Meet Scott Flood
Scott Flood established Scott Flood Writing in 1995 after 13 years with advertising agencies in Chicago and Indianapolis. The Chicago native is a frequent author on copywriting and marketing topics for business websites and publications, has authored two books of local interest, and is also the author of 100 Years: The Story of the Western States Machine Company.
An active community volunteer, Scott has served on the School Board for the Plainfield Community School Corporation since 2000, was honored as Indiana’s outstanding local school board member in 2021, and named Hendricks County Leader of the Year in 2007 by Leadership Hendricks County. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Communications & Theatre Arts from St. Joseph’s College.
Isn’t business writing supposed to be grammatical?
That’s one of the great misconceptions. Let me step back and say that I absolutely love and adore English teachers. They’re amazing people and anybody who can get bored sophomores to get interested in literature and poetry deserves my praise. But one of the unfortunate things that comes out of English class is that people learn a particular way to write. They learn the highly grammatical academic style of writing, which is used nowhere but the academic world. When you get out into the business world, really what’s far more effective is to communicate in a more informal way, particularly a very conversational way. So I always advocate for conversational copy.
Is there a simple way to tell that something I’ve written is conversational?
I think the easiest way to do it is to read it out loud. Once we get out of grade school, we don’t often read what we write out loud. But it’s good practice because if you pick up something that you’ve written and you read it out loud, or even let’s just say it’s a paragraph from you’re writing a blog post and you’re not sure if it’s doing a good job, read that paragraph out loud.
If you find it’s easy to read it out loud, if you find that everything comes easily, you’ve probably done it great. But if you find yourself stumbling or pausing or running out of breath, you probably need to rewrite. It’s probably too complex for the situation. That’s the easiest trick I can give people.
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The Smarter Strategy for Selecting Suppliers
Transcript
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lished Scott Flood Writing in:nity School Corporation since:Scott, welcome to the show!
[:[:[:The reality is we, and, and let me step back and say that I absolutely love and adore English teachers. They're amazing people and anybody who can get bored sophomores to, to get interested in, in literature and poetry deserves my praise. But one of the unfortunate things that comes out of English class is that people learn a particular way to write. They learn the highly grammatical academic style of writing, which is used nowhere but the academic world. When you get out into the business world, really what's far more effective is to communicate in a more informal way, particularly a very conversational way. So I always advocate for conversational copy.
[:[:And I always give as proof of that, if you read a novel and then go see a movie that was based on that novel, a character comes on and they say something and it's like, wait, he's not supposed to sound like that. And that's because you've already heard that voice. So whenever you pick up a piece of copy, whether it's a, it's a blog post, whether it's a direct mail solicitation, whether it's a brochure, you're hearing a voice in your head. And when the copy is conversational, it's a lot easier to understand what that voice is telling you.
[:[:[:[:[:[:If you find it's easy to read it out loud, if you find that everything comes easily, you've probably done a great. But if you find yourself stumbling or pausing or running out of breath, you probably need to rewrite. It's probably too complex for the situation. That's the easiest trick I can give people.
[:[:[:[:We've all been to websites that you wade through what they have on there and try to understand. And then you think of people like Apple, for example, or Southwest. Who in their writing, it's all very casual. It's they act almost as if they've known you your whole life and they're a good friend of yours.
And that's the tone that they take. I think that's part of the reason why those companies appeal to people.
[:[:So I, I realized that not all companies are as good at that where Apple does a great job. You turn on your iPhone for the first time and it gently takes you through everything. Microsoft tries to be quite as friendly and yet it just does not come through. Yeah. It's very, you can see the differentiation very clearly.
[:[:[:[:I had, I had some bosses who very much wanted to have proteges, definitely wanted to create younger versions of themselves. And every time I did these things that really weren't my passion, but were somebody else's, I got stressed. I got frustrated. I, I can remember coming home from work on Friday and thinking, "Oh God, I got to go back on Monday again."
And somewhere along the way, I just figured out that I needed to do what I enjoyed the way that I enjoyed it. And the more I focused on doing that, the happier I was. I wish I had discovered it a long time because I went through an awful lot of stress and positions I probably shouldn't have been in. I think that old adage about following your heart really is, is quite accurate.
[:[:I'm at the point now where I'll get a call from someone who will be doing a project and it just doesn't sound right. And I'll politely say, you know, I don't think I'm the right person for this. I'll try to recommend someone else, but I really try to stay focused on the things I do best. And, you know, in the marketing sphere, it can encompass so many different things.
And so people will say, well, can you handle our social media analytics or can you handle it? And could I do those things? Yes. Would I wake up in the morning excited about doing those things? No, but I still consider myself fortunate because I love to write and I get to wake up every morning and put words on paper and people actually pay me for it. I consider myself very lucky.
[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:I think it's, it's kind of similar to people hiring house cleaning help and then cleaning up the house before the house cleaning help gets there so that they won't feel embarrassed. I, I never judge when people hand me a piece of something they've written. I never judge and say, Oh, they're a terrible writer.
I realized they're probably not a professional, but as long as they get the thoughts down, I can take what they've given me and make it even better and put them in the best light.
[:So yeah, I can definitely have a huge appreciation for that. Thank you for sharing that. I know you've got kind of a giveaway or a resource guide to share with our listeners.
[:com. And it's, it's on the front page there. And it's just, it's a guide to help hire and evaluate freelance suppliers. So many people will have a need once in a while for a graphic designer or possibly a web designer or a writer, and they're not always sure what to look for when they're hiring them.
So I've, I've taken what I've been through in my career and, and just put together seven simple steps, seven things to look at that will help you make a better choice. And most important, make choices for the right reasons. Yeah. When people go to hire writers and designers, they'll, they'll look at portfolio pieces and they'll say, wow, that's really cool. That's great looking. But they never ask the really important question, which is, did it work? Mm-Hmm. , because when you're doing work for client, the goal is to achieve some business objective, and you wanna make sure that it does. So it, it helps kind of look at the myths of what people look at and versus what they really should be looking at.
So yeah, that's, that's available. Also on my website and my LinkedIn page, I have got a ton of content on a variety of topics about writing and marketing and anybody who's just looking for ideas or looking for some help is bound to find something they're looking for there.
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