How to get clients to leave your copy alone

Clients mucking about with carefully crafted copy can be a thorn in the side of many IC Specialists. And if it's familiar to you, you may also know what it's like to have people ignore your recommendations to improve what they've written. And that's not great, is it.

So how can you get to a place where...

• ...people are making only appropriate changes to your writing
• ...they're always accepting your valid recommendations to improve their copy?

How does this alternative sound to you? Your initial reaction might be "Hell, yeah!" However...

...would you really change it if you could?

That may seem an odd question. But this is a super-sensitive issue for a lot of folk. And many people are wary of even bringing it up, even though it festers away inside them. There can often be a 'better the devil you know' thing going on. So, before getting into how to make it a reality, we’d like to invite you to pause for a moment and think about these two alternative futures.?

Imagine staying stuck with that first scenario, where people are still messing with your copy (even though you’re the Specialist they’ve employed to do the job).?How would it feel carrying that around with you for years or decades to come??Now imagine the second – in which people fully trust your judgement.?All the time. What would that be like?

At the risk of making a wild assumption that you'd prefer the second scenario, let's break it down and see what it’ll take.?What do you and/or your key decision makers need to ‘get’??We’ll do this in four steps:

1. Why it’s bonkers to let the status quo continue: the likely impact of your current situation.
2. What’s likely to be causing it.?There could be several factors, some of which may be more relevant to you than others.
3. What it would take to eliminate those causes: the practical ‘do-able’ steps you can take.
4. What’s in it for you – and everyone else:?the personal and business benefits you and others are likely to realise if you take those steps.

Much of what follows may seem blindingly obvious. But, often, the only way to be sure we don't overlook the obvious is to state it.

Likely impact

…on you

Obviously the current situation is frustrating, and may make you wonder why they even bothered to ask for your help in the first place. Sometimes it may knock your confidence, or the confidence of some of your team members.?It could even raise nagging doubts about whether your job is really needed.

Then there’s the time you may need to waste on rewrites.?Or, even worse, there’s the question of what happens when your client’s poorly reworded redraft hits its intended audiences.

…on your clients

Inevitably they’re using up time doing the job you’re employed to do. And if they’re not great writers, the end product may hurt their reputation.

…on your organisation

If employees can’t properly understand – or end up ignoring – badly worded communications, this can potentially hurt the business results those communications are meant to be supporting.

Clearly there are no upsides to this situation. So what's really going on? What are the blind-spots you need to address?

Likely causes

There are two main issues behind this: content and style. Either of them can be enough to trigger those rewrites – but they often work together.

1. Your client didn’t brief you properly (because they?didn’t know how to work out what they wanted, or they simply didn’t?set aside enough time).?So it’s possible they may want to change at least some of the subject matter you’ve included.
2. It may be they’re being turned off by the way you’ve written that content. And this can have three different origins:

• You may have made a genuine error. (Hey, you’re only human).?That’s a legitimate reason for change.?The following aren’t.
• They could be having uncomfortable?gut reactions?which are driving them to ask for changes or alter the text themselves. Critically, though, many people simply respond to?gut reactions?without really knowing what’s behind them. When challenged, they often say: “It just doesn’t feel right.” As to why it doesn't, they have no idea. So they often change perfectly good copy without any conscious awareness as to why, or if doing so is even necessary.
• Your organisation may not have adequate language standards. Without such standards you can end up with people making subjective decisions about ‘the right way to write things’, and the possibility of them writing or re-writing things badly.

Potential solutions

1.?If it’s a content issue, chances are you’ll benefit from one or more of:

• a better briefing process.
• improved skills for some members of your team, so they can be more effective in using the process you already have
• an effective?mandate, which can ensure you’re able to use your briefing process every time.

2. If the issue is stylistic, there are two possible routes you may need to consider:

• improve your organisation’s style guide, or possibly introduce a set of language standards from scratch
• educate your clients (and your team) about the?unconscious processes?which drive potentially unhelpful gut reactions.

Things to consider for your wish-list

There may be a role for training, here. While training is often seen as a panacea, it can rarely do the job on its own. But in this case it can contribute in a number of ways:

1.???It can teach you and your team a series of?practices which are?DFVP?(Demonstrably Fit for Valid Purposes). With an issue as sensitive as this?DFVP?practices are particularly useful, because anyone who wants to take issue with them can see the ‘workings out'. So people tend to feel enlightened and empowered rather than bullied. There are three areas of DFVP practice you could tap into:

• processes for?taking IC briefs?and for planning campaigns
• techniques for getting all the information you need from your clients, while using those processes.
• ‘minimum hygiene’?language standards and tools.

2.???Training can also teach you, your team and clients to?take conscious control?of those?gut reactions. It can even enable everyone to develop a consensus about how to respond to such reactions.

So, training can help a lot, but it can't do everything. You're also likely to need:

1.???Time to practise this learning, so you and your team can deliver maximum ROI.

2.???A?mandate?to use those practices every time.

Where these solutions could take you

If you have an effective briefing process, and that all-important?mandate, you should have seen off the content part of the equation.

And with the combination of:

• effective language standards, and
• an ability to help your clients understand and manage their own gut reactions…

…you can consign the stylistic issue to history.

Likely business benefits…

…for you

1. You and your team can have justifiable confidence in how you’re doing your stuff.
2. You’ll also be helping empower your clients (and not just in their dealings with you). This can help your relationships with them (and do your career a bit of all right too).
3. And it can save you wasted time.

…for your clients

1. They can save themselves wasted time, and get on with their work, confident you’ll be delivering what they need.
2. Any potential for self-inflicted reputation damage should also disappear.

…for your organisation

1. By speeding up the process, you could reduce the need for rush jobs, and reduce a few costs here and there.
2. Improving the quality of communications employees receive can only support their performance.

About the author

Russell-Olivia Brooklands (ROB) is an acknowledged thought leader in the field of Internal Communication – in which he has been working for over 25 years.?With a background in behavioural linguistics he has mastered many of the challenges which typically baffle both IC Specialists and their clients.?

Through his training programmes he’s helped IC Specialists to up their game on four continents, in blue chip companies like GSK and Airbus, and major national and international bodies, including the European Central Bank and the UN.?He was one of the founding Directors of the Institute of Internal Communication.?And he’s leading the IC Practice Governance initiative, to help IC Teams better support line managers in becoming effective communicators.

To inquire about working with ROB – because you’d like help:

• developing your team's practices and skills,
• raising your team’s justifiable confidence,
• establishing a fit-for-purpose mandate, and/or
• demonstrating and increasing the value of the IC Function...?

…please email [email protected]