TA #107: 🌭 How to Avoid Writing by Committee: A 7-Step Guide + Therapy Session; Brilliant Creative on a Tiny Budget

Hey, you. You're doing great. [Click here to read this on the web](. [Ann Handley's biweekly/fortnightly newsletter, "Total Annarchy"]( [Ann in Witness Protection as Ted Lasso](?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=OZZuR&awt_m=3fnmetdjXJUyQvK) Image: [Witness Protection]( (w/ a tiny Mitch Joel) Welcome to the 107th issue of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. I'm glad you're here. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you need your own: [Subscribe here](. Boston, Sunday, February 27, 2022 Hi, Sassafras. Leonardo* emailed recently to tell me about his co-worker who had internally circulated the draft of an exec's Twitter bio. (*Leonardo isn't his real name. I enrolled him in my Writer's Witness Protection Program to conceal his identity. Comes with a new passport and Ted Lasso moustache.) He likes his job, Leonardo said. But a problem is that everything the Marketing team produces is written by the entire group. Everything is written by committee. The Twitter bio, for example. It should've been straightforward... but nosiree,Ted: The feedback was swift and harsh. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone scrambled to voice it. "You'd think she was defending a thesis in our team meeting, haha!" he wrote. Even through email (and with his voice distorted to protect his identity...) I felt the pain in his "haha." How can we avoid Writing By Committee? * * * I call this kind of writing Hot Dog Writing: Extruded through so many Messaging Machines and Opinionators and Cogitators that you can't tell what it was originally made of. (Hoofs? Intestines? Who knows?) We talked about this a few weeks ago when I shared how Kristina Halvorson [bypassed the Hot Dog vendor on the corner]( and instead made her own... uh... sausage. But then Leonardo and a few others (Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo) wrote to ask yeah but how do we avoid the Hot Dog vendor when we aren't the boss...? If your writing is subject to colleague or client approvals ("The Committee"), here's some advice to make the process useful (and permanently unplug that Hot Dog Messaging Machine): ➡️ 1. Reinforce the Big 3. Be sure The Committee understands the 1) intent, 2) goal, and (most importantly!) 3) who this is for. The biggest Committee problems spring from a lack of clarity on the Big 3. So The Committee reviews a piece without context. They give feedback on something they personally like or don't like. ("I don't like that word.") ➡️ 2. Use your tone of voice guide as your spotter—there to catch you, preventing a total face-plant. Agreeing on a set of writing and voice guidelines before any work begins will keep everyone on the same page (literally). You might need to remind The Committee of your guide's specifics, especially if they aren't routinely tumbling on the mat with your brand voice as much as you are. ➡️ 3. Create a monster outline before you start writing. Stuff that outline full. More is better than less. Include the bones of the piece—but also the heart, lungs, central nervous system: The overall approach. Anecdotes. Stories. Examples. Ideas. Data you'll reference. Experts, influencers you'll quote. It can be ugly. A real monster. That's okay. The key organs are there if patched together, Frankenstein-style. ➡️ 4. Set clear expectations and a timeline for reviewers. You want to avoid a free-for-all that turns into a week-long Writing-by-Committee Festival. (The most un-fun festival of all time.) You set the terms: Who reviews what sections? What specifically do you need from each? For example: The Client or Marketing VP reviews the overall strategy. Legal gets a say in anything touchy related to compliance. Brand weighs in on approach. Your subject-matter expert reads through the technicalities of that complex thing you're writing about on page 2. Keep PR in the loop. (Because that's just a nice thing to do.) You let them know the hard deadline when the reviews need to be in: by end-of-day Wednesday, say. Not New Year's Eve. No exceptions. ➡️ 5. Seek an OK, not opinions. Please approve is likely to deliver far fewer festival-style edits than will please tell me if you have suggestions. ➡️ 6. Set expectations for the number of approval rounds. One or two is fine. Five? Get outta town, Gary from Legal. State it right up front: "Here's the plan, Committee Colleagues..." ➡️ 7. OWN YOUR ROLE. Uppercasing this. It's important: As much as you set expectations for others... communicate your own role in the review process, too. You might say: "I'll take your comments and incorporate them according to our tone of voice guidelines and strategy for this piece."* (*But maybe with a bit more warmth and good humor. This sentence sounds like I'm the stressed-out event planner trying to arrange enough boxed lunches for that Writing-By-Committee Festival. You can do better.) Doing so reinforces your expertise. It also fortifies the role of you—the brave and heroic writer (also good-looking)—as the ultimate owner of the piece. After all: It's YOUR peach on the line! 🍑 It kicks to the curb any arguments over specific word choice or phrasing. Which for most of us is the most painful and heartbreaking part of Hot Dog Writing. * * * Here are some things worth sharing this week: [How One Marketer Closed a $1M Contract in 4 Months Using Content]( [Webinar]. A case study on how an industrial packaging company (with the SEO-dream name "Industrial Packaging" LOL) used 3 blog posts, 2 landing pages, and 2 videos to close a million-dollar deal. Step-by-step... it's all here on March 15. [Reg. deets.]( [5 Examples of Smart Creative on a Minuscule Budget from a Surprising Source](. Pure genius from the unlikeliest of unlikely places. "[We tried to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest by making AI-generated captions]( Fun read about AI's limitations, opportunities, and a reminder that machines aren't nearly as funny as they think they are. (Yet.) THOUGHT FOR THE FORTNIGHT [Ann's tweet]( DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS I'm hijacking this week's Department of Shenanigans to share something different: the writing of writer-chef Olia Hercules, who was born in Kakhovka, Ukraine, and now lives in the UK. She writes of her homeland: When I think of home I think of giant sunflower heads, and a pink tomato the size of small grapefruit, with cracks in its sugary skin... everything was illuminated. [from [Mamushka: Recipes from Ukraine and Eastern Europe]( [h/t [Andrew Janjigian]( Olia's descriptions of Ukraine are beautiful, creative, inventive. I hope you find a bit of beauty in the week to come. LOVE LETTERS Shouts from around the internet. 💌 To the Thrifty Marketer for naming me [one of 10 experts to follow](. (They used the word "genius," technically. But that's way too generous.) 💌 To Lee Odden at TopRank for including my Valentine poem in his round-up of [what we love about marketing](. 💌 To Mat Zucker for including me in this piece on [creating momentum for your brand/business](. 💌 To Sandeep Mallya at 99signals for the [Everybody Writes love](. 💌 To Hal Koss for naming this newsletter you're holding as[one of the best in marketing](. 💌 To Johanna Rivard at Marketing Insider Group for including me in this list of [top 10 B2B marketers](. * * * Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness and generosity. Stay warm. Stay healthy. See you again on March 13. [Ann Handley]( P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, you can: 1) [buy a book](. 2) Get yourself some [$WORD coin](. (Read more about [creator coins here]( 3) Simply forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: [www.annhandley.com/newsletter](. SPECIAL THANKS to [AWeber]( for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy. If you are looking to up your email game, give them a shout. Share: [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Ann Handley is the author of [Everybody Writes]( and other [books.]( [Subscribe to this newsletter.]( Follow her elsewhere: Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 [Unsubscribe]( | [Change Subscriber Options](