Give the writer your actual knowledge: a recorded conversation, the questions customers ask, real numbers, and examples of jobs. Without raw material, any writer produces the generic article the topic suggests.

Why it usually disappoints

A business hires a writer, receives eight hundred competent words, and finds them generic.

Everything is accurate and nothing in it could only have come from this business.

The conclusion drawn is that the writer was weak. Usually the brief was two lines long, and a writer given two lines about a subject produces the article the subject suggests, because there was nothing else to work from.

Their raw material was a topic. Yours would have been twenty years of doing the work.

What only you have

The gap between a generic article and a good one is almost entirely specifics, and every one of them lives inside your business.

What customers actually ask, in their words.

What goes wrong, how often, and what it costs when it does.

Real numbers: prices, timescales, quantities, tolerances.

Jobs you have done, including the awkward ones.

And the opinion you hold that some of your competitors would disagree with, which is often the most valuable single thing you can supply.

The brief that works

Twenty minutes to assemble, and it changes the output more than any amount of editing afterwards.

Talk rather than write

The most effective technique, and it removes the reason most briefs are thin.

You will not write a detailed brief, because writing it is most of the work you were trying to avoid.

You will happily talk about the subject for twenty minutes, because you talk about it every day.

So book a call, have the writer ask questions and record it, and let them work from the transcript.

That conversation contains your actual expertise, in your actual phrasing, and a competent writer can turn it into something no amount of research would produce.

What to look for in a writer

Not usually knowledge of your field, which is the thing people screen for and the least important.

A writer who knows your industry may write faster and will tend to produce what everybody else in the industry writes.

What matters more is whether they ask good questions. A writer who responds to a brief by asking five sharp questions is worth considerably more than one who accepts it and starts.

Ask for samples in an unrelated field and check whether the piece contains specifics that could only have come from the client. If it does, they know how to extract them.

A worked example

A commercial cleaning company commissioned six pieces with one-line briefs and found all six unusable, in the sense that they read like anybody's cleaning company.

They tried again with three, changing only the process.

Each began with a half-hour recorded conversation: what customers get wrong, what a difficult job looks like, what they charge and why, and what they refuse to quote for.

The same writer produced three pieces containing figures, two specific anecdotes, and a section on why the cheapest quote in their sector is usually cheap for a reason the buyer will discover later.

The cost per piece rose by the price of half an hour of the owner's time.

Two of the three are still, three years later, the pages that generate the most enquiries.

Review for accuracy, not for style

When the draft comes back, the temptation is to rewrite the wording, which is the least valuable use of your time and irritates a competent writer.

Your job in review is the part only you can do.

Is anything technically wrong. Is any claim stronger than you would make. Is there something missing that a customer would ask. Would you be comfortable if a competitor read this.

Mark those and send it back. Leave the sentences alone unless they are inaccurate, since the writer is better at sentences than you are and that is what you hired.

Where the money actually goes

Worth understanding, because it explains a wide price range that otherwise looks arbitrary.

Cheap writing is somebody researching a topic for an hour and producing readable prose from public sources. It is not dishonest and it produces the generic piece.

Expensive writing includes the interview, the follow-up questions, the structuring, and usually a revision round.

The difference in cost is mostly the extraction, which is exactly the part that makes content specific to you.

If you supply the raw material well, you can buy at the lower end and still get the better outcome, because you have done the extraction yourself.

Who signs it off, and whose name is on it

Two things to settle at the start rather than after the first draft.

Whether the piece is published under a named person in the business, which is common and reasonable, and whether that person is willing to be asked about it later.

Publishing under an expert's name means that expert should read it properly, because they will be the one answering when a customer refers to something in it.

And agree ownership of the finished work explicitly, in writing, including the right to edit and republish it. Most freelance arrangements assume this and assuming is how it becomes an argument later.

The counter-case

Some things should not be outsourced at all.

Anything where the value is a specific professional judgement that carries risk, and where a general statement could be applied wrongly.

Anything requiring an opinion you have not yet formed, since a writer will supply a plausible one and you will find yourself defending a position you did not reach.

And the two or three pages that genuinely define how you describe your business, which are worth writing badly yourself and then having someone improve, rather than commissioning from nothing.

The rest, given a real brief, is entirely delegable.

The process

  1. Choose the question the page answers.
  2. Book a recorded conversation instead of writing a brief.
  3. Supply real figures and two examples.
  4. Say what you will not claim.
  5. Point at two pages whose tone fits.
  6. Review for accuracy only.
  7. Agree ownership and the byline in writing, up front.

Step two is the whole difference, and it takes half an hour.

What to assemble before starting is covered in what to have ready before you start.

Frequently asked questions

Why does outsourced content come back generic?

Because the brief was thin. A writer given a topic and two lines produces the article the topic suggests, since there was no other raw material to work from.

What should a brief contain?

The question in the customer's words, who is reading and what they know, your rough answer, two real examples with figures, what you will not say, and two pages whose tone to match.

Is there an easier way than writing a brief?

Yes. Book a half-hour recorded conversation and let the writer work from the transcript. You will talk about the subject readily; you will not write the brief.

Should I hire a writer who knows my industry?

Not necessarily. Industry writers tend to produce what everybody else in the industry writes. A writer who asks five sharp questions is worth more.

What should I check in the draft?

Accuracy, overstated claims, anything missing that a customer would ask, and whether you would be comfortable if a competitor read it. Leave the sentences alone.

What should not be outsourced?

Professional judgements that carry risk, anything needing an opinion you have not formed, and the few pages that define how you describe your business.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Content coming back generic?

Stop writing briefs and record a half-hour conversation instead. Same writer, entirely different result.

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