strategy and resources

Step Away from the Keyboard

14 January 2016

I’ve been looking back over various lists of copywriting tips published online over the past several years. They provide lots of good advice. Write a great headline Gail Goodwin advised in Entrepreneur Focus on “you,” not “we” Susan Gunelius wrote in 2009, also for Entrepreneur Pick one message and one message only Kimberly McCall recommended…

Why You Should Do What You Love

08 January 2016

When I graduated from college, I cut my teeth working in an 8-5. I’d beaten thousands of other applicants for the position, a prestigious traineeship program with the USDOJ. I had a tough time acclimating. It wasn’t so much the hours, though I know many of my colleagues struggled with the early start. It was more…

The Gig Economy and Where Wordsmithie Fits

10 December 2015

Articles upon articles have been written about the “gig economy.” If you’re not au fait with the term, don’t worry- its been slow to catch on, but soon it’ll be ubiquitous. What is the gig economy? It used to be that only musicians and artists looked for gigs. The rest of us had full-time jobs that…

Why an Agency Is Better for Your Bottom Line

20 November 2015

We often get people coming to us asking whether they should retain an agency or stay in house with their projects. There are certainly benefits to keeping your resources in house; often we get questions about the value of the time and energy spent explaining business practices, projects, client relationships, and responsibilities to a new…

What are Your Business Coaching Goals?

12 November 2015

If you look at the Wordsmithie team part of our website, you will see that many Wordsmithies have outside interests besides writing and designing. Some of them are quite fascinating, and range from leading urban hikes through San Francisco to massage therapy to Emmy Award-winning TV work. I happen to be a business and life coach…

How to Write a Tighter First Draft

29 October 2015

Writing for a living may sound romantic to those who’ve chosen a different career path. Non-writers think we spend our days drinking coffee (true), banging out quirky prose (maybe), contemplating brilliant ideas (…), all while working in bunny slippers and waiting for magic writing fairies to flitter down and kiss the page (we wish!). But…

Maximize Your Down Time This Holiday Season

22 October 2015

It’s the same story each year: summer lingers, and then, bam!, those sultry, sunny days suddenly turn to fall. Most of us embrace the seasonal shift, moving full speed ahead, taking care of business, (over)scheduling our lives…then, we reach the holidays – the official span of the calendar that mysteriously fills up by early October with commitments galore.…

Messaging 101: Its All About Me

15 October 2015

Working a great deal of the time with startups and tech giants alike as we do at Wordsmithie, it’s exciting to be in on the ground floor of new ideas. Creating buzz around a new product or service and crafting the words and phrases that will connect it to people is one of the most…

How Much Info Should I Give My Agency? No Such Thing as TMI.

01 October 2015

Say that you’re launching a new product and need your agency to create sales and marketing materials. Or say that you’ve signed with a new agency and need to bring them up to speed on your company. How much information do you provide? At Wordsmithie, we generally say, “Send us whatever you have.” There’s no…

Warming Up to Your Copy Freeze Deadline

25 September 2015

If you’re old enough to remember writing on a heavy, anvil-shaped thing called a “typewriter” — well here’s to you, my fellow editorial veteran. Back in the ’80s, at my first newspaper job, we banged out stories on thin yellow typing paper, using Liquid Paper and correction tape to fix our mistakes. “Cut ‘n’ paste”…