“Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.”
–Dwight D. Eisenhower
Rate your digital organization system and editorial process 1-10.
INTRODUCTION
Everyone talks a big game about “systems and processes” for running a business. Most people imagine a magical checklist that will ensure everything gets taken care of. But that’s not how this works — a checklist doesn’t do anything for you unless YOU do the checklist. You need to “own” the routines associated with work so they become your system and your process.
Today, I want to show you how I own my systems and what has worked for me. I’m also going to share a lot of options and different ways of thinking about things because there’s no one way to do this for anyone, and not even for yourself over your career.
There are two parts to today:
- Organizing the digital side of your work
- Establishing an editorial process for your clients
ORGANIZING WITH TECH
I first heard the framework “capture, configure, control” from Cal Newport’s Deep Work Podcast. I’m going to adapt this to “capture, control, create” for the writing process. The system I’ll show you is a mix of analog and digital tools — paper calendars and Google Drive. It might be able to be summed up like this: information gets stored digitally, actions get documented on paper. Here’s a neat way to think about information that will help you feel more in control:
Cal Newport (Source)
(Cal Newport)
MY LONG-LASTING TOOLKIT
Paper Planner (iCal, Google Calendar, Reminders, etc.)
(Hobonitchi Techo, but any month view will do)
Capacity planner for managing workload (Google Sheets)
Project “Cheat Sheet” for high volume clients (Download PDF here)
Project Flow Tracker (Wall calendar, Alt: Notion, Asana, Trello, Monday.com, etc.)
ANTICIPATING THE PROJECT
Your basic marketing manager expectations
From a client perspective — so this may vary — most clients realize a need and want to act right away, within 2-3 weeks.
- “Normal” expectations (Knowing normal is made up)
- Schedule intro call within 3-4 business days
- Schedule follow up or kick off within 1 week
- Blog deadlines 1-2 weeks
- White paper deadlines 6-8 weeks
- Larger projects 8-12 weeks
You want to have systems that give you openings to easily accommodate this kind of thing when you want to
- Examples:
- No Call Day Mondays
- New Client Call Day Tuesdays
- Client Calls Tues-Thurs 11-3PM
- Leave Fridays open in case something fun pops up
All of this affects how we do the two things we talk about in a previous training (B2BWI: Scheduling and Capacity Planning Basics)
- Scheduling: How work falls on a calendar, when deadlines will fall, and when you will do different parts of a project
- Capacity: How much work you can do in a given time period, how many clients you can serve best at once
How you use planning skills (project management, tools management) will fundamentally determine how much you can handle (capacity) in a given period of time (schedule). The simple rule: use what works for YOU. What makes YOU faster. It doesn’t matter how great the tool is!
Ex: I know Notion will change my life. I can’t for the life of me find a full afternoon to figure it out. It will wait.
Your tech will evolve. In business, processes and tools break at 50, 100, and 500 employees. In freelancing, that happens at 2, 5, 10, and 15 clients (or projects); or a workload at $1000/mo, $3000/mo, $5000/mo, and $10,000+/month. So go into this choosing some tools, trying some tools, and knowing that as long as you capture, control, and create, you will be OK
Starter technology stack (“Tech Stack”):
- Calendly – Create a bookable schedule around your needs (SavvyCal, Google “digital scheduler,” etc.)
- Zoom – Record calls (even if you don’t do video) (Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc.)
- Descript – Transcribe calls (Rev.com, etc.)
SIMPLE TECH FRAMEWORK
Because this could easily spiral out of control, I’m going to use Cal Newport’s framework for deep thinking and deep work, slightly modified. His is “Capture, configure, control…” Today we’re modifying that so you can Capture, Control, Create your writing work.
| CAPTURE | Where do you capture and store the information you need so you can access it quickly? |
| CONTROL | How do you make sure you work on the right thing at the right time? |
| CREATE | What do you use to create the final product for your clients? |
CAPTURE (Where do you store the information you need?)
- Calls (Notes app, OneNote, Google Doc, Zoom transcript, .MP4)
- Prospecting call
- Kick off call
- Client Interviews
- Projects (Google Drive folders, Microsoft 365, Notion, etc.)
