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In this episode of Grow and Convert Deep Dives, we share our mistakes that we've made when hiring writers and how we've developed a process to solve it.
We go into detail on our process and share things that we've implemented to help us screen writers, test them and train them. We hope you enjoy.
We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
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Okay. So today we're gonna
talk about hiring writers.
Uh, specifically us and a bunch of people
that we talk to on Twitter have a usual
complaint about content marketing writers,
which is obviously I can't find a good
writer , and with often
a lot more colorful words.
And we have, um, been doing this for,
I don't know, you know, how many years,
but we've been doing this for many years
and we have gone through a ton of writers.
And the way we run our agency, every single
content strategist starts as a writer.
And so, and, and it's
all a tight knit team.
We don't delegate or outsource any of
our clients content to just a Rolodex of a
bunch of freelance writers.
And so we really care about having really
good writers and we try to spend a ton of
time on that. And we thought
that a video that kind of, um,
dives into the details of
how do we hire, how do we vet,
and how much time and detail we spend
coaching content marketers and writers, um,
so that they write in our
style would be really useful.
So that's what today's
video is gonna be about.
And, um, before we get started,
if you like this video,
then it would help us if
you liked and or subscribed,
which you can do on our YouTube channel.
Cool. I think a first good place to get
started would be maybe to rewind back to
when we first got started in our agency.
Because the first challenge
that we had to overcome, uh,
when we got our first client was
how are we gonna produce the articles?
And so immediately we went to,
Well, I think we need some writers.
And we didn't know what we were
doing at that point in time.
And I feel like we made the
same mistake that most people do,
which is they just kind of put out a
job rec for a writer and they try to find
people that have a, a similar background
to what they're trying to write,
and they look at the portfolio pieces
and they just give 'em a shot.
And we did that a number
of times and paid,
I remember paying a thousand dollars
for an article that we never used, uh,
and paying really extremely high prices.
And I think we had to learn the hard way
on everything not to do from paying hourly
rates to paying these really high prices
for these subject matter expert writers.
And, and I don't know if you remember
any of the other mistakes that we made early
on, but I think what might help people
is to kind of just walk through all those
different mistakes that we made in the
very beginning of the business and then kind
of contrast that to,
to what we're doing now.
Yeah. I mean, at the very beginning,
I think our solution was that we wrote them,
or I, I just remember I wrote something
and that very quickly we were like,
Okay, this is not gonna work.
Yeah. But we didn't, we
didn't try to do that.
I would say we knew, we knew immediately
that we needed writers and that we weren't
gonna be writing the
Articles thought. Yeah. We factored that
into like a hypothetical budget, right?
Like we factored that into
like our costs or whatever.
Cause anyone who's gonna do
a content agency that's obvious.
Yeah. So we created a job description.
Um, I have no idea what it said, but
I remember we asked for a portfolio.
It was in Google Forms,
which we still use.
Um, and we have a Google sheet with
a bajillion, uh, applicants now.
But, And, and you and I just went through
the portfolio and I remember creating a
column on the left with like, Benji comments,
Devesh comments, and we'd be like,
Okay, this person's good for this,
that, you know, I don't like this one.
Or, and we would just, the
key was their portfolio.
I mean, we looked at other questions,
Why do you wanna work here?
What else have you done?
What's your background?
And we tried to find ones that matched
our, you know, that, that were good.
And I think in terms of mistakes
that that's not a mistake.
Like anyone hiring writers,
that's like ticket to entry.
Of course you need to ask them for their
portfolio, but we're gonna get into,
what should we call it? Not
mistakes, but like traps.
Yeah. Maybe things that, things
that don't matter that you think maybe.
So there's this whole thing that we're
gonna get into not right this second of just
you're not, turns out you can't really
be sure which of the portfolio pieces was
like really done by that
writer in its entirety.
Um, but the other big one initially
on was experience and I,
and I think that was what led to some
of the thousand dollar ones where we,
I don't know what we were paying
initially, but it was like, you know,
a few hundred dollars or something.
Yeah, I
Think we started at three
50. Yeah.
If I remember correctly. And we were
like, oh, like when we had a couple bad ones
not work out, um, we were
like, well maybe like we're,
it's too cheap or something
and we need to pay like the,
the like really expensive people.
Those expensive writers tend to be,
maybe not even tend to be, they're like
all basically always are really expense,
really experienced content marketers.
That's how they know to charge that much.
Anyone's just starting off
writing is like, I don't know,
like a few hundred dollars, like, but
the people who are charging a thousand
dollars, really five, you know, I mean
I guess this was like six, seven years ago.
So now I guess things
have changed, but 700,
600 plus they are for sure experienced.
They're like on Twitter,
they have a bunch of clients.
They have their own website
and then the whole brand is like,
I'm this content marketing writer.
So we thought, okay, that's what we need.
And I remem I still remember that
thousand dollars one cuz I was just,
I do too so mucked when,
uh, that, well, it was
A good portion of our rate
at that point in time.
I think it was like a sixth,
a sixth of our rate.
Yeah. So it was a very expensive article.
Yeah. That and, and I remember
just being like, well how,
how could we not use this?
Like we had a thousand dollars for this,
But we just kept reading it and being
like, this is not what we want.
And my memory of it is that
the person wasn't that receptive.
I, I think I was like, this
is not what we're trying to do.
Like we're trying to do something else.
And they were just like, well, like,
you know, this is not how I write,
or this is not how I work or whatever.
And, and then at some point
I was like, Okay, forget it.
We need to get this submitted.
And so I just wrote it.
And I think that leads to this
big initial learning of mine,
which is and of ours is the
experience really experienced
content marketers and writers.
They may be experienced, but that often
means they're really set in how they're
doing the writing and
their writing style.
And, and I've seen websites, and this
is something I've commented on on Twitter
recently, but like, I've seen websites
where they say like, you know,
I'm the blah blah, this mean, I've been
doing this for this many years for these
companies in SaaS or whatever.
And then, and then they'll say, and
I bring, this is an example I, I take,
I'm good at taking boring subjects and
making them fun and funny and blah blah
blah. And my pet peeve is boring B2B
content actually shouldn't be funny.
Like if somebody's looking
for it security software,
like why are you cracking jokes
and putting cat memes in it?
Like it doesn't make any sense.
