​How to find and hire a ghost writer—or do it yourself
 
Halloween it still over a week away, but since it’s October, what better time to address the topic of ghost writing? 
 
People always seem to be impressed when we tell them that we do a lot of ghost writing. Maybe there’s some connotation to the term, implying that it’s being done for, say, a celebrity or politician. That’s not the case, in our case. 
 
Still, we do tons of ghost writing. You could almost argue that, aside from blog articles like this one, it’s all we do. 
 
Put it this way: Whenever you write something that’s ostensibly written by someone else, you’re “ghosting.” 
 
But does that mean you’re putting your words into someone else’s mouth? 
 
Dispelling the myths
 
The answer to the above question is: “You’d better not be!” The whole idea of ghost writing is to help your “author” express their ideas, only better/faster/more efficiently than they could on their own. Every word should read as if it were written by them. This, incidentally, is why we tag ourselves as a “secret weapon” on our website. By reading this article, you know what we do. But most of the readers of the material we create don’t even know that we exist. And that’s the way it should be. 
 
Another myth about ghost writing is that it’s glamorous. We’ll admit that it’s fun, and intellectually stimulating, but “remaining anonymous in the shadows” isn’t exactly a red-carpet activity. It’s a job to be done. And done right, it’s all about helping your “author” to shine. 
 
In our case, “shine” means “drive in more business.” This isn’t some touchy-feely branding exercise. This is about helping time-constrained business leaders to get their thought-leading ideas, views, and sales pitches out to their intended audiences, for maximum impact and ROI. 
 
So, in case you hadn’t thought about it, our ghost writing encompasses virtually every kind of written communication medium. It could be a thought-leadership article. It could be a book. It could be a sales presentation or video script. It could be—and often is—an email, addressed to, perhaps a C-level prospect. 
 
Think about it: Do you honestly believe that our clients—these incredibly smart and busy people—want to spend the time organizing their arguments, let alone word-smithing the copy? They’ve got far bigger fish to fry. Hence the need for ghost writers. 
 
Finding the voice
 
Here’s a neat story. We have a client—let’s call her Sue (not her real name)—who, like most of our clients, is downright brilliant. She’s also shy and soft-spoken. Yet we needed to create a piece for her, in her voice, that would sell. There was a mismatch of tone. 
 
But after speaking with her at length, and asking her about a certain topic she’s passionate about, that passion started to come through. Indeed, when we probed about specifics, she got even more heated and enthusiastic. 
 
And we realized: That’s the voice we need. It’s “Sue, Pissed Off.” 
 
So, interviewing her, we got all the facts we needed for this piece. And that’s a job unto itself. It’s important to respect her time and let her go down any rabbit-holes she likes, so long as they’re at least tangentially relevant, and take great notes. 
 
It’s not her job, incidentally, to organize these thoughts, or think about the end product’s structure. She just needs to “spout.”
 
Our job—which isn’t easy—afterward is twofold: 
 
1) We need to organize all of those random thoughts, and find the thread which aligns them into the most compelling possible argument. 
 
2) We then need to make that argument in the “Sue, Pissed Off” voice. 
 
Is this “putting words into Sue’s mouth”? Hardly! 
 
Finding the fit
 
Now let’s turn the tables. Let’s say you need to hire a ghost writer for, say, that upcoming marketing outreach piece that will have your byline at the top of it, or your signature at the bottom of it. What do you do?
 
Well, you can find your list of candidates by whatever means you see fit, whether it’s a LinkedIn search, or through a site such as Upwork, or whatever. But this is not about just finding someone who can write well and will work within your budget. 
 
This is all about finding the proper fit. Can that person interview you well and tease out the information that’s needed for the piece and its tactical intent? Do you feel comfortable chatting—indeed, venting—to that person at length? 
 
And most importantly, can they empathize? Can they find, and “speak” in, the right voice that you want to project to the world, which will 1) best present your argument, while 2) ringing true as “you”? This is the crucial yet subtle compatibility factor that you really need to weigh, first and foremost, into your hiring decision. 
 
Staying on-message
 
Unfortunately, after the interview is over, your work—as the putative “author”—isn’t done. You’ll need to review the draft your ghost writer submits, and check it not only for accuracy but for tone. Does it ring true? Does it “sound” like you wrote it? If you don’t feel comfortable, you’ll need to kick it back. Lest we remind you: Your name, not the ghost writer’s, will be on this thing. It’s personal. This is “you,” to the world. You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about the product. To the contrary: You should be delighted. When you get a great ghost-written piece, you should be downright elated. We have clients who share our pieces with family and friends, they’re so excited by how they’ve come out. So that’s the bar you want to reach. 
 
