It’s late afternoon, and a small business owner has sent a brief. There’s an email notification that provides a preview of work.

After a few minutes discussing the project, the client makes a down payment.

The first place a lot of writers fail is thinking that they need to know everything. In all the years I have been writing, I have had to write about a lot of subjects that I am unfamiliar with.

Here’s my process in summary:

1. Listen & ask questions.
2. Outline the work.
3. Research the brief.
4. Write.
5. Edit
6. Communicate.

The ability to get your client to share their thoughts is crucial to your success as a writer. You need to communicate in clear language and win your clients trust so that you can know what they want before you start your research.

When a client reached out to me on Fiverr to write their brand story, these 6 steps listed above helped me deliver.

The exciting thing about this project was the intensity of the client.

You could feel the passion in how he had described his journey into the world of therapy and yoga.

All he wanted was copywriting that tells his story as personally and as passionately as he has it in his head. However, he wants the story to appeal to C-Executives; Decision-maker within small and medium scale businesses.

This meant that even though it had to be creative and flowery, the story had to find a rhyme that would speak to that target market.

What do you do next as a writer?

1. Understand the brief: In this case, the client was a Yoga instructor who is looking to sell services as a business solution.
2. Find the Unique Selling Point (Problem). High performing companies lay off employees a lot due to stress.
3. Research: Visit the client’s website if provided, understand their jargon or language, find out keywords that must reflect in the story.
4. Describe a Solution. The client’s solution ties into their personal story and why they want to help their target market. It has to be something they are qualified to do and the solution must empathise with the audience.
5. Tell a story. Business case and hypothesis help a lot. It’s important to capture the audience by describing environments they are familiar with even if you are writing from your client’s perspective.
6. Edit. Make sure there is a consistent flow of ideas. Talking about the business problem in between the personal story may confuse your readers. Paragraphs can focus on different ideas that lead up to the next and up till your closer.
7. Use bullet points or numbers. This is something that calls out as reminders to your reader. They will remember your pointers.
8. Close with a call to action. For example, you can ask your reader to visit and book your client or call them. This helps a reader to know what to do with the information you have provided.

That’s how you write the story of a small business owner so that it appeals to bigger businesses.

It’s important that you help the client to achieve what they want. The voice of your story must be passionate and compelling that it resonates with the client’s lifestyle or thoughts. Every story has a unique emotion or feeling.

In the case of this Yoga instructor, it was one that wanted so much to be part of something bigger. It was about helping them achieve a goal that would make them happy and fulfilled.

I have a gift for you today. In fact several gifts:

1. Some friends paid to sponsor 2 students for the Write with Flair 21-Day course. If this sounds like something you want, leave a comment on this post. 2 random commenters will be selected. There’s a Facebook comment box below.
2. Free downloads of my notes from the writing workshops I facilitated at the Writer’s Guild Kenya earlier this month in Nairobi Kenya. Get it by clicking here.