Now I've gotten into Twitter debates,
uh, about this, but whatever I,
I stand by what I'm saying, but that
this is illustrative of what I'm saying,
which is, so if I as the agency side,
the hirer want a certain style in this
example, want or hypothetical it, clients
post to not have jokes and random like
cutesy humor in it.
And I hire an experienced
writer who does do that.
We're gonna butt heads
and that's gonna be a pain.
And it's gonna be really hard to
undo that because they're thinking,
I'm really experienced, I charge
a thousand dollars a post.
So like, what are you doing?
Like why are you editing that?
And, and it's gonna be really tedious.
And that's a, a small, like symbolic
small like funny example.
But that is true of larger things,
how intros are written, grow.
If you know anything about grow and
convert, and we can get into it later,
maybe in a different video or this one.
We're very particular about
how our intros are written,
how much you sell the product.
You and I are planning on possibly
doing another video on that later.
But like, you know, to give you, give
away the ending, which is not a secret.
We sell our clients products heavily in
our post because we found that converts the
most, most experienced content marketers
don't do that because like,
the culture of content marketing
is all this, like, don't sell stuff.
We've talked about this before.
And so those are the bigger
things that will come up.
And then you butting heads.
And so that was, that's, that's
like the big takeaway number one.
Well I I feel like the larger issue there
is is just we were expecting content done
in a certain way and the writing to
be done in a certain way and probably not
communicating that enough to the writer.
And so they have a completely different.
Way that they typically do writing.
And unless that's communicated and we
are giving a specific style of how we want
something specific examples
of how we want something,
I think there's often this miscommunication
that happens between whoever's hiring
the writers and how the writer typically
does articles that goes unspoken until you
get into the first draft and then
you're like, Whoa, whoa, whoa.
What is this piece?
It's way different from anything
that I was expecting.
And then you guys go back and forth.
And then as an agency we had
a timeline that we had to meet.
And so that's where we didn't
end up getting to use the article.
But I would, I would say that's largely
an issue that I've seen even trying to hire
in-house too, is whether it's an SEO article
or it's opinion piece or whatever the
style of article it is, there's
not too much conversation or,
like the step that we have, which is
a questionnaire to try to understand what
needs to go in the article or what the
style of the article should be before you
get into the writing stuff.
And I think it often
leads to bigger issues,
with the hiring process or
just producing the article.
Yeah. So that is jumping ahead,
but we can talk about that.
Like that's the process once
we have someone is, um, we,
we eventually created this questionnaire
step and I believe,
shout out to Nathan Collier,
who's no longer with us,
who I think was instrumental
in getting that created.
Um, it, and that's like once you hire
someone that was the big issue, you, you,
you give them this piece or you give
them the background for this piece and,
and then they just come up with something
and you're like, Okay, like is it good?
Is it not good? And I think that's
where a lot of people's frustrations are,
where they're like, you know, on Twitter
complaining like it's hard to find a good
writer or whatever because you, you gave
them a certain amount of input and then
you had this vision in your
head of what's gonna come back.
The input wasn't enough
to create that vision.
The writer has their own biases like we
talked about and their own habits and they
came back with what they do, and
then you're like, well, this sucks.
Um, and so, you know, what
are you supposed to do?
And to some extent that's,
it's not avoidable, right?
Like you're gonna run into that and,
and by no means is the conclusion of this
video gonna be and grow and
convert has solved writer hiring,
like it's still hard for us.
But one of those things process-wise
that was important is we do this
questionnaire. I think a lot of other
people call it like a content brief or
whatever. Um, but the key difference
and, and we go into the full details of our
questionnaire in, in our course,
our like paid course and community.
So I'm, I wanna be a little bit careful
of not sort of saying everything that we
he's saying there to outta respect
for people in there, but it,
we've talked about it externally as well.
The difference between a typical content
brief, from what I've seen most people,
content brief is focused
on, how do I say this?
Like these really like deep details almost
what I would consider like side details
of the piece. Um, it'll be like the brief
will like give like, here's the keyword,
you know, maybe they even pick the headers
or something and like how long your
paragraph should be, how many examples
to put in there and these sort of details.
Whereas
Also some basic info that should just
go in the article because a lot of the briefs
are in instead of interviewing someone,
so it's someone with the expertise might
begin to create the brief or the writer
might create the brief and they try to put
the key details and information that should
go in the article and then kind of send
the writer off to go produce it.
Now with this is supposed to be kinda
like all the information you need in to write
Yeah. Instead of the interviewing step.
Yeah. What we do instead our questionnaire
is it focuses on the arguments,
like what you are actually saying.
And, and that's, we don't talk
about word count, we just don't,
we just don't deal with word count.
We don't count our words.
Like people always like, Oh,
how long are these articles?
I'm like, I don't know,
like count the words later.
Um, we don't even necessarily
like we get into outlining it,
but we have questions in
there that surround like,
what pain points are behind
this keyword in this topic?
What unique solutions does this company
and this product or service offer,
and how is this different from
what other people are talking about?
It's all about the substance
of like, what are you arguing,
what are you gonna say in the piece?
Not the details of how you are gonna
say it, how many H two s and how long the
paragraph's gonna be and all that stuff.
And then it culminates in an
outline so that you, you know,
see the final result kind
of before it's final.
You, you see, you take those
early questions of like,
what are the pain points or whatever,
and you culminate it in this outline.
And that allows us to the editor who's
the content strategist and the writer to get
on the same page before this huge thing
has been written and everything has been
like finalized. And you're like, Oh
God, this is not at all what I wanted.
So you can see in the outline, okay,
this is how they're thinking about it.
No, I wanna move this here,
I wanna change the intro to this.
We need to make sure we mention
this detail that's not right.
And the order needs to be like this.
All that happens in that kind of questionnaire
step and that outlining step.
And that's key side note tying
to what we talked about beforehand.
There have been very experienced writers.
Um, we had this foray, which we don't,
I wasn't planning on talking about,
but like, we tried journalists for
a while and journalists hate outlining.
I learned. And, and so some of the
experienced writers are like, I don't,
I don't do this, I don't outline.
I just write a draft.
And you're like, Okay, well
like we're not gonna be a fit.
Um, so anyway, so that's process wise.
Yeah. I wanna get a little
bit away from that.