Have a project you need ghost written? We can help with that. Simply contact us for a no-obligation consultation today. 

If you’re looking to hire a firm to help you write a positioning statement for your business, you might consider doing it yourself first. Why?
 
In this article, we’ll walk you through the basic steps of creating a powerful positioning statement. We’ll touch on the pros and cons of doing it yourself. But first, we’d like to address a couple of important questions: 
 
1) What the heck is a positioning statement? 
 
And: 
 
2) Why would you ever want one? 
 
Internal vs. external
 
First things first: What is a positioning statement? Its name gives you a clue. It’s a short written piece—generally a single sentence—which describes your business, relative to its competitors, along with who your intended customers are, and why they should choose your business vs. the others. 
 
Sound straightforward? It is. 
 
Indeed, if it’s that straightforward—if it’s that much of a no-brainer, then our second question becomes all the more relevant: Why would you ever want one?
 
There are two important words to consider here, both of which pertain to this discussion. And those words are internal and discipline.
 
Let’s be crystal clear about this: A positioning statement is strictly an internal document. You do not put this on your website. You do not use it in any of your marketing material. You do not include it in a presentation deck alongside your company’s mission statement or team bios. This is internal. For you. And your team. And selected partners. And that’s it. 
 
Which begs the question: Why?
 
Quite simply: It’s not a good piece of marketing. Any more than your company’s policies-and-procedures manual is. Sure, that’s an important document. But you don’t put it on your website. Same thing for the positioning statement. 
 
The biggest advantage of a good positioning statement is to provide alignment. If you’ve got sales reps out in the field, they need to know what your company is about. If you’re hiring a marketing firm, they need to understand where you’re coming from. Similarly, every single member of your team should know and understand how the company is intended to compete. Thus the “discipline.” 
 
To make this easier to understand, consider the opposite. Imagine if everyone on your team had a different idea of who your prospects are. Imagine they all had their own, varying ideas, on why those prospects should choose you. Imagine they had differing opinions on who the competition is. All of this “noise” can be eliminated with a good positioning statement. 
 
So how do you create one?
 
As we’d said above, this is very straightforward. Indeed, there’s a formula for it. We didn’t invent this. It goes like this: 
 
For [target audience], [brand name] is the [competitive frame of reference] that delivers [emotional benefit/point of difference], because only [brand name] is/offers [reason to believe/critical support].
 
It’s a fill-in-the-blanks exercise. Simple as that. 
 
Or perhaps not so simple. We’ve helped to moderate some very emotional, hair-pulling arguments over each of these “blanks” to fill, with various clients of ours. Consider some of the issues that can arise: 

• Who’s the “target audience”? Would it be, perhaps, “Time-constrained insurance executives in North America who need to reduce margin leakage? But what about their underlings? Does that mean we should rule them out?” 

 

• What’s the “competitive frame of reference”? “We’re a logistics company, we compete against other logistics companies. But what about LTL-only? Should we narrow our definition?” 

 

• What’s the “emotional benefit”? Is it “peace of mind”? But what about “savings”? 

 

• What’s the “reason to believe”? Is it “because we take an eco-friendly approach to all we do, so when you choose us, you’re also helping the planet? But if so, how does that fulfill the word ‘only’ in the positioning statement? Other companies—even competitors of ours—are eco-friendly, too.” 

 
A little tip: Be prepared to do this a lot. A lot. We typically go through a zillion iterations of positioning statements when we’re hired to help craft them. 
 
And a caveat: Don’t expect to find good examples of others’ positioning statements online. We know. We’ve tried. All you’ll find are other bloggers out there, pretending to quote, say, Amazon’s or Disney’s positioning statement, when you can tell, just by reading it, that that’s not it. As we’ve said, these are internal documents. There’s an embarrassing number of mission statements and even taglines out there, supposedly standing in as “positioning statements” in all these other articles. Don’t believe them.
 
Besides, someone else’s positioning statement won’t help you. This is about your business, not theirs. 
 
A parting shot
 
As we hinted above, a positioning statement is not the same thing as a mission statement. Or a vision statement. Or a tagline. Or a value proposition. They’re all different. Some are internal; others are external; there are subtleties which differentiate them all. 
 
That said, the utility of all these things is limited—by their intended usage, by the quality of the input used to create them, and how they’re actually leveraged in the real world. In other words, don’t put effort into this exercise unless you really intend to use it. 
 
And if you do, you might want to get help. This is a real team-building exercise, and as we’ve intimated above, we’ve facilitated this numerous times. Contact us today to get started.