Do You Want an Edit or a Rewrite?

"I am looking for a web writer to help us rewrite our site. Please give me a call at your earliest."

-- Marketing Director, Touch Ahead Software

Whenever I’m asked to “edit” something, a red flag goes up. In this era of strained budgets, many companies avoid the extra effort and expense required to define their value proposition so that target audiences really “get it.” They think that if they just write more clearly, use shorter sentences, avoid passive voice and populate text with the right keywords, they’ll be successful.

All those writing techniques -- plus many others I could mention -- do make the message easier to read. But if the message itself is weak, lacks key content or is misdirected, then what?

Tech companies have a right to be concerned about a protracted positioning process, given the rapid pace of change. But, depending on who your writer is, that type of process is often unnecessary. The writer can do the required research, ask the appropriate questions and walk you through the logic of what they propose. Best of all, no one will need to interpret the positioning later when the time comes to apply it tactically. The website, white paper, brochure, or whatever, is already done. And it can get done within a very tight time frame.


Take this website I just wrote for Touch Ahead Software, a SaaS-based CRM solution for the alternative asset market (e.g., VC, private equity). The contract was signed December 1st and the first draft submitted December 15th -- with all iterations completed by Christmas, a week before the client’s deadline.

I’m pleased to say that the client knew what they needed from the start -- a rewrite rather than an edit. Furthermore, by selecting the right resource, they also included the positioning as an organic part of the writing process -- saving much time and expense.

Selling Business Model Innovation

"Randy has an extraordinary talent in making complicated and technical concepts and producing a compelling marketing strategy and marketing tools. His work has been spectacular."

--Michell Shames, Partner, Harrison Fiduciary Group

Presenting a new way of doing business is one of the trickiest problems marketing communicators ever face. You may think that selling a new faster better cheaper widget is hard. Now try selling CEOs on the idea that they should operate differently, adopt new workflows and methods, learn new practices, retrain staff, establish new lines of communication, create new organizational structures, enforce new policies, buy into new incentives . . . and so on.

At the same time, they should also abandon, at least partially, their existing assumptions about how their business or industry should work.

Furthermore, not all industries are equally willing to accept business model innovation. One of the most conservative -- and so one of the most difficult in which to sell business model change -- is pension plan fiduciary services. That was the challenge facing my client, Harrison Fiduciary Group. HFG’s two founders came from State Street Financial Advisors — its chief investment officer and corporate counsel. Rather than just advise pension plans, they would offload the fiduciary role outright -- and much of the risk and management burden that go with it.

Reducing business risk and management distraction is a concept everyone understands — across marketing communications domains. See how I applied that concept this time.