I'm sorry, I sidetracked the conversation
a little bit and went there,
but what I want to get back
to is, is hiring Yeah.
Hire the hiring process.
So the mistakes that we made early
on and what we learned not to do,
and then contrasting that with what we're
doing now and what we learned since then.
Yeah. And what does our
writing process look like?
Or sorry, not writing process,
writer hiring process look like.
So what do we do to screen candidates?
What do we do once we found
a candidate that has potential?
Um, so maybe let's go back and just kind
of summarize what some of those mistakes
were early on. I think one, one thing
we learned is not to pay people hourly
because the incentives are misaligned.
I I I think if you pay people hourly,
the writer will always do things to,
to make it so that there's more hours,
whereas the company needs
a finished product.
Yeah. I mean they may or may
not, but the in incentive,
the financial incentive
is to, is in that direction.
Yeah. So we just found out
pay structure doesn't work,
so what we do now is pay a flat rate.
So that's one mistake that we had made.
The second mistake was just
finding people that have, a,
a ton of experience on the subject matter,
thinking that they're gonna be a better
writer on that subject matter
and learning that's not true.
And we'll explain what
we do differently now.
and the other,
The, yeah, the third big one, which,
which I can use to like move into what we do
now. The third big one is relying
on the portfolio, uh, uh,
as like the sole thing of, of how good
they are and look like sometimes the
portfolio. There are some, like, I
have a particular writer in mind that was
amazing that we don't work with anymore.
Sadly, his portfolio immediately
I read it and I was like, We need,
we need to hire him. And he
was indeed like really good.
Um, but it's not, it's
not a telltale sign.
We've also recently had a writer that
didn't work out and her portfolio was
amazing. So anyway, so that last
one, let's continue that, right?
So previous we had just like, had
an application, had a portfolio,
looked at it and we said, let's do
it and then put them on a paid piece.
So let's start with that last part.
We just put them right in a paid
piece and it caused all these issues.
What we do now instead is test and vet
them with these two steps after we see the
portfolio, before they're
even on a real client piece.
Why? Because a real client piece has to
be submitted to a client on a deadline and
if it doesn't work out
and the writer is not good,
that is really stressful for everyone.
And so very quickly we were like,
no, it is worth it to pay applicants,
pay them to do a test piece that
is not, it's the same prompt.
We've had like 400 of these.
It feels like, I don't know,
the real number is not 400 and,
and so it's not useless.
We don't do anything with it.
Right? We've had everyone write
the same, about the same thing almost.
Well that was actually a mistake that
we did make was we tried to have different
writing prompts because we felt
like if there was one writing prompt,
someone could go see the finished
piece that was already live.
Right. And then they were gonna,
I don't know, cheat somehow.
Yeah. But what happened when we tried
to use different writing prompts and then
judge the ability of the writer based
on the different writing prompts is there was
no benchmark. Yeah.
And so
We were like, Oh, this one's a
lot harder than the previous one.
Is that why it's not as good?
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.
So now what we have is one prompt and
do you wanna explain what the prompt is a
little bit?
Yeah. So I think to, to get into that,
we have to explain like the kind of writing
we do, which is we, if you haven't
watched any of our previous videos,
then this will be new.
If you have like, this won't
be, but I'll be fastest.
We do bottom of the funnel pieces, which
means we're writing pieces targeting SEO
keywords that are product related.
We call it high buying intent or
bottom of the funnel things like,
I always use accounting as an example.
My mind it seems easy for everyone
to understand is like,
best accounting software would
be a keyword we go after.
And that naturally needs to
discuss product and features.
And if your, you know, our client would
be hypothetically an accounting software.
Provider discuss their product and
features and how it's better versus what,
versus like how to do, you know,
small business accounting tips,
which is very like what typically people
do, which is this mid top of the funnel
stuff, which is just like
general collection of tips.
So because we do this bottom of the funnel,
our writing needs to be very matter of
fact, no fluff.
We're not trying to entertain them.
Like people are googling
these things to like,
cuz they're thinking about buying stuff
and what, what else is on page one is like
a bunch of comparisons
and it's like a very, um,
I always use this term
like utilitarian search.
Like I'm like trying to do something
and buy something and research something.
Not like small business accounting tips.
I'm like just trying to like figure
out how this works, whatever.
So the writing needs to have that is
like this really clear matter of fact like
clarity, no fluff to it.
Now the second characteristic it needs
is the ability for the writer to understand
value propositions, benefits, features,
differentiators of those features and
benefits versus competition.
And be able to com write
that in a compelling way.
So they need to be able to like do
like a little bit sales writing or sales
copywriting, right?
Um, so absolute clarity,
no fluff sales, copywriting.
That's what we're looking
for on the surface.
Not too complicated in practice.
Very difficult to find.
And so the first thing
we did after the PO is, is,
is the first thing we did
is create a test project.
And what is that? Is the prompt you asked
me and this is my long way of answering
it, is like we have a recorded interview.
I think it's like a demo of one of our
clients who has a, it's like a SaaS client,
some software and we have
them watch or listen to it.
Actually, I think it's listen, watch Anyways,
then you are questionnaire which asks
these questions like what
are the pain points?
Like what keyword, whatever we tell them
what keyword this is gonna be after and
then outline it and we ask them in the
outline to write out the intro, um, fully.
And that's the extent
of the test project.
They're not, they don't have to
do the whole draft and we pay them,
I forget what we pay them now, like
something hundred 50, a hundred dollars,
something like that, hundred 50.
And, and and the intro they, we ask them
like fully write that out because that's
really important to us.
Cuz that should set up,
okay, this software,
let me just continue my
accounting hypothetical.
That should set up, you know, how are
they gonna angle and position our clients'
hypothetical accounting software, Okay,
most accounting software does x like small
businesses have these pain points you
should be looking for y that kind of thing.
Can they do that or do they have certain
writing habits that is completely
incompatible with us.
For example, a lot of writers
will start every piece on this, um,
kind of like friendly infomercially kind
Of of tone of like, you know, oh,
you like this kind of fake story tone.
Running a small business
is really hard, you know,
after you've done HR and sold customers
and provided the customer,
you sit down after a long day,
now you gotta do the books.
Like, that's like typical writing style.
Like, but we, we don't,
that's we don't do that.
Like, we'd be like, No,
that doesn't work at all.
