The Communicator

As we near the mid-point of the traditional summer vacation period, many professional communicators may feel that their projects have begun to stagnate. Strategies and initiatives that once seemed easily achievable now seem at risk, as swaths of colleagues, executives and suppliers come in and out between intermittent vacations and rounds of golf.   

But with only a month remaining before Labour Day (and with it, the steady gust of communications activity), maintaining momentum through the final stretch may make the difference between next year’s success, or its failure. For the professional communicator in the doldrums this week, here are a few tips to help jump start momentum on lagging projects: 

Define milestones: break the projects that are most at risk into a series of achievable one-week goals that take into account people’s vacation schedules, and set clear objectives  and deadlines for everyone involved. Smaller projects provide tighter control and more ability to course-correct if needed. 

Make executive decisions: a sure-fire way for a project to die is to languish on the desk of a decision maker while awaiting comments or approvals. While many business decisions are – and should remain – above the communicator’s ‘pay scale’, every effort should be made to identify the low-risk decisions and move ahead based on reasonable assumptions (*Risk Manager’s note: we are not – in any way – condoning the circumvention of approval processes). 

Reset expectations: in business, nobody likes surprises – especially ones that are sprung at the last minute.  Over the next week, make a sober evaluation of all of your ongoing projects, be realistic about what you can accomplish, and work with your stakeholders to adjust your priorities accordingly. 

Reduce complexity: while reviewing your projects, spend some time re-evaluating all of your expected outcomes and formalized processes to distinguish between those that would be ‘nice to do’, versus those that are ‘must dos’. 

Get help: for many other organizational departments, the summer is a period of relative calm and inactivity. Where possible, try to make use of peers with complimentary skill sets that can step in on a short term basis to support – or supplement – your team.   

Of course, there are also a number of highly-skilled freelance professional communicators (such as ourselves) with the skills, experience and motivation to counteract your project’s inertia and start moving it out of those dreaded summer doldrums. 

Looking for some help maintaining the momentum of your communications project(s)? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.Ca.

There have been a record number of home foreclosures over the past few years. In simple terms, the credit crunch combined with a reduced income has forced home owners to choose between paying the mortgage and putting food on the table. Not surprisingly, many families have opted to service their short-term needs, often to the detriment of their long-term stability.   

Many professional communicators are facing a similar problem at work. For years, they have been building equity with the public through steady investments in their corporate reputation. But as the economy tightened and budgets were decimated, many communicators diverted their funding away from their long-term commitments to shore up projects that would provide ‘quick-hits’ and generate instant revenue. 

Faced with certain foreclosure, many home owners choose to renegotiate the terms of their mortgage, allowing them to manage their short-term needs while maintaining the equity they have built up over years of steady payments. 

That’s a good idea. Here are a few areas where professional communicators can look to renegotiate, while still securing their corporate reputation investment: 

• Maintain sponsorships, especially your support of community or charitable organizations. It’s easy to be magnanimous in the good times, but your continued support during a tough economy will do more to build and protect your equity. Try working with your partners to renegotiate the terms of your sponsorships rather than abandoning them all together.
• Focus on low-cost, high interaction vehicles such as websites or social media. Take a hard look at your current cost-per-contact (how many people you reach vs. the cost of using a specific communications tool), and put a premium on vehicles that engage and interact with your customers. Besides, not everyone needs a high-gloss brochure or expensive chatchkes.  
• Look to Public Relations. Not to fuel the PR vs. Advertising debate, but spending lavishly on full-page ads can send the wrong message in a slow-recovering economy. Instead, try employing smart and targeted public and media relations to reach your audiences.
• Use freelancers and consultants to support your corporate reputation initiatives and to reduce the cost of maintaining an ongoing program. While corporate reputation may not require full-time oversight, it is important to maintain consistent objectives, principles and tone of voice. Try using freelancers and consultants to augment your in-house team without increasing your headcount or retaining expensive agencies.  

At the end of the day, just remember: much like your mortgage, stopping your investments in your corporate reputation could leave your company out in the cold.   

