're actually in that, right? You're actually invested in that channel. You're, you're. It's a conversation. It's not just like I'm shouting matters.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, I like that.

Speaker C: I think a lot of the background water cooler discussion among copywriters and thought leadership writers is that it ends up feeling more like content therapy whenever we're working with a brand or a founder. Because there's just so much, there's so many layers of what's just for public consumption, what's actually happening inside. Um, and yet what's happening inside is what people want to see and what creates that connection. So it's really about creating an approach to content or in some way looking at your copy in a way that lets you be vulnerable in that way.

Speaker B: Mhm. I love that. How do you like build the case then? Maybe it's for someone on a bigger team who feels like they're being asked to put everything everywhere all the time. Or maybe it's someone who's kind of coming up with a content strategy for the first time. Like how do you build the case? To figure out like one, we need to either scale back into like one or two of these channels to really figure them out or like how do you choose those two channels? Like what does that look like?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think that kind of success always comes from setting boundaries. So instead of coming in and just saying this is the way we're changing it because all of you suck, that's not really going to get you anywhere. But if you can come into it and say here's why I think it would be best if we did blank and blank alternatively, here's what we've been doing and why I don't think it works. And then let people make decisions around that information. People are going to be much more open to trying something new.

Speaker B: I like that. I like that a lot. So that, I mean this kind of leads nicely into the thing I would like to talk to you next about, which is content distribution. Right. Obviously there is a tendency so many more channels equals so many more opportunities to distribute our content and get it in front of the people who need to see it. Um, how do you view like the idea of content distribution? Do you see businesses getting stuck, um, in certain places? Um, especially with like getting the content out. Are they, you know, what does that look like?

Speaker C: Yeah. I see this really interesting line between advertising and marketing and I won't pretend to be a professor who can speak to that line in a lot of depth. But um, it strikes me that inbound marketing really became a thing because it has this desire on the customer side to come to you and get what you have and they actually need what you have. So when inbound turns to outbound and you start pushing them to download the white paper, things kind of fall apart. I think that's the sense that I'm getting just in the ecosystem itself. So I've been trying out something that's uh, basically like permission based marketing where I don't actually post any links and I don't actually share what I want people to do, but I promote it in a way that has them asking me for the link and it's a very small scale experiment. And I won't pretend this works for B2C or anything, but I've seen Things that are basically ads for me. Get into the hundreds of likes and a bunch of shares and thousands of views when before the algorithm would have demoted that and no one would have seen it at all. So I think experimenting with content distribution to make sure that people actually want what it is that you're creating, even if that's going to create some awkwardness on the other side if you find out, you have to take gears.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And while you were saying that, it kind of got me thinking about this aversion to that style of writing or making posts or distributing your content. Why do you think that? Like that, I mean. Cause it's certainly, it's easier to just be like, uh, here's the title of the thing and here's a link to the thing and we can push this everywhere. Like, does that kind of come as a result of this desire to be everywhere all the time, do you think where it's like, if we have to be everywhere, I have to spend less time on any individual channel, so I'm going to take the easy way out. Is it sort of like a cycle?

Speaker C: I could see it being more about accountability and kind of ownership over the product, because if you, if you're working in a company and there's a social media marketer in charge of the copy for a blog, which is related to the white paper, which is related to some speech the CEO gave, um, each person on that list has a series of checkboxes that they have to check and they kind of pass off that ownership of the results up the chain. So I think it's just very different when it actually matters that you made a sale off of a LinkedIn post that you made and that could get into the nuance between the creator economy and an entrepreneur versus an investor and all these different layers. But I think who has ownership over what happens as a result of the social is a big part of it.

Speaker B: So how do you kind of get away or get out of that bottleneck or that pitfall?

Speaker C: Well, I work for myself, so that was my solution for other people. I think it still just comes down to results. We all need to speak the same language. So if you look at that hierarchy of B2B needs and you arrange how you want to approach social and content based on that need to avoid risk, avoid hassle, gain praise, gain power, make things fun or easier. And of course roi, if you can frame it all in through that lens, then you're going to get someone's attention.

Speaker B: Mhm. So coming back to that pyramid of needs Are there particular needs? I mean, how does that like, work in application? Are there particular needs that hit harder for certain businesses than others? Does that depend on the business of the product? Like what? Can you talk about that a little?

Speaker C: So that might be a little too in the weeds, but to me that's the process where the writer comes in. And when they're conducting subject matter expert interviews, they can ask the right questions to say to the customer, is this a problem about your workday being easier? Is this a problem about you staying in business and making sales? Like, what is happening that we need to talk about and address that would just snatch up somebody's attention like that when they start an article? So I think that's something that comes from the writing process.

Speaker A: Hmm.

Speaker B: It's interesting because it's almost like the job of the sales rep too in a discovery call. I know, it's all. No, it's just all.

Speaker C: It's like the first thing that confused me about, um, content marketing was just the fact that marketing and sales could be in such silos when to me just every piece of marketing content feels like a sales asset. And um, I can't quite break that in my mind. And that might be why, you know, it went so well for me, but I don't quite understand that separation.

Speaker B: I think I heard Dave Gerhardt once say that marketing is sales at scale. And that really stuck with me because it's like sales is more one to one, marketing is more one to many.