And so we wanna see that and you
can see that immediately in an intro.
And that then, so that it's a paid
test project, we give that to them.
It's now, like you said, standardized.
It's the same client.
We've done it for a bajillion
writers and we get it back.
We typically do one round of revisions.
We typically, even if they come back
with something that's like, whoa, whoa,
like the example I just gave, we don't
just like nix them and we're not like,
sorry, it's not gonna
work out immediately.
Cuz what we've noticed, and we've had
some really successful team members on our
team today that their first thing
they came back with, we were like, uh,
and then we gave them feedback
and then it was amazing.
So we've noticed that that's
a key characteristic.
The people who work out with us,
they can respond to that feedback.
Cause sometimes at the beginning, just
the instructions weren't clear, whatever.
And so we give them one round.
That feedback can be in text comments,
like the guy who's in charge of it.
Now, David on our team, he, he tends
to do it in actual like Google dot comments,
like long comments.
I tend to do it in recorded video.
I use like a recorded loom video.
Um, it can be whatever.
And we explain like, listen, we don't
do that flowery intro because think about it,
like remember we talked about this
like person who's googling this,
they don't need to be told that they're
already looking for accounting software,
etc. Or like this sentence
could be said in a simpler way.
Um, you know, what about this pain point
to introduce this feature, whatever.
And, and we see what comes
back and, and that's really it.
That's the bulk of it. That
test project is dramatic.
There's no timeline cuz
it's not a real piece.
So there's no stress.
It doesn't affect our content
strategists who are like,
I'm just trying to get this work done
for this client in October or whatever.
Right. Um, and, and we can kind of
take our time with it and see like how,
how they do, uh, and, and if they pass,
regardless of whether they pass or fail,
we pay them. And then if they pass, we
then put them on their first real piece.
And I can talk about coaching there, but
I'll take a break. Yeah, yeah.
Let's take a break and just kind of
summarize because I think there's two key
learnings in there. Uh, one is creating
a test project that maps to what you would
have them do in the role.
So I would even say the test project
that we're saying might not even be the best
for whatever type of writing
that you're doing.
We took a while to think through what
would be the test project that best maps to
our own writing process
and our own writing style.
And then tested a few different prompts
and then found one that that worked going
forward. And then the second
key learning that I heard was,
that the editing part.
So being able to give someone feedback
and seeing if they can then go make the
piece better because we, we've had a
lot of people where they showed a lot of
potential and then when we tried
to give them the feedback,
the piece got worse or they just, they
weren't willing to take the feedback and
they kind of pushed back and it's just
not a good writer that we would wanna work
with if they fall into that camp.
Yeah. I don't know if you
have anything more to say on
That. No, I, Well I want
to add to your point one,
Point 1 you said have the test
piece map to what you're doing.
I, I want to say that
statement even stronger.
Have it be literally what
you're gonna ask them to do.
That should be clear.
The test project is a real
piece that I think we wrote.
Like, it,
It, it was, yeah.
Yeah. And so, but we just, it was written
and published like a year and a half ago.
So it's, it's done.
We don't need their work.
Like that's not the point.
But it's like, that's literally
what we're gonna ask them.
And so if you are doing,
like, you make a good point.
What our test project
is may not be yours.
You may be doing Ultimate Guides, eBooks.
Think through, if I were to hire them
to write my ultimate guide or ebook,
what information would they
be equipped with maybe for you?
Now I would not agree with this
writing process, but it could be true.
And it probably is true
for a lot of companies.
Maybe you don't a quick
equip them with anything.
Maybe you're just like,
here's the keyword.
Like, do what you need to do, but like
think through exactly what am I gonna ask
them and test that exact thing.
Yeah. So if you had more of a story
based style approach to writing more
journalistic style, have them listen to
you a 30 minute or hour long interview and
then write basically what the
angle would be for that story.
What are the most interesting points
that came out of that interview?
Something like that.
So again, having an approach that
maps to your own writing process.
And I think that's really
important because a lot,
lot of people have tried to take our exact
writing prompt or our exact process and
it just doesn't work because we have
a very specific style of writing that we're
looking for. And not every company
writes in the same style as us.
So you're not testing the writers
for what you need them to do.
And I think that's a really
important thing here.
And the other thing is that, that
bridges from the portfolio to,
to your job request.
Cause the portfolio, most people's, most
writer's portfolios is not bottom of the
funnel pieces because most
people don't do that.
Most clients don't ask for that.
And so they're writing
like, who knows what.
And, and we're looking in the portfolio
for some of these characteristics.
We're looking for the clarity, we're
looking for them being able to break down a
complex topic, but the portfolio
piece could be whatever.
And this bridges, you're like,
Okay, we liked your portfolio,
but before we put you on a real piece,
let's see how those skills translate to,
to doing the real piece the way we do it.
So that's number one.
Now the second part of this filtering
is we learn is we just kept improving.
So this helped a lot, but still these
situations arose where someone came through,
we thought their portfolio was awesome,
they did it great on their test piece.
And I was like, They're
for sure gonna work out.
Like, and I would often, I would slack
you cause I'd be so excited when we find
good writers. I'd be like, Benji,
there's this person like, it's amazing.
You're like, Great. And then
give them to some strategists.
A week passes the strategist
dms me on Slack and is like,
This is really not working out.
Like, where did you find this ?
And I'm like,
That's an important point too, because
I think it's important to talk about what we
used to do versus what we do now.
So now we have this, this test project
that's a siloed test project completely
separate from any piece that
we would write for a client.
Historically, the mistake that we made
was after they passed this first pa, uh,
this first step and we felt like
they were a good enough writer,
then we were just giving 'em to an existing
strategist and say like basically
putting 'em into a real
live piece for a client.
And that created a whole bunch of headaches
because the writer, the strategist,
would sometimes get a writer who's great
and sometimes get a writer who ended up,
once you get into the real project,
really not working out.
Either the writing was way off from
the test project or they couldn't accept
feedback well or anything like that.
And then it created all sorts of fires
in the agency because you have a piece that
needs to be done on a specific
deadline, and the writer's not good,
and the strategist gets frustrated.
And so now the whole writing, testing,
and vetting process is completely separate
from any of a real live client work.
Yeah. I mean, I'm still
in that scenario, so I'm,
I'm still at that part of the story.