Looking for cost-effective ways to manage and enhance your corporate reputation? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Summer is just around the corner. But if you were expecting some much needed R&R… think again. 

For professional communicators, The Dog Days of Summer represent the best (and often only) opportunity to focus on the fundamentals. As executive teams start to shift their thoughts from goals to golf, many communicators take advantage of the relative ‘down time’ of the summer to prepare for the business year ahead. 

Not sure where to start? Here are five areas that should be a priority for any communications team this summer: 

• Clean up your website: All too often throughout the year, press releases, feature stories and news items are rushed onto organizational websites in an ad-hoc fashion to meet an immediate need or crisis – sometimes with little regard to strategy or process. The quiet summer months provide an ideal opportunity to bring some much-needed focus and discipline back to your website(s).
• Update your corporate collateral: With long review and approval cycles, multiple stakeholders and complex production schedules, updating your brochures, press kits and other corporate collateral can be a time consuming business. While the summer season won’t necessarily speed up the process, you will find that key stakeholders (Finance, HR, Operations, etc.) are much more open to participating in these types of projects when their plates are less full. 
• Media train your executives: The worst time to media train an executive is in the middle of a crisis. To be effective, proper media training starts in a relaxed environment, free from distractions and competing priorities. Many executives benefit from group training sessions, which are also much easier to coordinate over the summer.
• Prepare for issues: While most issues are – by nature – unexpected, there are several ways that communicators can use the summer to prepare for the unknown. Standby statements, draft Q&As and position backgrounders are great ways to get ahead of a crisis, and the summer provides the perfect timing to conduct table-top exercises to ‘stress-test’ your crisis manuals.  
• Build/maintain relationships: Never underestimate the intrinsic value of a strong working relationship. Take some time this summer to build on your valuable relationships with your colleagues, peers and suppliers, as well as any key opinion leaders in your industry (media, bloggers, industry gurus, etc.). Besides, it’s a great time of year for a few drinks on a patio!   

Above all, take advantage of the comparative calm to take a vacation, long-weekend or afternoon off, and remember that achieving work-life balance is (or should be) just as important as achieving your business objectives. 

Looking for help to get ahead of your communications strategies this summer? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Is your communications department environmentally friendly? It should be. 

Around the world, businesses, consumers and governments are keenly focused on reducing their environmental footprint. And communicators must be at the forefront of this movement: we must work with our companies to drive sustainable solutions; we must strive to effectively communicate our environmental credentials to our customers and regulators; and we must engage and motivate our employees to do their part. 

But most of all, we must set a good example. And while communicators have never been big emitters of greenhouse gasses or huge proponents of seal-clubbing, there are still a number of ways that they can start to reduce their environmental footprint and – at the same time – set the bar for their organizations. For instance: 

• Reduce paper – while pundits have been prophesying a ‘paperless office’ for more than a decade, this utopia still seems far away. Communicators (who are often the most rampant users of paper – particularly once all the corporate collateral is taken into account) will find that by creating a ‘print-to-order’ system for brochures, factsheets and annual reports, they can not only cut down paper use, but also reduce cost and effort. For a deeper discussion on the benefits of a print-to-order system, check out this article. 
• Promote web content – while ‘print-to-order’ will help manage the supply side, communicators must also work to reduce the demand for paper products. This means migrating their (internal and external) audiences away from paper and towards the web versions. In most cases, this may require some subtle ‘incentivising’. So, for example, instead of taking 10,000 brochures to a conference, communicators should be exploring opportunities to make the web copy more relevant to the conference attendees (maybe add a coupon, a free guide or relevant links to valuable content).
• Leverage technology – given the rapid adoption of smartphones and the proliferation of social networks, communicators should be looking for ways to migrate all of their existing paper-based communications tools to new and more dynamic platforms. At the same time, the growing popularity of video applications like Apple’s Facetime are driving adoption of video conferencing and should dramatically reduce business travel and all of the greenhouse gasses that goes with it.    
• Work with responsible suppliers – an organization’s environmental footprint doesn’t stop and start at your front door: your suppliers and partners also play a part. So when selecting a supplier or a service, environmental impact should be considered as one of the key indicators along with cost and value. Some suppliers may be quite innovative (for example, at Communications Unlimited, we plant a tree every year for each client we work with in an effort to ‘pay back’ what little paper we use). 

