383: The Art of Conversational Copy- with Scott Flood

[00:00:00] Announcer: We've all heard it before. It's who you know. Welcome to Social Capital, a weekly podcast that dives into social relationships and why the investment you put into them is so important. Your host, Lori Highby, will connect with industry leading professionals and dive into their networking experiences and expert advice.

[00:00:18] Lori Highby: Hey everybody, Lori Highby here. Welcome to the Social Capital Podcast. Our show notes are found at socialcapitalpodcast. com. To you, the listener, I want you to know that I appreciate you and I'm thrilled to have you here for another episode. If there's ever anything that I can do to support you, let's connect. Reach out. LinkedIn is the channel that you'll find me most active on. To search for Lori Highby, you can simply click the follow button as I post daily information about marketing strategy, tips, all podcast episodes, and upcoming events. If you'd like to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection request that references Social Capital.

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The topic of relationships ties in very closely with marketing and creating content. That's why I'm bringing on marketing experts with a variety of backgrounds for you to learn and grow from. Today's guest is Scott Flood. Scott established Scott Flood Writing in 1995 after 13 years of 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 One Hundred 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's of Science in Communications and Theatre Arts from St. Joseph College.

Scott, welcome to the show!

[00:02:09] Scott Flood: Thank you, thanks for having me. It's nice to be here.

[00:02:12] Lori Highby: Absolutely. I know we've got some common ground. We both wrote a chapter in a book, so let's talk about doing some writing here. So, Isn't business writing supposed to be grammatical?

[00:02:27] Scott Flood: Ah, that's, that's one of the, the, the great misconceptions.

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.

[00:03:12] Lori Highby: Yeah, I agree with that. And I find that oftentimes whenever I have interns that are still in school, or those that are just about to graduate or just have graduated, I have to re teach them how to write.

[00:03:30] Scott Flood: It's very true. And it's important whether whether you're talking about print writing, whether you're talking about blog writing, because when people read copy, One thing that people aren't really conscious of is that they, they really hear it in their heads.

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.

[00:04:14] Lori Highby: Yeah, yeah, I can definitely understand that. So what about when we're writing to CEOs or top executives? Shouldn't we still have a more formal approach to that kind of messaging?

[00:04:28] Scott Flood: And that's, that's another, another misconception. People assume that, that top executives and people like that are brilliant and well read and appreciate things that are formal when in fact, most CEOs I've known are more comfortable with things that are written to be very casual, very quick. And quick is important because they're busy people and they don't have time to labor through something. They want to know what they need to know quickly they want to know what they have to do, and they want to move forward from there. And the easier you make it on them, the more they'll appreciate you.

[00:05:02] Lori Highby: Yep, that's a KISS method, right? Keep it short and simple.

[00:05:05] Scott Flood: Exactly.

[00:05:07] Lori Highby: Is there a simple way to tell that something I've written is conversational?

[00:05:12] Scott Flood: 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 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.

[00:05:50] Lori Highby: Yeah, I love that. Actually, I remember when I was in grad school, and I was working on a paper with you know, a couple other group members, and I was trying to find an easy way to give some constructive feedback to one of the folks in my group to help him just be a better writer, and I asked him to read out loud his portion of the paper that he wrote, and he learned right away as he was listening to himself read it that it definitely needed to be cleaned up quite a bit. So, I'm a huge fan of that approach.

[00:06:23] Scott Flood: Definitely, and, and really it's all about is a writer, I love nothing more than to write a long paragraph and put together a series of long paragraphs, but today people don't have time for long readings. So you want to make it as simple and as basic as you possibly can.

[00:06:39] Lori Highby: Yeah. Make it easy, easy to consume. Digestible bite sized pieces of content are definitely easier to take in than big heavy stuff right now.

[00:06:50] Scott Flood: And it's friendlier, too. When you're speaking conversationally, you feel like you're speaking at a one to one level versus having some huge corporation talking to you.

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.

[00:07:22] Lori Highby: Yeah, absolutely. I can definitely see how their simple approach makes it easier to engage with that, that customer that they're trying to get in front of.

[00:07:32] Scott Flood: And as someone who just bought a new computer and set it up and discovered five minutes ago that I had failed to load Zoom on it.

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.

[00:07:57] Lori Highby: Yep. Yep. Yeah. I feel comfortable setting up my own Apple devices, whereas Microsoft, it could be more that I'm not familiar with that, but it's not a, it requires a little bit more brain power.

[00:08:09] Scott Flood: And they try to sound friendly, but it sounds forced where Apple does it quite naturally.

[00:08:15] Lori Highby: Mm hmm. Yep. So we're going to switch and have some fun conversations here. Let's let's go back to your 20 year old self. If you could tell yourself to do something more of less of, or differently with regards to your professional career, what would that be?

