Why are good blog post writers so hard to find?

Writing good is hard.

CEOs are more likely to let out a little sigh and agree with that last sentence rather than point out its mistakes. (There are two of them. Did you see them? If you didn’t, this article is for you.)

Writing well is difficult for many managers and directors. Often they’re experts in their field, but lack the skills to communicate that expertise to an audience that doesn’t speak their language. We decipher their emails by cracking long codes of acronyms like PHPER, R&D, SEO, PIO, EOC and struggle to translate their doctoral-thesis-as-annual-report with marketing gobbledygook like “optimization and delayering,” “transition open-source communities” and “incubate holistic mindshare.”

Then, disaster strikes! The company decides to start a blog, and who’s on deck for four posts a month? Hopefully not the guy who wants to “implement extensible schemas.”

Best case scenario, the CEO really loves writing blog posts, and cranks one out every week. Worst case scenario (i.e. reality), the CFO is contributing, and his first post reads more like a secret state department communique or one of those emails from the exiled Nigerian prince who needs an American bank account to hold his $100 million.

But the CEO is too busy leading the company, and his or her time is worth thousands of dollars per hour. If the CEO has time to write weekly blog posts, start unloading your stock. And if the CFO wants to contribute, publish his posts on Friday night when no one is looking.

Why is it so difficult for many people to write great blog posts? Because (choose one or more of the following):

1) There’s an emergency meeting with shareholders after lunch.
2) The merger isn’t final yet.
3) There hasn’t been a need to write an actual letter in four years.
4) An interior designer chose all the books in the library.
5) That MBA program only required oral presentations.
6) Kids these days don’t know anything.

But the real issue here isn’t why the screen is blank. Our challenge is how to move the blinking cursor with a set of short words and sentences that convey a valuable idea to readers. An idea that’s thoughtful, concise, and even amusing.

There’s a reason you hired a CFO with a degree in accounting and several years of experience, and not a college dropout. There’s a reason your HR director has advanced degrees in psychology, and isn’t some woman you found at a McDonald’s who’s willing to work for $7.50 an hour. And there’s a reason your IT director has a savant-like knowledge of computers, and not your nephew who’s still using Windows XP Professional.

They’re professionals. They’re good at what they do, and they know how to do it right. Your CFO knows the difference between profit versus gross margin, your HR director knows all the EEOC laws that will keep you from being sued, and your IT director knows how to keep your networks up and running.

The same reason you hired those people is the reason you need a writer who knows that “writing well is difficult.” You want someone who understands interesting writing, can avoid grammar and punctuation problems, and creates the right kind of copy to keep readers and customers returning to your blogs.

There really aren’t that many good writers out there. And if you have any working for you, chances are they’re doing something more important. So you need to go outside the company.

But you’re not going to find that person on Craig’s List for $5. The best writers are trained professionals who understand language and the written word. They can take the complex ideas your subject matter experts have, and put them into simple language your customers can understand. And they do it well.

At Professional Blog Service, we write great blog posts by interviewing clients personally. We extract the most interesting and valuable bits of information to translate a manager’s passion for the idea into a message that’s clear and understandable, complete with verb-subject agreement, and no offers from the Nigerian prince or secret foreign service codes.

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