But most importantly, professional communicators must use their considerable skills and influence within their organizations to promote and catalyze sustainability programs. There are many ways to do this, from the subtle (i.e. working with executives to build a sustainability fact sheet ‘just in case the media call’) to the blatant (i.e. forming and chairing an employee sustainability committee to explore grassroots strategies). 

Few today could argue that the environment is not a key concern for businesses and consumers. Now we just need to make sure that communications is part of the solution instead of reinforcing the problem. 

Reducing our environmental footprints was the last of our Top 11 Communications Issues for 2011. We hope you have enjoyed and/or found value in our outlook on issues facing communications professionals this year.  

To work with a communications supplier that cares about the environment, contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.Ca.

This article first appeared in the March 2011 issue of CW Bulletin, IABC’s monthly e-newsletter. 

Let’s face it: Professional communicators are dealing with an unprecedented pace of change.

Technology is the most obvious provocateur. Over the past few decades, professional communicators have borne witness to astounding technological change—the rise of the Internet, the empowerment of consumers through social media, the adoption of mobile devices, the emergence of new media channels, and the increasing influence of social media. Each has had an impact on our view of communication and the way we approach our audiences.

The world around us has also changed. Today organizations are facing increasing public scrutiny, not just from shareholders and customers, but from the public at large. Transparency has become a buzzword as communicators, executives, and regulators all strive to walk the fine line between disclosing too much and saying too little. Let’s not forget the little economic rollercoaster ride we all just took, and the messy collateral damage that came in its wake: Restructuring, layoffs, foreclosures, sovereign debt crises, bankruptcies and the associated widespread misery they caused have changed the tone of public discourse and reset the values of consumers.

As professional communicators, we must be at the forefront of change. We are—like it or not—change agents, and we hold a solemn responsibility to guide our organizations through turbulent times. From crisis communication and issues management to employee engagement and media relations, it is largely our work that will decide how our organizations adapt and move forward.

While professional communicators are certainly no strangers to change, many have found the incessant pace difficult to maintain, and change itself even harder to predict.

So how will successful communicators adapt to this complex world of change? In short, by taking a more flexible approach, particularly in five key areas:

• Strategic flexibility: Recognizing that an ever-changing environment calls for highly adaptable strategies, savvy communicators are building their strategic plans to allow for more flexibility in their execution. Rather than a simple exercise in ”managing expectations,” strategic flexibility requires that communicators actively seek out better (i.e., more efficient, more cost-effective or better quality) approaches in order to continuously improve service delivery. For example, if a new social networking site emerges on the scene, communicators must have the flexibility to identify, assess and adapt their strategies in real time in order to take advantage of opportunities or mitigate organizational risk.
• Resource flexibility: Many communication leaders are starting to realign their team’s skill set to deliver a more flexible range of services to their organizations. In some cases, this means putting a greater emphasis on building new specialties in areas like social media. Increasingly, communication executives are responding to the changing environment by shifting the mix of skills that they retain in-house to build a team of strategic generalists with a focus on project management. This provides communication teams with a greater level of flexibility to quickly adapt to changes in the market and, since nobody is “hardwired” to a specific function, provides flexibility to manage the peaks and valleys that often occur.
• Vendor flexibility: One of the more noticeable outcomes of all the recent change has been a proliferation of outsourced specialists. In part, this is a result of new services being developed to support emerging technologies (take, for example, SEO services or podcast providers). But it has also been fuelled by corporate downsizing and—as suggested above—the recalibration of in-house communication teams. In response, many communication professionals are building relationships with a wider set of niche service providers, thereby gaining access to a broader choice of suppliers and creating greater flexibility in the way they allocate resources to projects.
• Work-life balance flexibility: Professional communicators have never really been great at following the traditional 9-to-5 lifestyle. But as mobile devices continue to gain greater acceptance in the workplace, and high-speed connectivity spreads across the globe, we can expect to see the line between work and home become more and more blurred. Communicators will need to find a more flexible work-life balance—not just to take care of important work tasks after hours or on weekends—but also to make the most of down time by taking days in lieu, extended lunches or running personal errands.
• Individual flexibility: To successfully manage this constantly changing environment, professional communicators will need to find a lot more individual flexibility. No, this doesn’t mean doing more yoga. We’re talking about the ability to adapt to—and quickly adopt—new technologies, processes, and methodologies where it makes sense, and drop outdated ones that may have outlived their usefulness. This will require communicators to keep both an open mind and a vigilant eye on the future to stay on top of market trends and understand the resulting impact on their strategies and service levels.  

