The B2B Writing Institute launches January 2020. Get your beta invitation early at https://b2bwritinginstitute.com/.
Howdy, friends.
Sorry it’s been so quiet here. But work’s been crazy. Plus the whole “two kids under two” thing. Though I guess that’s not technically true since the oldest is about 2.5 right now.
The main reason things have been crazy is that I finally hit (and flew past) that 6 figure mark in August. No one finds that harder to believe than me, and I’m the one billing it. And that’s because I’ve been in “head-down-and-deliver” mode since I came back to work from my second maternity leave in two years back in December 2018. And since we decided to try to buy a house, which is HAPPENING in the next month (!).
So, not only can I not believe I blew through that mile marker, but I can’t believe a year has passed since I had my second son.
(No, I’m not going to rename the blog. I’m going to take Dawn B.’s prophetic advice and say the blog is now about making five figures a month ;-).)
Anyway, I am copying a post I put out on LinkedIn to share the ongoing update of the B2B Writing Institute, my main personal project right now. Personal project sounds wrong, but what I mean by that is it’s not client work. So. My main business project? I don’t know.
But I got to thinking about how some people might respond to this idea of a B2B Writing Institute. And I had the question, “Why do we need an institute?” stuck in my mind. And I wanted to answer that. So, here’s why:
There are more than 1 billion websites on the Internet. And sometimes it feels like there are just as many opportunities to learn about writing, too.
No matter what your interests, there’s a website (or a few hundred) for you.
Freelance writing. Business writing. Conversion writing. White paper writing.
You name it, you can find it.
So where do you go when you don’t know what you’re looking for or what you need to know?
That’s why we need an Institute.
There are far too few places to go for neutral, trustworthy information about business writing. I know, because I’ve been writing since 2013, and I’ve exhausted all of those resources.
I’ve found some incredibly wise and generous people to learn from. And every penny I’ve spent on training for my writing career has been worth it. But I really wish there had been a safe, independent place to go when I first got started — I found the people I found by luck and SEO!
So, that’s what we’re building.
What are we after?
Well, the first version of the B2B Writing Institute mission statement looked something like this…
The B2B Writing Institute is an independent source of B2B writing instruction for in-house and freelance B2B writers. Our mission is to build a bridge between B2B writing and B2B marketing and improve every marketing funnel on the Internet.
That worked for a couple of days. Until I tried to work on an editorial calendar for the Facebook group. Suddenly the focus was B2B marketers (who are important, but not who the Institute is for) and marketing funnels (which are important, but not what the Institute is for).
Something was wrong.
So, I went back to the drafting table. I looked at the 4,400 members in the Facebook group and I looked at my “vision board” of ideas of what we want to accomplish. And I realized the mission of this Institute was all wrong. It’s not for marketers or marketing funnels. It’s for writers.
Natural-born writers who don’t get the business connection. Creative writers who want to support their work with income. Freelance writers who want to refine their skills like a surgeon’s blade.
So, that naturally led to the launch mission statement:
The B2B Writing Institute is an independent source of B2B writing instruction for in-house and freelance B2B writers. Our mission is to make the business writing industry accessible to anyone with a passion for writing.
There it is. That’s the connection we were looking for. Take all these people with a genuine passion for writing — at any skill level — and make business writing accessible to them.
It’s not about income. I’ve made more than half a million dollars freelancing, but I learned that side of the business from insightful and talented writing coaches who have the skills to coach you on that better than I ever could.
It’s not about B2B marketing. You need to know some principles to get started, but you don’t need to turn into an expert marketer.
It’s about taking this writing thing you love and showing you how to use it for businesses.
The B2B Writing Institute will have paid courses and programs and all the things you expect to see from a business operating online. But the most important course — the B2B Writing Foundations Course — will contain everything you need to know to get started in business writing, and it will be forever-free.
In fact, there will be free versions of everything we make — starting with the B2B Writing Institute Facebook group.
Because our mission is to make business writing accessible to anyone with a passion for writing, whether they’re at a place in their career where they can afford to invest in it, or not.
If you have a passion for writing, you can be a business writer. Learn the art and science of writing for business at https://b2bwritinginstitute.com.