So they passed the test project,
we hand them to a writer.
So that's literally the
story that I'm still in.
I, I know where you're going
and I'll get there in a second.
Okay. So then they come back and
they're like, What the heck man?
Like, Devesh, like, it's like the 28th
of the month and I gotta get this in and it
is horrible.
And now I have to rewrite it.
And I'm like, I'm sorry, you know?
And uh, I'm like, what happened?
And so, um, we'll get into the, there's
multiple solutions that we're adding,
we have been adding to try to help that.
Um, you are getting into like how we
now help coach during that first piece.
But before we get there, there's this
other thing we added, which is we were like,
what the, like this kept happening.
We were like, What the hell?
Their portfolio was amazing.
Or we thought it was
their test piece was,
or I think that there's actually
two scenarios that cause this,
that sometimes the portfolio would
be amazing and their test piece would be
horrible. And we were like, what the,
like how did you possibly write these
articles in your portfolio
and your test pieces this bad?
Or just, yeah, whatever.
Maybe that's the one.
We then added a question
in our application.
And you may, as you're listening
to this, if you're a writer,
you may object to this and there
have been some people that push back,
but whatever. And I'll defend it that
simply ask them to do a little bit of writing
on the fly, right?
Then like, for real.
And the, the pushback that you may be
thinking this as you're listening to this is
like, Oh, you're asking for free work.
I'm like, not really.
Like, we're not gonna use it.
You know what I mean?
And so we just say, we give them
a, a, a site of our, we're like, here,
this is one of our clients. We,
they literally give them the site.
We're like, This is the site.
Check out some of the material on
there and write a paragraph or two.
Um, about what, like
selling the software.
It, it's, it's really open-ended
and we just, we
Know, And the way that I would defend
it is, this is in lieu of an interview.
So in writing, you're not going through
a traditional interview where someone gets
to ask you questions on strategy and
how you would think about solving this
problem. We're hiring for a writing role.
And so this is the closest that we can
get to being able to test and challenge
someone about how they would think
and then execute on that specific
Prompt. Yeah. Yeah. It, it's
a coding challenge, isn't it?
Coding interviews. I haven't, I'm not
a coder, I haven't gone through them,
but I have friends and family
it, they're like studying for them.
You get into this thing,
you have to like whiteboard.
Like this is the equivalent of that.
It's just right on the fly.
Why? Because you can't make that up.
Right? You, you've never
seen that before.
So it's not like, Oh, it was
edited by my client or my editor.
Now it looks amazing, but I
can't actually write like that.
Like now this, you're like bare,
it's just like, do it right here.
Right. Um, and so that has been key.
That was one thing. So that helps
us get more test projects passed.
So that was this other step. So already
if we just recap what are we contrasting to
set earliest like step,
what we're contrasting to...
What we used to do is just, you know,
you ask some fluff questions and then there's
like portfolio and you just are like,
this portfolio looks good and you just throw
'em on a real piece that you
have to do for your real work.
A lot of problems.
We have now two steps to help.
First, in addition to the portfolio,
ask them to just write on,
do something close to
what you're asking them.
Just like write on something,
you know, um, short and, and,
and that immediately tests like,
is the portfolio total BS or not?
Then second, for the ones that pass both
of those then have a paid test project.
So at this point you're asking them
to do a significant amount of work.
I think ethically you need to pay
them, we pay them paid test project, um,
that is separate from your normal
work ideally, um, if you can afford it.
And, and that really like, is like, okay,
now deep dive into like this is exactly
how we work and then only
pass the people through there.
So now we're at like a
pretty well filtered group.
And then I think this is where you are.
Do you have, do you have, do you have,
do you have a sense of just the numbers?
Because I think that would
be interesting to people.
Like how many, how many people make it
through that initial questionnaire to the
test project?
So let me start even
one, uh, questionnaire.
You mean the application?
Yeah. Uh, application.
Sorry,
I could be really wrong in this,
but I feel like from the applicants,
it may be one in, right?
Oh wow. One in 20.
It may be one in 10 now, I think,
you know, for David, but like I,
it could be even higher than, it
could be even, uh, smaller than that.
It could be one in 20, but
it's something around that.
Um, one in 10 feels really high.
10% seems high.
It might be more like one in
20, but that's a great question.
I have not quantified that.
Um, but you gotta go through
a lot like it's ,
like emotionally it's exhausting cuz
you just are going through these applicants
and at least for me, my emotions are
like, this next one, this is gonna be it.
And you're like, hoping for like
an amazing application, right?
Cause the goal ones, you want to find
good writers and you read 'em, you're,
Oh God, keep
Going. You're just reading these portfolio
pieces sometimes and you're just like,
oh god. And then you go to the
next one, you're like, I, uh,
and you go to the next one.
And then sometimes you're just
like, is this ever gonna work?
Then you find one that's really good
and you're like, Oh my God, they're amazing.
Uh, what were you gonna ask?
Yeah. When you're reviewing the applications,
is there something specific that
you're looking for? So when you're going,
it's that one in 10 or one in 20, what,
what's the indication to you that they're
gonna be a good writer or make it to the
test project? Yeah.
Like what, what are you looking for?
I'm, I'm, I'm curious.
Yeah, it's the same thing as I
said before is like, um, clarity,
like this is gonna sound so generic
and obvious, but first of all,
does the writing like makes sense?
like so much content marketing,
writing, it just is like words on a page
that don't have a point.
It'll be like, what is accounting companies
have finances and they sell things and
people give them money and
then, you know, it's like,
just like you're just like kind
of discussing the topic loosely.
Like are they, is there any evidence
that they're arguing a point,
like defending a thesis statement, right?
Like, do have they done that?
That's one. And then second, I think
is there any complexity to this point?
So the second issue is so much writing
and portfolios is the most basic stuff.
You know, this is what
digital marketing is.
A website has traffic and you're like,
anyone could write on a topic this symbol.
And is there any level
of layers to like complex?
Is there any evidence that they've been
able to mentally grapple with a complex
topic? And then finally then like,
well I guess that's the first point,
but I was gonna say,
is the writing clear?
So are they, do they make a point?
Is it on any level of complexity and
then it, is it written in a clear way?
That's what I'm looking
for in the portfolio.