Unfortunately, professional communicators should not expect a decrease in the pace of change any time soon. This is, as they say, the “new normal.” But for those communicators who approach the future with a degree of flexibility, change can also create opportunities for competitive advantage—not only for their organizations, but also for their personal careers. 

This article was part of a series about The Changing Role of the Communicator in the IABC monthly e-newsletter, CW Bulletin. For other great articles from this issue, click here. 

We return to our Top 11 Communications Issues for 2011 next week by looking at writing as a differentiator.  

Need help with your communications? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

For some professional communicators, the idea of doing more with less often means working with suppliers to try to get more for less. And in today’s precarious economy, there is certainly wisdom in putting pressure on your suppliers to get more bang for your buck. 

But be warned: lower cost doesn’t always equate to greater value. Sure, you could hire a communications neophyte and achieve a better ‘hourly billable’ rate, but – once all of the hand-holding, edits and revisions have been factored in – you may very well end up paying more (or worse, getting stuck with an unusable or substandard deliverable). 

As a result, many professional communicators are looking for new ways to work with suppliers to stretch their budgets while still achieving a high-quality and professional outcome. And so – having been on both the client side (where I’ve put pressure on my suppliers to do more for less) and on the supplier side (where I’ve worked with clients to find creative ways to deliver more value), I’d like to offer four tips for getting the most from your communications suppliers: 

Pricing pressures – there are many ways to drive down prices without defaulting to the lowest-cost alternative. For one, communicators should be revisiting their current pricing structures with their agencies to properly mirror the new economic realities (recessions tend to push down prices overall, meaning that some services may cost less now than they did a year ago). In other cases, they should consider working with independent freelancers who – without the overhead of administrative personnel or fancy offices – tend to charge rates that reflect their value rather than their title. For more on the agency vs. freelancer debate, check out this article. 

Payment structures – unfortunately, most traditional payment structures don’t include incentives for suppliers to deliver incremental value. When I was a client, I often structured contracts to set pay commensurate with value (for example paying 80% of budget if objectives weren’t fully reached, 100% if they were, and 120% if they were exceeded). Communicators will also find that by paying suppliers on an hourly basis (versus a project flat rate) they can better manage their suppliers’ time – thus allowing them to create project efficiencies, and achieve greater control over costs. 

Diversify the supplier network – while procurement folks love to ‘sole source’ service providers (i.e. put all their eggs into one supplier basket), most communicators will find that they can gain greater value by diversifying their supplier network. By maintaining a stable of suppliers, communicators should be able to source the ones with the best skills and price for each project. This not only means achieving lower prices, but should also deliver better results as projects go to those suppliers with the right skills, rather than the right affiliations. 

Build partnerships – there is a huge difference between supplier relationships and supplier partnerships. When clients and suppliers share common goals and objectives, value tends to increase while costs decrease. A small number of innovative suppliers (including us) are increasingly putting  their own skin into the game by offering clients guarantees that ensure projects are not only delivered on time and on budget, but also to a standard that meets or exceeds expectations (for a deeper look at structuring supplier partnerships, read this article). 

For their part, most suppliers should be willing to explore creative ways to meet their clients’ needs while reducing their costs. And those that aren’t? Well, I would suggest that an intractable position is an ominous sign. 