- Monthly blog articles
- Quarterly white paper
- Ad hoc content projects
- Final clip or finished product (Google Drive, Website (WordPress), LinkedIn, Clippings, etc.)
- Finished projects
- White paper PDFs
- Feedback and testimonial loop
Ultimately, it looks like this:
Over the past 10 years, I can now very quickly identify the work from a project that was finished in 2016 because of the way everything nested into itself. I end up being the digital records keeper for my clients. When they have turnover, I have better records than they do. When agency clients come back, I can reference previous drafts and refer to different versions/interviews, etc.
CONTROL (How do you make sure you work on the right thing at the right time?)
“Write a blog post” → Kick off call, interview, outline, first draft, edits, etc.
You can’t control or plan for anything if you don’t have a grasp on where the details are captured. This is the scheduling part that becomes a significant part of managing multiple clients and projects, which in turn is how you manage a higher workload and income
For me, this looks like layering in analog and digital tracking methods, with a tolerable amount of redundancy:
| Days | Weeks | Months |
Capacity Planner+Calendly | Month planner+Avoid Friday and Monday deadlines | Cheat Sheet+Wall tracker |
How I spend my days
- Ed Gandia’s Capacity Planner (Google Sheets)
- Calendly to limit when people can book calls
How I spend my weeks
- Hobonitchi Techo hard deadline in month view, daily planning in week view
- Avoid deadlines on Monday or Friday because I’ve learned I’m bad at that
How I spend my months
- Wall chart and Cheat Sheet to see overall progress and where I am at any given time
- Also shows me if I have capacity to take on something new, or how much it will hurt
It looks like a lot… but this is how I stay sane through $20,000-30,000 months with 15+ projects going on at the same time. (I don’t do that every month, but these systems allow me to manage it when it does happen)
CREATE (What do you use to create the final product for your clients?)
Developing drafts in Google Docs, deliver with Google Link. Some folks might prefer: Microsoft Word, Notion, Scrivener. I feel confident saying B2B marketing clients prefer Google Docs or Microsoft Word — those two pieces of tech are simply the mainstream option.
The only way to get better at your CREATE space is to use it!
- Get in Google Doc or Microsoft Word.
- Start trying to make things or change things, send things to your family or friends.
REAL LIFE EXAMPLES
Zero to Paid (Course)
Scheduling and capacity “year in the life” in my experience…
| $35,000USD/year ($3,000/month) $30/hour, $50-$125 per blog post20-30 assignments per month, 4-5 deadlines per weekAbout one deadline per day, low cost | $89,000USD/year ($7,500/month) $75/hour, $150-$325 per blog post20-30 assignments per month, 4-5 deadlines per weekAbout one deadline per day, medium to high cost | $169,000USD/year ($14,000/month) $125/hour, $500-$1200 per blog post15-20 assignments per month, 2-3 deadlines per weekAbout .5 deadlines per day, medium to high cost (mostly high) |
This is how you map out the schedule:
| Days | Weeks | Months |
| All deadlines marked on monthly calendarTry to schedule SME interviews a week before deadlineEvery Sunday, check the week view to see what’s due | At least weekly, check the week view to map out when I’ll do what I need to doLook at the wall tracker to see if I have correctly prioritize the first drafts that are due | Look at Cheat Sheet to make sure I’ve followed up on any projects that aren’t moving forward on their own |
CONCLUSION
The most insightful, excellent productivity tip written in gold ink and delivered to you by the most attractive movie star in the world…
Will mean nothing to your work life if you don’t “make it your own”
What matters now is how you take action on this! Where will you organize the great templates, files, and docs you have from other courses and trainings? How will you make sure inputs have an impact on your outputs? How will you shape your world, instead of letting your world be fragmented?
And of course — adjust as you test it out and go! Your brain may hate the way my brain organizes things. The solution is to try something different, not to try harder.
EDITORIAL PROCESSES
Here’s a fun story for you
A publication I worked for for a long time was acquired and bunch of new project managers came on board. Almost immediately, within a week, I noticed my inbox was * blowing up.* It seemed like every project manager I worked with was suddenly emailing me all the time, day and night. And the email chains for each project spiked to double digits (I checked). What used to be 7-8 emails per project literally spiked to 16, 25, 30. It was extremely noticeable.
