Good Writing Makes Good Things Happen

"What have you learned from publishing three books?"

That was one of the first questions?Matt Halloran?asked me when I was a guest on the Top Advisor Marketing podcast this past November.

And, although you'll hear an answer that ranges, well, a little more freely during?our conversation?(one of the reasons ProudMouth's podcasts are so popular is because they're decidedly?unscripted!), here's another take—one that highlights the fact that as content creators we're always listening for ways to do what we do even better so that?your?content isn't just converting but connecting.

So, my answer?

One thing that’s become particularly evident to me is that all of us, whether we identify as writers of not, owe a profound and abiding debt of gratitude to all those who adopt us over the course of our lives, whether as friends, partners, colleagues, or mentors.

I mentioned in a poetry reading I gave with Carolyne Wright a few months ago, for instance, that my impulse when selecting work to present from my latest book was simply to turn to the Acknowledgments page and read what I’d written from start to finish.

Writing—memorable, effective?writing—isn’t the result of a single person’s efforts, even when that person is exceptionally talented. Instead, the type of messaging we’re talking about—from Claude Hopkins and Seth Godin to Sarah Blakely and Elizabeth Morgan—is the result of a lifetime of actively engaging in dialogue with others.

Writing, by its nature, is a collaborative endeavor, and when it’s done well, it not only elevates the message, it also elevates all those involved in writing and reading it.

Because we’re not just talking about saying something or writing something. More than that, we’re talking about using writing to make something happen.

It’s an uncomfortable truth:?All writing is manipulative.?That’s a point I’ve found myself emphasizing these past several years in my teaching. Because stating it so plainly allows us to understand at a glance how significant our obligation is to our better angels whenever we commit something to the page or screen.

If what we write does, in fact, “make something happen”—I’m referring here to that famously truncated line in W.H. Auden’s poem “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” in which Auden writes “For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives / In the valley of its making where executives / Would never want to tamper, flows on south / From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, / Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, / A way of happening, a mouth.”—then we better be aware of that and write accordingly, not afraid of the power of our words, and most assuredly?not?in order to use them negatively—say,?to “hook” our readers—but knowing that our writing stands to make change happen.

And for my part, making change happen means making?positive?change happen.?Which is, by the way, an excellent way to build your business—by making good things happen for people.?And by telling compelling stories that connect people to those experiences.

Whenever you appeal to your audience sincerely, sharing with them why what you do matters so much, even if you’re writing to address a company failing or to correct an oversight, you’re building trust and integrity, not just carrying out conversions or offering quick fixes.

And—this is not news to you, I know—that type of authenticity, of being your own self, is fast becoming part of how business—successful?business—is being done as we continue to emerge from the pandemic into the new economy.

What better opportunity to turn to your own Acknowledgments page to set the record straight so that the change your business is bringing and the successes you and your teams are achieving are even more impactful for an even greater number of people?