Getting the most from your suppliers is one of our Top 11 Communications Issues for 2011. Next on the list, we’ll look at ways to differentiate yourself through your content. 

Looking for a communications supplier who offers great value at great rates? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

As the economy slowly but steadily starts to regain momentum, we can expect to see heightened demand for communications services. 

For most, this year will see some new pressures start to emerge, particularly in three areas: corporate reputation will be critical as companies seek to ‘realign’ their public images; employee engagement will become a key priority as businesses start to rebuild their staff morale and loyalty; and finally, watch for product communications to take up more time in the near future, as product managers and marketing directors opt for lower-cost (yet equally effective) strategies that make an impact without ‘betting the farm’ on big-ticket items like advertising campaigns. 

Regardless of where the increased pressure comes from, most communications professionals will find that they are expected to meet this intensified demand without expanding their headcount. And while some budgets may start to bounce back towards the middle of the year, for now this leaves most communicators trying to do far more with far less. 

So how can professional communicators work better, smarter and more efficiently to achieve their goals? Here are four strategies that could help you become more efficient without breaking the budget: 

Push back on clients: For years, communicators have bemoaned their inability to say ‘no’. But the truth is, sadly, we can’t always do everything that is asked of us. And while some projects may certainly need to be ‘declined’ outright, communicators should also look for opportunities to delegate some tasks back to their clients, whether internal or external. Primary research, data analysis, approval processes and often even first drafts are all areas where clients – as the subject matter experts – may be able to shoulder some of the workload. 

Prioritize… differently: Most professionals – of any sort – are pretty good at prioritizing their time and projects to meet deadlines. But communicators may need to look at this paradigm slightly differently. Rather than focusing on the projects that have the closest deadline or require the most effort, try prioritizing projects in order of other key metrics such as level of corporate risk, highest value/ROI, or alignment to business objectives. This will allow communicators to identify projects that require a disproportionate effort (versus their rewards), and frees them up to focus on the areas that make a bigger impact on the business. 

Be comfortable with ‘sloppy success’: Let’s face it – not every project requires 110%. Some projects – hold on to your hats now – can even succeed without being perfect. And while I’m not condoning half-baked work or documents with spelling mistakes, I do believe that an inordinate amount of time is often placed on aspects of the project that – frankly – don’t really matter. The use of intricate and elaborate PowerPoint animations, for example, will probably not change the outcome of your budget request as much as a reputation for missing deadlines will.

Outsource your pain: Outsourcing isn’t just about getting someone to do your dirty work for you. Smart communicators are aware of their personal strengths and weaknesses, and build a network of suppliers and advisors who can – on an as-needed basis – augment their teams. So instead of wasting 10 hours staring at a blank page, many communicators prefer to hire a specialist writer with the experience to do it in two hours, enabling them to focus on areas where they can provide more value.   

Of course, one of the best ways to ensure that everyone on your team is working as productively as possible is to create formalized roles and clear areas of responsibility. But we’ll talk about that topic in more detail next week. 

Being more productive: 4 tips to help you do more with less is one of our Top 11 Communications Issues for 2011. Next week, we’ll look at steps to formalizing roles and defining responsibilities.

Looking to offload some of your writing projects? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

2010 was – by most accounts – a rather uneventful year. And while there were certainly a fair share of scandals (such as WikiLeaks and the BP debacle), the world pretty much got on with the task of rebuilding national, business and personal balance sheets. 

2011 will likely be much the same, as both companies and individuals take stock of their finances and reassess their strategies for the future. A slow and largely ‘jobless’ economic recovery will mean that everyone – especially professional communicators – will be expected to do a lot more with a lot less. And while companies will likely start to loosen their purse-strings (particularly for projects that demonstrate bottom-line benefits) towards the middle of the year, communicators will still need to focus on working more efficiently to meet their targets and objectives. 