[00:08:31] Scott Flood: That's a pretty easy one because when I was in my twenties and into my thirties, I spent so much time trying to be the person that other people were telling me that, that I should be.

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.

[00:09:28] Lori Highby: Yeah. I, I agree with that. And for some reason when we're younger, we have reservations on doing that.

[00:09:36] Scott Flood: I think it's just, it's, you know, we don't have the confidence that comes with age. And, you know, there are a lot of things that come with age. Not all of them are pleasant, but one of the good ones I think is that you really get to know yourself well, and you can recognize situations.

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.

[00:10:32] Lori Highby: That's awesome. That's great. I'm going to give you the opportunity to interview me now. What's something that you'd like to ask me?

[00:10:39] Scott Flood: What do you find when you're working with other people who are developing content for you? What is your biggest frustration in trying to get things done the way you want them?

[00:10:49] Lori Highby: Oh, that's interesting. I think it's that, One, I would say sometimes I don't know how to clearly articulate the vision that I have for the piece. And so that said, as well, I feel that the right questions aren't being asked of me in order to help properly paint the picture so that they understand it.

[00:11:13] Scott Flood: That's pretty common, and especially if you're in a business that where there are a lot of other businesses that are similar or close to it. And because people will just assume you're like everybody else. But if you can give them that insight on where you want things to get, that's, that's one of the things I work very hard at, is just trying to dig from people what it is they really want to convey.

[00:11:36] Lori Highby: Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a challenge. And, and the irony here is that this is what we do for our clients, but sometimes I struggle, I struggle communicating that to, you know, my team for what I want for us sometimes. I can definitely do it for other, other clients, but that's, that's always the issue, right? That the shoemakers kids. Doesn't wear shoes situation.

[00:12:01] Scott Flood: Absolutely. And I think too, we're, we're all of us, no matter what we're doing, we're more critical of ourselves than anybody else is. And I think those, those two things just kind of, you know, you always want to put somebody else's work ahead of yours, and then when you do your own work, you find all the faults in it, instead of realizing that, hey, you're pretty good at what you do.

[00:12:20] Lori Highby: You know, I probably have to give myself a little bit more grace now that I hear you saying that.

[00:12:27] Scott Flood: Yeah, I think we all do.

[00:12:28] Lori Highby: Yeah, we all strive for perfection, but everyone's definition of perfection is different, so that's kind of funny how that pans out. Fun question. Thank you. You have any final words of wisdom that you'd like our listeners to hear from you?

[00:12:42] Scott Flood: I, I think that probably if I'm going to give you any wisdom, it's to help anybody who's trying to write something. People, people struggle when they write because they're so afraid of how they'll be perceived or they'll think that they won't look as smart as they are. I really think that the, the, the key is just sit down, get the thoughts out. You can always go back and polish them up. But as long as you're getting the message across quickly, I think that you're going to be successful. I think that people obsess a little too much when they're writing. And it's really funny when people write something that they know I'm going to read, they're terrified that I'm going to rip it apart.

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.

[00:13:45] Lori Highby: Yeah. Yeah. That is true. For some reason, it's People have these weird perceptions about that and the whole house cleaner analogy is... I've definitely done that and I'm sure I'm not the only one that's ever done that.

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.

[00:14:07] Scott Flood: I do have a guide, it's on the front page of my website, which is sfwriting. com, that's S as in Scott, F as in Flood, writing, like, What we do.

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.

[00:15:33] Lori Highby: Cool. All right. I'll include that in the show notes. Any other way that folks can get in touch with you if, if they're interested in reaching out?

[00:15:41] Scott Flood: The easiest way is by email. It's, I'm, I'm obsessive about email. I know it's still a little old fashioned for some, but scott at sfwriting. com is the easiest way to reach me. And If someone's wondering, you know, I have a project, would that be something that you might be interested in? I will always consider what people are need to have. And if it's right for me, I'll definitely look into it. If it's not right for me, I'm, I'm up front about saying that too. So that's the easiest way to reach me.

[00:16:12] Lori Highby: All right, we will include that information in the show notes as well. Scott, thank you so much for being on the show today.

[00:16:20] Scott Flood: Lori, thanks so much for having me. This was fun. I enjoyed the conversation.

[00:16:24] Lori Highby: Most definitely. Lots of value to our listeners. All right, this wraps up our episode of Social Capital. Huge thank you to Scott for taking the time to connect with us. If you have a burning marketing or relationship question, reach out. I'd love to answer it on the show. And as mentioned before, let's connect on LinkedIn. I'm looking forward to hearing from you shortly. I hope you enjoyed today's show. I encourage you to go out there and get noticed.

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