PADDY O'CONNOR

Words that work

Phone +44 (0) 207 359 9272
Email paddy@paddyoc.com

Spend your money wisely

Help those who make a difference

It doesn't make commercial sense for everyone in a firm to spend half a day in a writing workshop.

Concentrate on the heavy hitters

If your ambition is to improve the writing skills of your entire firm, you will need deep pockets. But not as deep as you might think. The trick is to start by improving the writing of those that, in the words of one of my clients, 'move the dial'. At the risk of my ending up with a lean pension fund, 'Don't waste your money on juniors.

Bottom up never works

Too many firms start by trying to improve the writing skills of their marketing and business development staff and ignore the big hitters who have to bring in the work. If you try and drive the change you want by starting at the bottom, you will never succeed. You will give up, run out of money, or still be trying years from now.

Kick start the change with a few quick wins

Don't try and drag people towards a new way of expressing themselves in writing. It's better for people to see colleagues bring in work, to hear them praised by grateful readers, and to wonder why, than for you to demand that they attend a workshop. You will soon be inundated by emails asking to be included.

A problem I solve

Service brochures

‘We're organised into eight business areas, so we'd like a paragraph or two on each, plus the usual bit about the firm.’

You might like it but I can guarantee your clients won't. It will be the dullest read of the year.

Businesses seeking advice from consultants, lawyers and accountants don't want to wade through lengthy, dry descriptions of how great you are. Nor do they want to read how you're organised and what you do (and all written using the same professional services template phrases).

They want to get an idea of whether you're the right choice for them, how you're different from the rest and whether they'll be important to you.

To read a service brochure that works, contact me.