So how will all this affect professional communicators? This week, we take a look at what (in our humble opinion) will be some of the top issues for our industry in 2011. And, with a nod to the mantra ‘do more with less’, this year we’re offering eleven topics rather than the usual ten. So, in no particular order, here are our Top 11 Communications Issues for 2011: 

1. Being more productive: While workloads will almost certainly increase for communicators, don’t expect to add any staff this year. Instead, most communicators will be looking for ways to work better, smarter and more efficiently to achieve their goals without killing their work-life balance. Click here for 4 tips to becoming more productive.  
2. Formalizing roles and defining responsibilities: This year, communicators will focus on the areas where they can add the most value, rather than trying to do everything at once. Look for a rise in the use of Service Level Agreements and formal role definitions.  Click here to see the 5 steps to formalizing roles and defining responsibilities.
3. Communicating with mobile audiences: It seems that almost everyone has a smart phone or e-reader these days. As consumers and audiences migrate more of their communications activities onto mobile devices, professional communicators will need to pick up new skills and strategies to make the most of these new channels. Find out what the top five challenges will be here.
4. Managing social media cynicism: The honeymoon is over. As the most popular social media sites (particularly Facebook and Twitter) slowly tip the scale from social to commercial, audiences will become more cynical, creating new challenges for communicators in this sphere. Find out what they are here.
5. Coaching executives: The past year did highlight one fact quite significantly – most executives need better crisis and communications training. Whether they ask for it or not, communicators will increasingly focus on coaching executives on how to stay cool under pressure and stick to key messages. Click here to find out how.
6. Cutting through complexity: Over the past few years – particularly as a result of the recent economic turmoil – businesses have grown increasingly complex. Communicators will have to become much more adept at breaking down complex concepts if they expect to have any real impact internally or externally. For a few quick and easy strategies, check out this article.  
7. Working with new audiences: Long gone are the simple days where communicators worried about a core group of audiences (media, customers, employees and executives). This year, plan to spend significantly more time on new and influential audiences such as environmental groups, transparency watchdogs and local influencers.
8. Getting the most from suppliers: Communicators will start to put increasing pressure on their suppliers in an effort to pass on the ‘do more with less’ approach to business. Look for pricing pressures, value guarantees and even some risk-sharing over the next year, as communicators search for the best supplier for their needs.  
9. Writing to differentiate: No matter how fast technology moves or what new devices are offered on the market, one thing always remains a constant: the written word. Indeed, with a proliferation of new communications channels, most communicators will find that their corporate writing style is about the only thing that really differentiates them from their competition.  
10. Updating websites: Now that some of the web2.0 technologies have come of age, many communications professionals will find themselves spending more time working with IT to update their website content and tailor their architecture to respond to new audiences and technologies. 
11. Reducing environmental footprints: As one of the most prolific users of paper in most offices (with the possible exceptions of Marketing and Legal), communications professionals will start to take a closer look at their environmental footprints, creating programs that both protect the environment and stand as an example to peers, customers and suppliers.  

How will communicators deal with these issues? Stay tuned over the next few months as we explore each of these issues in more depth. Each week, we’ll try to offer some insight, as well as actionable tips and tools to help communicators navigate through the challenges ahead. Coming up next week: Being more productive. 

Not confident in our predictions? See how we measured up to last year’s Top 10 for 2010 forecast. 

Need to create remarkable content this year? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Communicators tend to think of our profession as an ‘art’ rather than a science. Not only does it add a certain mystique at dinner parties, but it also provides an excellent excuse when our work doesn’t meet expectations.

But the truth is that communications is a business service, much like IT or finance. As a function, we don’t generate direct revenue and are not (usually) core to the business. To make matters worse, our impact is largely unquantifiable, leaving many business leaders wondering what exactly we do with their budgets each year.

In response, some professional communicators have started to create and formalize Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that clearly define where their function adds value and what services they provide, while at the same time setting expectations around timelines and metrics.

Two levels of SLAs are usually required for communications functions to be successful. First and foremost, an overall departmental SLA should be designed and formalized throughout the organization to outline the intended scope of the communications department. The second level requires template SLAs to be created for each service the department delivers (for example, one could expect SLAs for media relations, web content, speech writing, event planning, etc.).

