Professionally Speaking » Guest Posting: Write Like A Pro, by Carey C. Giudici

Carey C. Giudici is an award-winning journalist, poet and essayist who has decades of experience using extraordinary language to help individuals, businesses and communities tap into all of their resources and insights. This posting is an adapted version of one of six blog posts entitled “Write Like A Pro.” The series, along with a number of other blogs about marketing and business, are at http://www.likedandtrusted.com.

These days, your local Starbucks can get quieter than a library.

People go there to “engage” digitally with crowds of strangers they’ll never lay eyes on, rather than chat with people at the next table.

Maybe they’re looking for greater control over every encounter. Or like the convenience and variety of instant access to unlimited media and channels in their personal corners of the “convergence culture.” Or perhaps they doubt their social abilities. There are opportunities and challenges for all of us here.

The opportunity to “go viral” if we can write vivid and persuasive content that’s driven by a big idea. And a real danger of disappearing without a trace if we don’t.

The legendary advertising executive and designer David Ogilvy was an excellent communicator. He created many of the most effective print and broadcast ads in history. His principles form the fountainhead for branding, “tribe” building and push-pull marketing strategies.

“Tell the truth,” he said. “But make the truth fascinating. You can’t bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them into buying it.”

His advice to have “big ideas” and be remarkable is more important than ever– for speakers and business owners as well as advertisers and marketers.

Every professional speaker today is in advertising. Focus on telling the truth and wrapping it in a fascinating story. Engage your audiences and make them hungry for more.

And to get more clients, you could do worse than follow the four-step process that Ogilvy laid out in Chapter 2 of his 1963 book, Confessions of an Advertising Man.

All those people hunkered over their laptops in Starbucks are searching for, or experiencing, messages imbued with the wisdom that Ogilvy brought to life decades ago.

Watch this well produced and thought provoking four minute video and make Ogilvy’s advertising philosophy your engagement strategy. It’s what most great speakers do.

Guest Posting: Write Like A Pro, by Carey C. Giudici

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