And then after we entered that last question,
now that we have where it's like this
little mini sample I look for,
we look for that there as well.
Um, so those are those two early filters.
Now what Benji said earlier is after the
test project we did something that makes a
lot of sense and you may think that's
normal, is we put them on a real project.
I said that we do that.
What you was talking about is
even after those two filters,
still there's writers
that don't work out.
In fact, I would argue maybe
the majority still don't work out.
Um, which is
Amazing. Then, then I would say
it's probably one in 10, right?
One in 10 that do a test
project end up writing for us
Long term.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maybe there, like depending on the,
the month or the year, maybe sometimes we,
you know, one in five or whatever.
I don't, I don't know if that
rate fluctuates, but yeah.
Um, god, I would hope it's
more than one in 10 .
But it's, this is tough and
maybe that's a big, By the way,
that's a big thing we talked
about before we started recording.
This is like a big theme of this.
If we go back to the beginning
of this recording, and I'll,
and I'll get back to what we were
talking about, I promise is yes,
finding good writers is hard.
One of the big themes of this video
is you need to be clear of what you want.
We said, do a test project exactly what
you want, look for exactly what you want.
But the big other one is it
takes work, it takes coaching.
Like we're, we're not even at
the coaching step of our process.
We're just talking about filtering and
already we're talking about reviewing these
applicants care applications carefully.
Looking at this sample
project, you know, samples,
not even a project in
the writing application.
Then having them do a test project,
giving them detailed feedback on the test
project and giving them one
more chance to do it, right?
Like there's just human hours,
employee hours spent doing that.
You can't escape that, I don't think,
I don't see how you can escape that.
Think about any complex role, you know,
if McKinsey is hiring a consultant or
whatever, like they spend time
filtering for those things.
If any company's hiring a ceo, they spend
a bajillion amount of time like trying to
filter for that. At
least I would hope so.
So that's a big theme there.
Continuing on that theme, what we ended
up doing is we still had stuff not work
out. And these, our strategists apologies
to them in hindsight is, you know,
they'd be frustrated
like, I gotta redo this.
I am on a deadline.
What are you doing? You're sending
me these writers that can't write.
Um, as we started, me and
David who like kind of are,
are doing this and largely in the
past six months, just David, um,
shout out to him is we would basically
be the first line of editing on that first
real piece for people who
pass the test project.
That's why I gave my that little
rant right now before this.
As opposed to what, As opposed to the
strategist just being the editor themselves
and that is straight employee
hours, human time.
There's no escaping that.
Like yes, we have an extra person, David,
that can like edit before the strategist
edits to hopefully and,
and give more feedback.
Strategist just trying
to like get stuff done.
Right. Um, but he can like coach
What? Yeah. And what is, what is he looking
for or what are you looking for in that
first pass of an edit on a new writer?
Same thing. I mean we're looking
for that same thing is,
well first it's the questionnaire and
the questionnaire is were they able to,
So side note.
For people that don't know this, basically
every single one of our pieces is based
on an interview with someone in the
client organization that knows about the
product, knows how it compares in the
context of that keyword or whatever, right?
So the accounting software, there'd be
someone on marketing or product that can
speak to all the key reasons
why, you know, this,
their accounting software
is like the best or whatever.
And that's an essential part of our,
our, so the first thing we're looking for is
in the questionnaire, could they take
that interview and maybe some of our kickoff
call recordings actually now that I think
about it and pick the right pain points,
pick the right, like differentiators
present the intro in the right way,
have the structure of
the outline correct.
And that's like big thing number one,
it's like an expanded version of the test
project. There's evidence by that
point cuz they pass the test project,
there's evidence that they probably
can, but they can't always.
Maybe the test project
was too easy, I don't know.
And so that's first thing.
And then when they get to the, so
then there's back and forth on that.
The strategist is the expert,
not David or me on that product.
And so they'll add some feedback, No,
no, this feature actually is this side note
and you need to emphasize this
other thing and blah, blah blah.
So they'll add feedback there.
Um, and then, uh, David will, will kind
of like coach with them and say, Hey, like,
you know, the way you're presenting
this, we don't really write like this.
So often, often the strategist is giving
more of the kind of like content product
feedback.
And David is trying to filter out for
the strategist, the writing feedback.
People come in with their old bad habits
and the story type intro and stuff we
don't do. And, and then we're
like, we don't really do this.
You know, you can say it in this other
way, like, isn't this clear or et cetera.
Um, and then all of that
continues in the draft stage.
And, and that honestly, I, I think he
does that now for multiple pieces and that
transition out of when the, a new writer
graduates from having David be the writer
to just like working directly
with strategist, that's variable.
I think at least he does two pieces and
you start to see it like the ones that are
good immediately you're
like, this is awesome.
And the strategist on our side are like,
Can I have them for all of my pieces?
I actually have this other account
where I'd like to use 'em as well.
Cause like once you find a good
writer, anyone wants 'em, right?
Um, and, and it starts to become clear
and then they just start working with a
strategist, you know, on a particular
account, become an expert there and things go
well. And then the other ones, you know,
there's just more calls, more feedback,
more back and forth and you know,
if the feedback's given via video,
more video and then they either
are improving and continue or it just,
we hit a wall and we're like,
we gave it a good shot.
Um, you know, and we, and
we go our separate ways.
And that is, you know, again,
symbolic of this big theme of,
of this video and our opinion on this
matter, which is you can't escape if you want
to hire good writers that impress
you and wow you and are amazing.
And we have those, we have
a team full of those.
Our team is amazing.
Um, you, you can't escape the level
of work and coaching and, and,
and David now has made it into processes.
But you know, you, you started off talking
about how we used to do things back in
the day. I mean, just back when it
was just like me on the writing side.
Um, and by the way, the reason Benji's
asking me this is like our two role splits
is that I handle a lot of this writing
and hiring writers and editing.
I just remember like so many like Zoom
calls and phone calls and like hours,
just like walking through how we structure
a piece and like helping them through it
and saying, What about this?
It sounds like what you're saying is this
and we need to talk about it in this way.
Over and over again.
And a lot of those were for writers
that didn't end up working out.
And that's just like time I spent.
But a lot of them were also
for writers that did work out.
And so it's time well
spent in that regard.
Those, those human hours, we can't,
I don't know of a way to escape them.
Yeah. I think a key point that you just
brought up too is not building processes
too early. I, I think that's just a general
business thing that we've learned is
in, in the beginning we tried to build
a whole hiring process and there was just so
much that we didn't know about how
we wanted to hire and what worked.
Yeah. And it was only once
you figured out, okay,
we're starting to see some
patterns in what's working,
then building process around that.
Same with the training stuff, building,
building the training processes and trying
to figure out how to train people.
Like I, I remember in the very beginning
of our business building a whole like,
training manual that was never used because
we also didn't know what we were doing
back then. And you had to learn through
trial and error what worked and what didn't
work. And only once you figured out
what worked and the process was somewhat
repeatable, do you build
the actual process around it?
Yeah. Yeah.
That's a good, that's
a good general takeaway.
And I think what I've seen in, in other
aspects when we've sort of said these
things publicly and people give us feedback
and send us emails is people have like
analysis paralysis.
Like they may watch this and
be like, Okay, so you know, I,
I gotta get this application.
I gotta figure out what
my test project is.
I gotta do all this stuff.
Like, that's true,
but I wouldn't stress too
hard about these things.
Like start somewhere and then
you can see what's happening.
Oh, okay, these, this is working,
I'm filtering, Well it's working.
And then if not, you get an idea and
just test it and, and then go with the idea.
Like, none of this is set in stone.
You can change an application
form pretty easily.
So test project, don't think too hard.
It's like, get an example that is very
close to what you asked them to do day to
day. Like that.
How can that be that hard?
Cause you're, it's by definition
is day-to-day work.
Um, and just put it on there.
Cause I went through a bunch of test
samples and some of 'em were harder than
others, but like, you
know, it still filters.
And then for the other writing sample,
like, just pick a question and you just keep
going and you come up
with an idea like, Huh,
I wonder if this thing would do it
and iterate that as fast as possible.
Um, and, and keep trying that way.
What, what
Would you say if the person hiring wasn't
a writer or didn't have the skill set?
Because we've had a couple people
ask that, Well, I need, I, yeah,
I need to hire a writer, but I'm not the
one who can give this kind of feedback to
the writers and train them
and do that kind of stuff.
I mean, I don't know if anyone's gonna
want to hear this answer, but like,
good luck is my answer.
Like, how, how, how are you supposed to,
how are you and I supposed to find a good
coder? We don't, we
don't know how to code.
Yeah.
And side note, we have wasted thousands
of dollars basically being scammed by
coders who didn't do anything in hindsight
as told to us by coders that did work
out. Um, shout out to Chris Landon.
He'll probably never watch this video,
but like, he was like, Guys, this,
they didn't do anything.
Like, none of this is useful.
And I was like, What? We
said so much money on this.
Uh, anyway, I I think that's the same
is like you, you need to filter for it also,
if you're not a writer and
you can't filter for them,
you have no business being
like, all these writers suck.
It's like, well then like if
you can't give feedback, how are,
how are you gonna say that?
So if you think that
you know that they suck,
then that means you can give some
feedback or do some filtering.
Um, so I, yeah, like maybe a big theme
of this is like there's no shortcuts,
at least that we have found Yeah.
To this. I think that's a big
theme in just all of business.
There's no shortcuts. Yeah.
The other thing that we have
yet to talk about is, uh,
this little like humorous analysis
that you and I did beforehand,
which is in terms of the background
and experience, um,
we labeled like I think eight of our
content strategists, content strategists,
someone who, everyone started off as
a writer and they both had the interest and
abilities to then extend on to just like
managing our process and applying it to
accounts. So including like picking
keywords, doing the analytics,
managing the client, like all that.
Right. And now they're writing or editing
for their accounts as their choice.
And it was an even four, four split of
active content strategists between who was
had preexisting, like significant preexisting
content marketing writing experience
and who did not.
So examples of like did not had, it
is like obvious they were like writing for
clients or they had clients they
doing like, you know, content seo,
blog type writing before
the ones that did not,
it goes ranges anywhere from like
pretty soon outta college, you know,
had random samples, you know, worked
in what restaurant industry in like domain
trading... at a bank.
Like people without like very little
like professional writing experience.
Um,
They've worked out at the same clip.
I mean, at least in our
current active strategist,
the same amount of them had like basically
no content marketing writing experience
as those that did.
And so we were like,
what do we make of this?
And I think the answer is,
we seem grow and convert.
We seem to be looking for and filtering
for characteristics that I was talking
about. Like understand the value
propositions, differentiators,
comparative advantages of a product,
features the benefits product,
and be able to communicate that and
write that in a compelling, persuasive,
So you can even argue salesy way and have
really clear thought and write it clearly
and write clearly, were, that seems
to not be a function of whether they're a
content marketing like
blog or, or writer or not.
They, some that are also have worked out,
some that have not also have worked out.
And those seem to be, you know, it's like
just this other trait behind the scenes.
What we're working on is how do we use
that to our advantage to find more good team
members faster?
We're talking about like other
places we can put the application.
Do we look in colleges?
Like where else can we do it?
And, and, and so that's something
that we're still ongoing and it,
it honestly keeps me up at night
where I like think about this.
I'm like, okay, like there's, there's
clearly like when we find someone, you know,
um, not in a startup hub like
in America and they're like,
they did something completely unrelated,
but like someone in our team knew them and
thought that they would be
good or whatever, which is,
has worked out really
well for us by the way.
It makes me think like, my goodness, there
must be tons of these people around that
are working in other jobs that are just,
are smart and they have clarity of thought
and they can communicate well and they
can understand these products and features
and they would probably
love to work here.
How do we find them?
Like, hello, like we exist.
Please find us and, and, and we can have
a good working relationship and probably
you would love our job
cause it's amazing.
Uh, so that's something
that we're still working on.
But that's something that
to, to keep in mind.
Again, that may or may
not be true for you.
Maybe you're asking for a type of writing
that existing content marketers do very
well. And so maybe for you it's,
you, you do want that experience.
But it's, that was a huge aha for us.
Cause people without a lot of experience,
um, have worked out really well.
But it's not exclusive to them.
I mean, existing content marketers
that just don't have bad habits,
have good habits and are smart.
Like they also have worked out.
So
Yeah. And I think the key thing
there is just training then,
because we're saying that people
without experience Yeah.