I wanted to write back to everyone and say “Woah there, slow down. Lose my email,” but that’s not going to end well for me. Instead, I realized what was going on: these new people did not know, or were ignoring, the old process. Instead of writing back to answer the question each person posed me… I wrote back with a quick update about where we were in the process. Now they knew what to expect next. Now they stopped emailing me every day and night for an update.
In my mind, this summarizes the two reasons to have an editorial process, or at least become familiar with them so you can seamlessly slip into a client’s editorial process. Processes allow you to balance a larger workload with less stress, ultimately allowing you to make more money. Processes establish you as a professional and give clients a clear reason to trust you, ultimately allowing you to make more money
This session is a sister session to Scheduling and Capacity Planning, so don’t miss that one in the training catalog!
SIMPLE SEAMLESS EDITORIAL
Here’s a simple, seamless editorial process in four parts:
- Kick Off Call
- Outline
- SME Interview
- First Draft
There, isn’t that easy? Session over!
HAH! Implementing this knowledge is always where it gets wild. It’s explore the best practices and pitfalls of each part of the editorial process
But first, what I mean by processes and four parts is that I literally create my own assembly line, whether or not my client asks me to. At different points I’ve had this digitized, or written in my planner, or sketched on my wall with tape and sticky notes for projects. Then I walk the little piece of chocolate through the assembly line, I Love Lucy-style, until it’s finished.
Google Doc (Link)
Sometimes I’ve adjusted my process to suit a client’s needs. But many, many times I’ve pulled my clients into my process to help them get better work done on timeline. Don’t assume people have their stuff together. In many situations, you’re the one coming in to help them organize and make things happen because they’re overwhelmed, lost, or simply don’t think about writing the way you do.
KICK OFF CALL
There are two golden rules of kick off calls:
- 1) Never skip the kick off call
- 2) Anyone who will give feedback on the final draft must be on the kick off call
The purpose of the kick off call is to make sure you’re speaking the same language. As a writer, you can deliver anything — funny or somber, salesy or non-promotional, about high level executive stuff or deep-in-the-weeds technical stuff. The kick off call is where you find out what the client actually wants you to deliver.
There’s just one problem — sometimes the people representing the client want different things. So the purpose of the kick off call is actually to get the client on the same page, and then have them tell you what they want.
That leads us to the golden rules: whenever I skip a kick off call, assuming the client brief is “just fine” or “they already have an outline!…” those are tend to be the projects that spiral out of control. Those are the projects where the outline doesn’t hit the mark, and then the first draft doesn’t hit the mark, and then everyone’s slightly grumpy and thinks it’s your fault. When in reality, they gave vague instructions and then didn’t like your instincts about where to take it. You may have to make this mistake a few times before it sinks in (I still make this mistake — I’m living this mistake right now), but at least now I’m conscious of the risk I’m taking when I take it.
The same lesson goes for the second golden rule, where everyone who will weigh in on the final draft must be on the kick off call. If you don’t make sure this happens, usually by mentioning in a call or email, you end up with bird poop — executives fly in on the final draft, disagree with something essential and trigger a rewrite… and then you go round and round with an ever-changing premise. It’s really frustrating and makes you feel like a failure
Language for making sure all stakeholders are on the kick off call:
“Hi, I’m so excited about the call this week! Can I confirm that everyone who will approve the final draft of this piece will be present on the call? I find that’s an important step to make sure we don’t have any surprise edits later down the line and I can really hit it out of the park on the first try.”