So what elements are important for an effective communications SLA? Here are five key sections that every SLA should include:

Definition of service: Be specific about exactly what is included in the service and what isn’t. Business leaders often expect every project to get ‘the works’, so it is important to be clear about the scope of services. And while it may seem obvious, always make sure that your team has the capability (or budget) to successfully deliver on the promised level of service.

Timelines and milestones: Possibly one of the most critical components of any SLA, timelines both provide a roadmap that clients can use to measure progress, and also enable communicators to set a reasonable pace for their projects. Keep in mind that it is just as important to set expectations around the length of time required to produce professional results as it is to meet those expectations, so be smart about what you can achieve.

Roles and responsibilities: Many projects meet with bottlenecks because key players in the process were unaware of their responsibilities. Take time to define exactly what role each party will play and, where there may be doubt, what those responsibilities entail. Clients also have a part to play (particularly in review and approval functions), so be clear about what will be expected of them – and in what capacity.

Budget and resource allocation: Left undefined, this is one of those areas that has the potential to derail projects in mid-stream. More than a simple budget approval formality, this section identifies all of the possible costs and resource needs that may come up while specifying how those needs will be met… and from whose budget.

Metrics and measurement: As we’ve discussed in a recent article, metrics don’t always have to be based on ‘return on investment’ to be measurable. Use this area to define what ‘success’ is to a project and on what terms. When creating template SLAs, it may be preferential to outline how metrics will be created, rather than setting out specific goals and targets.

Implemented properly, most professional communicators and department leaders will find that SLAs provide much needed structure around the services that we provide, and take great strides towards clearly demonstrating the value that we deliver.

Need help reducing your workload? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

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As many readers will know, I’ve been on ‘both sides of the house’. For over a decade, I was an in-house communications professional for some of the world’s leading brands. Now – of course – I’m part of a freelance writing shop. So it would be fair to say that I have a bit of experience when it comes to working with outsourced writers. 

Nearly all professional communicators need the services of a contract writer from time to time: you’re often too busy with strategy to spend time staring at a blank page. For some communicators, writing is a real pain, for others it’s a mysterious art. 

Regardless of why you use a freelance writer, here are five easy steps to make sure that your freelance writers deliver great content, on time and on budget: 

1. Provide a plan: It may seem obvious, but it’s critically important to know what you are trying to achieve with the content. Are you motivating audiences, or stamping out an issue? What are your key messages and differentiators? If you are planning a piece of thought leadership, do you actually have a compelling ‘Point of View’? Writing a document without a plan is like sailing a ship without a rudder: you’ll keep going around in circles before you get anywhere.
2. Get the right writer: Different writers have different strengths. That’s a good thing; it allows clients to choose the best freelancer for the job based on the writer’s experience, industry insight and qualifications. When selecting a writer, it’s also smart to find someone that will fit with your corporate culture… executives can be picky and your CFO may not warm to a long-haired dude in tie-dye. 
3. Do a data dump: As writers, we generally like to get our minds around a topic so that we understand the nuances and subtleties that may be required to make sure the piece ‘hits home’. Don’t worry about being selective in the background you provide. For writers, it’s always better to have more information than less.
4. Facilitate, don’t gate-keep: Projects flow more efficiently when the client facilitates the writing process, rather than gate-keeping the executives. In fact, many communicators may find that they are able to raise their internal profiles by positioning themselves as the person with the right resources and strategy to get things done.
5. Give robust feedback: Ultimately, the final product is only going to be as good as the feedback that you and your team provide. As ‘freelancers’, we generally don’t sit in your office or get your internal communication. So if the tone isn’t quite right, or the word choice doesn’t fit, take the time to provide that feedback to your writer and – where possible – be specific.  

Professional communicators will find that these steps not only lead to a more efficient process, but can also reduce cost, especially when dealing with writers who bill ‘by the hour’ (like the professionals at Communications Unlimited), versus those that prefer a ‘flat’ project rate.

Looking for a great freelance writer? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca