There was an epic party last night to celebrate the incredible 38-year advertising career of Frank Grady, King at Grady Britton (no really, that’s his official title).
The wine flowed, the food sated and the family, friends and colleagues of King Frank were in high spirits.
That part was excellent.
But the most excellent part took place before I even got to the party.
Living within two miles of the Grady Britton office, I decided to ride my bike to the party.
If you’ve ever been to this industrial area, you’ll know that bike racks are in short supply. So it was when I arrived.
Luckily though, just as I had paused to consider whether or not I should lock my bike to a Stop sign, another cyclist rode up, hopped his bike over the curb and rode in the direction of the party.
I called after him:
“Where are you going to put your bike?”
“Are you going to the party?” he asked.
“Yeah!”
“Oh, then we can just bring them up. I’ve been here before and it’s totally cool.”
Sweet.
He held the door for me and we entered the building.
As we crested the stairs, there was a server at the top who offered us wine and/or beer.
Awkwardly, but with grace, we both took a glass of red wine while simultaneously navigating our bikes into the elevator.
“Cheers,” we said.
This nice man showed me where to park my bike and he introduced himself as Ryan.
I spoke with him again later in the evening and he told me he worked for eROI. I already knew a few people who worked for eROI so this was exciting for me to meet another one.
He mentioned what his title was at eROI, but I didn’t catch it over the music and the chatter.
I left the party close to 8pm and when I got home, I went to the eROI website to read a little bit more about him.
Ryan Buchanan, CEO
Ryan was named by Oregon Business magazine as one of the ’50 who fix it, move it, build it, change it, and get it done right.’
Yep.
That was the guy.
Like I said: the most excellent part.
I was sitting down to a fine catered lunch at this month’s PABA Luncheon when the woman sitting next to me asked, “What do you do?”
I love this question.
Because I get to tell people what I do and, more often than not, help them with their copywriting.
This time was different though.
After I had given her a rundown of what I do, she very pointedly asked me, “So you could come into a business and help them figure out what their next step should be in terms of their content and marketing?”
Wow.
“Yes,” I answered. “I can.”
She wanted me to consult on the content of her marketing efforts, and help her and her assistant come up with some new marketing ideas that were low-cost, relevant to their customers and within their capabilities to perform.
This was the first time a client had asked for this service specifically, and in that moment it occurred to me that I’ve been doing content marketing consulting for almost five years.
I didn’t even know I was doing it.
Turns out, when you educate people about their marketing options, and you do it well, you’re a content marketing consultant!
Huzzah!!
I am a content marketing consultant!
Usually I’d be working with a client on something else entirely–a website, an email, a press release–and I’d answer any questions they had about writing and marketing.
Who knew I could offer this (apparently) extremely high demand service separately?
I did a little research on my new area of expertise and found a great content marketing consulting resource:
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI).
While CMI discusses content marketing in terms of strategy, I came across a much more simplistic definition of content (not marketing) consulting that limits it simply to written content.
I guess the term can be as broad or as narrow as you need it to be to accomodate what it is that you do.
Mine is broad: working with written content in addition to marketing strategy.
I bet there’s something you do that you didn’t even know you were doing that your clients and prospects would love to get from you as a potentially separate service.
The question is: what is your little gem?
Thank you, Robert Rose, for writing the article that got my wheels a-turnin’.
I had the great pleasure of attending the Portland Creative Conference on September 17th, and was truly blown away by all the incredible speakers: Rob Legato, Brynn Bardacke, Naomi Pomeroy, and Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt.
But by far my favorite, and I would successfully argue the favorite of the entire audience, was creative giant, Jelly Helm.
You know who Jelly is, right? Remember those huge billboards with men, women, and children holding axes and chainsaws all over Portland? Well, that was Jelly’s work.
He was the fill-in speaker at the Conference. His sweet self-deprecatory humor was endlessly charming, which was only enhanced by the fact that he was talking about a very unconventional, but extremely ubiquitous topic that everyone in the room felt the truth of, though they probably have very little opportunity to give it credence in their daily lives, and certainly not in their professional ones: love.
He said that “No meaningful activity on the planet happens without love being at the heart of it.” He shared his prediction of a love-based economy with us and a concept coined by Tom Walters called creative tension: when you’re living in your full softness of being a human being.
Now how many people do you think can get up in front of hundreds of business professionals and talk about a love-based economy and living in your full softness and leave the stage to wild applause? (There may have even been a standing ovation.) Maybe more people than I think, but I doubt it.
Other personal influences he invoked were Parker Palmer, Joseph Campbell (of course) and Buckminster Fuller.
I won’t give his deep story outline because you really should experience if for yourself, but I will give you the three takeaway questions he left us:
1) What do I love? (Or what does your client love?)
2) What do I see that no one else sees?
3) What do I do?
At their very core, the questions ask you to know thyself and in so doing, to know your clients as well.
If you can get your hands on a recorded presentation or have the opportunity to see him speak…you should.
I sent out an email a little over a month ago about a client who, frustrated at having her resume consistently lost in the pile of the other hundreds (dare I say thousands?) of resumes for any given job she applied for, decided to get hers professionally written (by me). The email is entitled, “How One Jobseeker Took the Bull By the Horns.”
In this email.
Is a typo.
And I sent it to over 200 people.
Guess how many people noticed/noticed and told me about it?
Two. Dos. Zwei. Duo. Dua. Tveir.
In the first sentence of the second to last paragraph, this typo sleeps:
If you know someone whose unemployed or underemployed and looking to have their resume and cover letter professionally written…
Did you see it?!
I didn’t either.
The fifth word is “whose”. Well, it should be “who’s”, meaning “who is”.
The dirty truth is that even copywriters make mistakes. I’ve often found errors on the websites or in the literature of professional writers.
The lesson I’ve learned from my colleagues and my personal experience:
Every good writer needs a good editor.
Thank you, Colleen Miles (a graphic designer) and Jennifer Furl (a fellow freelance copywriter), for pointing this out to me.
If you ever find any typos or errors in something I write, I would absolutely appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I know there are some people who don’t appreciate this, but I for one, do.