Kick off call questions can revolve around the outline that YOU have to deliver:
- B2BWI Template (Google Doc)
OUTLINE
- The same two golden rules govern the outline phase
- 1) Never skip the outline
- 2) Anyone who will give feedback on the final draft must approve the outline
- The outline is your chance to digest what your client shares on the kick off call and put it into your own words, your own vision for the project
- This critical to make sure you’ve absorbed what they meant for you to absorb — or so that they can see whether or not what want looks good on the page
- I have created outlines verbatim based on what a client shared on the kick off call… and they rejected it and changed their mind when they saw it on the page
- This is as much for the client to think it through as it is for you to get a “yes or no” — sometimes you just have to see an idea laid out
- The outline is also where I get my Grade A “Thinking” done
- Break up the concept into smaller pieces, explore new angles, think about what’s missing, think about what the reader will do after reading this…
- The outline is where you focus your attention on the concept or idea and let all your creativity come to play
- Sometimes the outlining process gets so creative that instead of an outline, I’ll start with 2-3 “concept statements” for the piece
- That lets the client see potential angles or topics and a brief summary of what it will cover
- They can pick the one they want to see fleshed out into an outline
Example topic suggestions for a white paper — client chose #2!
The second golden rule is also critical for outlines. If you don’t have everyone approve the outline, something will pop up. Someone reviewing it will leave an annoying, vague comment like, “Shouldn’t we talk about X here?” or “This is a great start, but Y and Z are critical to include here”
…. And guess who has to incorporate X, Y, and Z into the existing copy without messing up the structure? You.
Language for making sure all stakeholders approve the outline:
“Hi, I’m so glad to hear the outline hits the mark! Can I confirm that everyone who will approve the final draft of this piece has had a chance to approve the outline? I find that’s an important step to make sure we don’t have any surprise edits later down the line and we can make sure we stay on our timeline.”
SME INTERVIEW
I’ve done many projects (white paper, infographic, blog, etc.) without SME interviews, or the Subject Matter Expert interviews, and many projects with them. It’s a great idea to offer to do them, and they will likely make the project easier to complete because you’ll have someone else’s words to use to describe what’s going on in the piece. It also helps you stand out to clients if you are comfortable interviewing executives or experts for 30 minutes at a time.
It’s worth noting that some companies and writers prefer to do subject matter interviews before they create an outline in order to identify potential topics or generally explore a topic further. This is a matter of preference, so do what feels right to you. But in general, I recommend creating the outline with the stakeholders first so that you can run very intentional interviews with your subject matter experts.
When you kick off an assignment, ask if your project lead has anyone in mind they’d like to interview for the piece. Sometimes these experts are internal to the company – researchers, executives, account managers – and sometimes these experts are external – industry experts, consultants, and more. If you’ve niched into a specific industry and have connections, you can also offer to source a subject matter expert as part of the value of working with you. (Super secret source of lead generation!)
Send the SME your questions in advance so they have the option to prepare, but make it clear advanced preparation is optional. If possible, share the outline of the project you’re working on so the SME has context for your questions. Try to limit your interview to 5-6 questions, which will lower your risk of asking anything you can easily Google. For the average B2B writing project, the maximum time you need to interview a SME is 30-60 minutes – any more and you are likely wasting both your time and theirs.
Developing SME questions is an art form. As you get more practice, it will become more natural to you, but here’s an acronym that can help you focus on the 5-6 most important things to ask:
- C O C O A
Context
Most B2B writing projects will provide background information about a product, trend, or innovation. Because SMEs are immersed in the industry, they often have a unique perspective of the context around that product, trend, or innovation. Your first question should provide an opportunity for the SME to tell the story and share the context of the topic – Why is it happening now? Why hasn’t it happened before? What is influencing it?
Offer
You’ll also want to ask a question about how the topic relates to the sponsoring company’s offer. Where does this product or service fit into the discussion? What makes it new, interesting, or helpful?
Customer
Along with the sponsoring company’s offer, you’ll want to ask a question about how this issue affects prospective customers. What problem causes customers to reach out? How are they solving this problem now, and why isn’t that sufficient?
Opposite
A great way to provide dimension to a SME interview is to ask questions that force the SME to explain what’s at stake for the reader or take a strong opinion stance, such as, “What happens if a company does not make the change that we’re talking about today?” or “Can a company ignore this topic and still be successful?”
Anything Else?
The SME is the expert on the topic, not you. So it may very well be that you didn’t include a question about something that is important to the topic you’re writing about. Always end a SME interview asking a question like, “Is there anything else you think is important to include about this topic?” to give the SME the chance to cover anything that’s been left out.