And people with, well I I I think the
mistake that companies often make is that you
assume if someone has experience that
they're gonna come in and be immediately
successful at
The role. Right.
But as we talked about, they
may come in with bad habits.
That's not what you want from a writer.
Yeah. And so just from what we've learned
overall is just you need to train
everyone because we have a specific
process and way that we want things done.
And if you're not communicating how you
want things done and constantly making sure
everyone's following the same process,
then everyone's gonna be doing things in a
slightly different way and
it's not really gonna work out.
And what we're saying here instead
is there needs to be a big, even,
even after you find the right people,
there needs to be a big focus on training
them because you need to train
them in the way that you,
you need things done for your business.
And I feel like that's where a lot of
businesses make a mistake is they don't
spend, even if they
find the right person,
they don't spend time afterwards making
sure that this person's gonna be successful
in the role. Yeah. And so maybe
for the last five or so minutes,
we just kind of want to talk through
what we do on the training side.
And I know there's no real
big process around it,
but I think even just kind of describing
some of the back and forth,
and I don't know if you have
a few people in mind that it,
without naming names of
just where they started and,
and kind of the iterations
that they had to go through.
Yeah. So in terms of the, the, the
flow, what Benji's talking about is,
we're talking about the last
thing I was talking about, right?
So in the training, like forget the
right test project, forget, you know,
the things in the application.
It's like now when they're writing, they're
good enough to be like writing real
client pieces with us.
The feedback, um, that that
we give them, whew, five minutes.
Only five minutes.
Like there's just so
much that we've done.
You
Can go over a little if you want.
But
Yeah, I think the, the first thing, um,
that we haven't mentioned that I think is
appropriate here is this clarity of
thought that Olivia and I keep, have,
have gone back to for years, which
is we realized our actual writing,
like putting like the choice of words,
our, I don't know what we say our desire
there, like our, our goal, like what
we're looking for there is actually very
simple writing, non flowery writing.
And people have different like
quirks and tendencies and all.
And so we don't care about things like
people discuss on Twitter's nonsense,
like Oxford comma and like all this
like weird like writing, like who cares?
You're trying to like show up for
content marketing, like SEO focused.
You're trying show up for a
keyword and sell your product.
Like who cares about Oxford commas
and nonsense like that, right?
So what we're looking for
is clarity of thought.
Forget selling even for a second.
If I just had you listen to a 15 minute
YouTube video on how a car engine works,
like how good could you then write two
paragraphs that summarize it to someone who
doesn't know how car engine works?
That that like, that's
just clarity of thought.
Like can they understand it?
And that's something that Olivia
and I have talked about a lot,
lot over the years of like, oh
wow, it's not really about writing.
And that's why I think
people who haven't done it,
people who started off doing surfing
and they worked at bank and they worked at a
restaurant, like that's why they've
worked out with us because they can have
clarity of thought. It's
not about writing experience.
It's like, can they just communicate
things to you clearly?
Right? Um, and then yes, on paper, right?
Like not just verbally.
And so that is the number one thing.
And so the coaching and feedback
we give there is, you know, they,
they watch this video or whatever with
some product manager that's explaining some
feature that correlates with
the keyword we're going after.
And then they create the outline and
you see some issues with that thought
structure in the outline and, and you
give them feedback and it's like by video or
whatever and then maybe they're
trying to write it and then you,
I've gotten on looms or videos
and been like, no, you see,
like we're talking about arguments
and order and reasoning.
That's a huge part of the feedback I've
given like folks of the team all the time.
Like why would you mention that first
the reader has is not with you yet?
Like first this leads to that
leads to this, leads to that.
Like just that, like getting
them to think through that.
It's a huge part of it.
Um, and then the second
bucket is then the writing,
Like writing that without fluff.
And I think a lot of people,
a lot of writers I've noticed,
and at least in our process and work
often the questionnaire and the outline has
been awesome. And we're
like, this is great.
Like clarity of thought is there, the
order of arguments, everything flows.
You're like, this is really compelling.
And then you get a piece
back and you're like,
What the hell just happened
to that outline?
Like what is this?
Like, it just turns into all kinds of
nonsenses added and I think a lot of people
felt like the outline wasn't good
enough cause what they're used to,
what clients want, what they think is
good writing is like flowery and there's
extra stuff and all this stuff.
And were like, no, like just clear, concise,
say it in as few words as possible,
as clearly as possible.
So those, maybe the two buckets of coaching
is getting that clarity and then the,
you know, clarity of thought
and then writing it without,
in as fewer words as possible.
I'd say maybe a third one as I'm thinking
through this that you can add in is
somewhat in there. Like
kind of the next step is
compelling sales copy because we do
bottom of the funnel type blog posts.
People have equated it.
David himself that I talked about
in this video has said like, you know,
part of what we're doing is
not really content marking,
it's like sales copywriting because
our posts are just selling our client's
products. Cause that's
what converts really well.
And so there is a bit
of an art to that, right?
Is you wanna sell and be direct without
and be compelling without being too over
the top, you know?
And like, you know, you read something
that's a little too salesy, you're like, Oh,
they're trying like way too hard to sell
me this like window cleaning service or
something like, and so there's some art
form to that and that's maybe the like the
second tier level.
But the, the biggest things we
coach on is that clarity of thought.
Can you just like break down the topic
and explain how that car engine works well?
Um, and then the second one is, and
do it without a bunch of like cruft in the
writing.
I, I mean I think we went through
pretty much everything.
Do you, do you wanna summarize just kind
of what we went through in terms of the
process?
Yeah, I think if you're looking
to hire writers in particular,
if you've been frustrated
at it, a few key big themes.
Number one in our experience, maybe
some other people have solved this without
work. It takes a lot of work,
it takes a lot of effort.
You need to be closely
monitoring and editing it.
Number two, have multiple steps of filtering
applicants by having them do exactly
or as close to exactly as what you're
gonna want them to do in the real job as
possible in the application process.
And if you're asking 'em to do more than
just like 10 minutes in the application
form, pay them for that
work paid test project.
And then the next theme is then
when they're, even after that,
as they're getting up to speed, until
they've just proven themselves as like,
outstanding. If you can afford it,
if you have the time, the resources,
the employees to do this, have people
like carefully coaching and giving feedback
on these pieces. It takes time.