In-house writer coaching

What in-house writer coaching is

In-house writer coaching is a standing fortnightly session between me and the one person in your business who writes the content, spent on the piece they are actually working on. Between sessions I edit their drafts with notes that explain the change, not just make it. Over three to six months the person becomes someone who can plan, write, publish and check a piece without help. On the pricing page this is the Content Coach.

It is not a writing course, and it is not me writing the content under their name. A course teaches principles and leaves the person to apply them alone; this applies them to Tuesday's blog post. If nobody in-house has the hours at all, coaching will not create them, and content production management is the honest alternative.

Who this is for

A business that has already given content to someone: the office manager who "is good at writing", the junior marketer, the owner's partner, the technician who volunteered. They have the time, or some of it, and the subject knowledge. What they lack is confidence, a method, and someone to tell them whether a piece is good before it is public. Many small businesses run content this way, and it works when the person is supported.

It is not for a business where the writer is the owner and the writing is speeches, letters and the company's public voice; that is executive writing coaching, which is shaped differently. If the whole team writes, content team coaching covers two to five people. And if you want the edits without the teaching, plain copyediting is cheaper.

What goes in it

The fortnightly session. Fifty minutes on video, every second week, on the same day. We open the piece they are writing and work on it together: what the reader needs, what the first two sentences should say, what to cut, where it goes on the site, what the title and description should be. They leave with the piece better and with the reason it is better.

Edits between sessions. Up to four drafts a month, returned within two working days with tracked changes and short margin notes. The notes say why: "this paragraph carries no fact, cut or replace" rather than just a deletion. By month three the notes get shorter because the drafts arrive cleaner.

A method they keep. Over the first month we build a one-page checklist for their pieces: the question the piece answers, the reader, the answer in the first two sentences, the headings, the links, the check on a phone. It is theirs, written in their words, and it is what they use when the coaching ends.

The publishing side. Coaching covers entering the piece into the website and checking it, not only the writing, because a good draft that sits unpublished has not helped anyone. If they need a half day on the system itself, CMS training is added once.

A monthly note to you. Three or four sentences to the owner or manager: what was published, what the person is now doing unaided, and what still needs work. The person sees it too.

What you get

Published pieces. Typically two to four a month from the person being coached, live on the site, from the first month. Coaching is done on real work, so the work exists.

A capable person. Within three to six months, someone who can take a subject from an idea to a checked, published page, with a written checklist and a record of every edit they have received.

The edit record. Every draft and its returned edit, filed, so a new hire later can read how the pieces were improved and why.

The monthly note. One short email to you each month, and an end-of-coaching note saying what the person can now do and what, if anything, they should still send out.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A twenty-person accounting firm has asked its office coordinator to write two blog posts a month and update the service pages. She writes well but takes a week per post, second-guesses every sentence, and the partners rewrite the results, so nothing has been published in four months.

The first session takes the draft she has, a post about a change to small-business tax filing, and cuts it from 1,800 words to 900 by removing everything that does not answer the question in the title. The answer moves to the first two sentences. The second session builds her checklist and settles with the partners, in writing, that one named partner reviews for accuracy only and has three working days to do it. Over four months she publishes eleven posts and rewrites six service pages. Her drafts go from four rounds of edits to one. In month five the sessions drop to monthly, and in month six they stop, with the checklist, the edit record and a note to the partners saying she no longer needs them.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. With you and the person who writes. What they are asked to produce, what is getting in the way, and what they want to be able to do. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. The monthly band and what it includes, agreed before the first session.
3. The first session. A real piece, worked on together, and the fortnightly day fixed.
4. The rhythm. A session every second week, drafts edited between, a note to you each month.
5. Stepping down. When the drafts arrive clean, sessions go monthly, then stop. I say when, and you can stop earlier with a month's notice.

What it costs

The pricing page shows the published band for the Content Coach: $500 to $1,200 CAD per month, fixed, agreed in writing. Where you sit in the band depends on the number of drafts edited between sessions and whether the sessions are fortnightly or weekly at the start. There is no minimum term beyond the first two months, and the aim is for it to end.

What happens next

When the coaching ends, most businesses keep monthly reporting so the person can see what their pieces are doing. If the person writes well but the company still sounds like five different people, the next document is a set of brand voice guidelines. And if they are now producing more than they can plan, a content calendar gives the output a shape.