Speaker C: I reveal that as a tattoo

Speaker B: that would one of the great moments of growth. Decoded history right there. Um, but that simplicity of saying it like that is like one to one versus one to many reality. Like the messaging should get at the same thing. You know, you might have to tailor it based on who you're talking to and the business and all that stuff. But just that idea that it is really, it doesn't have to be oil and water.

Speaker C: Mhm. And just the idea that your marketing is epic and that's what sways someone to buy from you. When like the way you said that, it's one to one. Like every experience someone has with your marketing, it's just them. Like it's just them with your marketing, like that's as one to one as it gets. And so making your content more relatable, making it actually tuned into what's on their mind, uh, it can't help but be more effective.

Speaker B: Right. And I mean as we've kind of gone through this show, we've. There are these two trends that you Know, we try to, not try to because they kind of just reveal themselves, but they reveal themselves in every single episode and every conversation we have, which is the golden rules, I've called them, of the customer experience, which is one, know your customer and two, manage your customer's expectations. Um, and I think that, you know, based on the, the pyramid of B2B needs that you've talked about and kind of what we're talking about now, it's just like if you don't do those things, you could be the best writer or have the best product and it's like it's never going to get anywhere.

Speaker C: It could be award winning copy and still not sell. Like, who's judging it? Um, yeah, and I would modify, just to be a little sassy, I would modify the first one to say, know why your customers buy? Because just knowing your customer, um, I've discovered a lot by doing a simple survey after someone buys to ask them why they bought. And I wouldn't say I'm shocked, but I do see surprises there and it informs how I advertise to other people.

Speaker B: M that's the second modification that we've had in these recent episodes. The first was kind of a preclusion to the two golden rules, which was know yourself. Because without knowing who you are and what you do and what you stand for there. Yes, there we go. Marcus Aurelius. Unspoken law of the customer experience right there. Know yourself. Or maybe it was Seneca, Whoever it was one of them. Um, okay, getting away from Greek philosophy for a second. Do you have any rules of thumb for writing anything? Like are there questions that you should. Is there like a fundamental writing checklist, rule of thumb, best practices that you go over before you, you know, hit send or press publish on. On anything.

Speaker C: I do, it's mainly, you know, having someone else review the content. So we kind of. I use that part for this section. So that might be an edit.

Speaker B: Uh, no, I think that that, that makes a ton of sense, I guess. Like what, what do you do? Are there ever any situations where you don't have someone, Another pair of eyes?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think definitely letting it sleep overnight. So giving some space between you and the actual copy. Uh, because again, when you're writing in that frenzy, literally anything you put down will make sense to you because it's almost like you're possessed by what you're sharing. So having that space to rethink it and put it out there and um, then bringing somebody else into it. I'm just thinking of this group of founders that I'm working with where they're literally marketing geniuses, but the copy that they write and the content that they write, they said themselves were just writing to each other. So it's just these interwoven sentences and phrases, and it's just so complex. Um, it kind of hurts to read. So when you bring somebody else into the copy, you're kind of. You're adding another wall to make sure that what you're writing is more structured and it's going to be more. Make more sense to everybody.

Speaker B: It is kind of an interesting, like, paradox. It's like to make your writing better, let someone make changes to it. Yeah, it's just kind of this interesting conundrum that is writing. But I guess. Right.

Speaker C: Which is language, which is understanding.

Speaker B: Right. It's one of the only. I mean, you can only really get better at it if you do it with other people, because you have to pay attention to what they understand and what they don't understand and what resonates with them and what doesn't. Um, and that goes for cultivating the language, but also delivering the message. So it's very interesting.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that goes for. I just think reading comprehension is going to be a really big next thing in marketing because we think we're communicating something that our customers are not picking up on because we are one of 5,000 emails they might receive in a given week. So understanding how simple to keep it and how direct that we need to be to actually see results, I think that's going to be a thing.

Speaker B: I like that. And I think that that's a great place to kind of end this conversation right here. Sarah, thank you so much for your time. I have really enjoyed nerding out about writing and reading and language with you. Um, thank you. Thank you for being on the show.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's my pleasure.

Speaker A: There you have it. Don't just know your customers, but know why your customers buy. Then weave those reasons and tell that story in your marketing copy and tell that story with simple language in short sentences, using the words that you'd use

Speaker B: to talk with a friend.

Speaker A: Finally, and perhaps most importantly for elevating the quality of your business writing, get another pair of eyes on it. Having someone else edit your writing helps you in a few ways. First, and most obvious, it helps to catch the errors, the mistakes, and the areas that are hard to understand. Second, it helps you see the trends or the weak spots in your own writing. The places where you make similar mistakes over and over again or where you repeat yourself multiple times where your language is weak or where your ask isn't apparent. Third, if you edit someone else's writing, you'll be much more likely to find find the mistakes in your own writing and you'll begin to see where you can improve your writing even further. Remember, writing is easy. All you gotta do is sit at the keyboard and bleed. That's our show. Thank you to Sarah Griesenbach for sitting down with us and thank you for your time today. I'm Ernie, this is Plantasia. This has been Growth Decoded. Go forth and Automate. Thanks for listening to Growth Decoded to go for the latest updates on Growth Decoded and links to the live show. You can sign up to be a part of the GROW team@activecampaign.com events.

Speaker B: Growth decoded.