Writing is strategy, not decoration

We were in a team meeting refining our workshops recently, and I said, "Writing is strategy." Now, understand that I sometimes say things before I think about them. But I have thought about that all week since. Is writing an articulation of strategy, or is it strategy embodied by our actions?

Professional services firms have a feedback loop. Marketing creates leads, which creates new business, which creates sharper marketing in the form of case studies, insights, etc.

Writing (strategy) gets sharper with each turn of the loop, like the old crank pencil sharpeners in elementary schools.

I spoke with a prospect in the financial services industry recently. Their marketing team was working independently of the sales team, which was independent of the product delivery team. Each one was producing content, but there was no strategic center point, so the language became more and more diluted. They thought AI was the problem, but the high-output writing was a magnifier.

At this point, you might argue that, of course, writing can also be decoration. Fluff, filler, padding. It can be a signal that we don't want to think, but want to fit in with everyone else in the market. What it's really doing is highlighting the reality that there isn't a clear strategy, just the hope that one project might lead to the next. It's highlighting your brand-expertise gap.

So ask yourself: is your writing creating ever-tightening concentric circles around your ideal customer, or are you doodling in the margins?

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