- Every kick off call will require unique questions to prep for it, but you can use the Subject Matter Expert questions from B2BWI templates as a starting place, then add questions based on what you need to know:
- Can you speak to the important context surrounding [TOPIC]? Why do you think this is such an important topic to discuss today?
- What happens if companies don’t address [TOPIC]? What’s at stake here?
- How are company’s currently trying to address this problem without [SOLUTION OR PRODUCT]? Why isn’t that working?
- What are some common objections a company could have for using [SOLUTION OR PRODUCT]? What do they tend to misunderstand about the tool?
- Could you share a few real or potential examples of companies that have taken a proactive approach to [TOPIC]? What does success look like?
- What else do you think is important for viewers to understand about [TOPIC]?
RELATED TRAINING
- SME Interviews (Circle Lesson)
FIRST DRAFT
The first draft is where you bring the outline to life, incorporate the SME interview content, and generally feel terrible about your abilities as a writer until you hear back from the client (Nope, it’s not just you!). That being said, putting your work through the assembly line gives you more confidence that you’ve done all you can — you’ve applied your rigorous process to this masterpiece, and the rest is up to them to see if it aligns with their expectations. After 10 years of a process like this, if I get bad feedback, I * almost * don’t take it personally. My first thought is…. “What went wrong with the process that led us to different conclusions about what a good first draft is?”
There are a few tips and techniques I want to share about having a great first draft process:
Let it bake overnight
- There’s simply no better editor than you, tomorrow, reading it with fresh eyes
- You will almost always see an opportunity for a significant change that improves the work
- This is because writing is not 3-D printed, it is iterative
- It has to develop over time to reach its full potential
Play with the schedule of delivery
- I want to invite you to think creatively about when you deliver your work, because you can start to play around with your client experience in a few ways
- First, if you want to impress clients and get a positive start on your relationship, finish the piece early and share it early, saying something like “I was able to prioritize this sooner, and I wanted to share it with you!”
- Alternatively, if a client is pushing boundaries and it’s more of a “Give a mouse a cookie” situation, if you finish the work early, schedule it to send on the proper day and time (I have done this before in answering client requests. I don’t want clients to get the sense I’ll respond within 10 minutes, so I’ll write my response, but schedule it to send later in the day)
- There’s a line where this could be manipulative — I don’t recommend crossing this line
- But when it comes to setting and reinforcing my time boundaries, I experiment with this kind of stuff all the time
Show your work
- I learned this from Ash Ambirge so I always need to give her credit, but, especially if it’s a picky client or the first project with a client, share a second, “narrative document” that shows the thought you put into different choices
- For example: why did you pick that type of introduction? Why this source over another? Is there any significant departure from the outline you should point out, whether adding something or removing something?
- The client may not care to read all the details, but they will be very confident you put thought into each choice
Show your work (Circle Lesson)
Example of Narrative feedback:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11p47U5nA-NAKhjx3QhxK8Z4Dp118uFDdqKajO2xjh0g/edit
REAL LIFE EXAMPLES
“The Fenwick Flow” from Chris Gillespie at Fenwick Media
B2B Content Studio Process Page
Animalz Editorial Process
CONCLUSION
If you start to feel overwhelmed by your workload, ask yourself “Where is this project on my assembly line?” You aren’t stuck in the jungle getting sucked into quicksand on this project… You’re the expert chocolatier putting the step-appropriate touches on a masterpiece before you send it down the line, and that’s the power of process.
Don’t hesitate to templatize or put something into a process. Processes free you from carrying the mental load of what you’re doing. Then you can apply all your creativity, effort, and focus to the actual creative product, knowing you’re in “SME Interview Mode” so you don’t have to think about the draft, etc.
This also means you can mentally “move a project into the next column” and not worry about it while you attend to other things in your day. You can trust that the system will take care of it, almost like apple pickers dumping apples in the river, knowing they’ll float down and be processed by the farmers before they rot.
Without a clear editorial process, your clients won’t know what comes next. They’ll feel unsure, and they’ll take that out on the work by emailing you more frequently or being more critical about the milestones when you do check in.