In business we spend time looking for answers. When sometimes, the answer is a question.

We’ve done a few new things in our Old Post Office holiday cottages in Northumberland since last season.

Chesterfield settees by the river. A 10k upgrade to all heating and showers. Doggy demuddification stations. New programmable fire (with cool lighting). Ice machine. Record player. Fire pits. Air fryers. And we ask what our guest’s dogs are called so we can welcome guests and dogs by name when we say hello, and write all names on the welcome blackboard too.

Upgrade costs? Quite a bit.

The cost of asking what guest’s dogs are called? Nothing.

The thing that makes guests smile the most, that gets mentioned most, and that we get thanked for the most? Greeting the dogs by name, and the blackboard thing.

In business we spend time looking for answers. When sometimes, the answer is a question.

There are 8 things I think I think about as a copywriter. Things that I didn’t think I thought about until I really thought about it. A useful checklist if you want to write for your brand, too.

Magic Hat Cafe is Newcastle’s only kitchen that focusses on reducing food waste, to zero. Three years ago, I wrote what is now laser engraved on their walls. And right now I’m rewriting – end-to-end – one of their flagship projects.

Duncan’s brief to me was, ‘Can you help make sense of this?’

My brief to me was, ‘Create a document so the reader falls in love with the project, and understands how to deliver it – completely and with ease. And the checklist of things I think about as a copywriter? ‘Turns out there are 8.

1. Tone of voice. How the brand speaks.

2. Design and branding layout. A distinctive, readable visual layout. What it looks like and how it works. By ‘works’ I mean (for example) how I can cross refer between sections because of visual clues and breadcrumbs.

3. Flushing out inconsistency. Calling the same thing different things, for example.

4. Codifying. This means seeking to simplify and categorise everything, structurally. So we can instinctively sense scale and priority. Also, help the reader to absorb content at a ‘nice’ pace. Overviews and then deep dives, for example.

5. Bring everything together as one, modular solution. No sprawl. So the story feels palatable and coherent to somebody new, and so we are only ever editing one central resource.

6. Get the brand piece right. By this I mean the reader understands project DNA at every stage.

7. Make it work for totally new people and partners. So anybody could pick this up and run with it, with no input whatsoever from a core team member.

8. 100% factually perfect.

So there you go. 8 things I think I think about as a copywriter. Things that I didn’t think I thought about until I really thought about it. A useful checklist if you want to write for your brand, too.

There are two reasons I like this thing I read this week. I read about the new, biggest seller of clothing in all of France. It’s taken a few people by surprise. Including me. (Have a guess. I’ll leave a gap).

It’s Vinted.

So the first reason I like this fact is because, well, it’s a fact. Not a goal. An illustration, maybe, that the popularity of sustainable consumption and circular economy practices really are growing.

And the second reason I like this fact is because it allows me to write, ‘old is the new new’. Which is a sentence I like. 

That’s all. Bye.

It might be time to Trust Our Talent. Like Sia did with this performance of Chandelier on Saturday Night Live in 2015.

I’ve watched this performance a lot. Because of the song she wrote. And the outfit. And the music production. And the vocal performance. And the physical performance. And the lighting. And the perfect vocal imperfections.

I always saw this entire thing as a perfect example of Trusting Your Talent. And a rallying call, asking whether I’m trusting mine.

But when I watched it again today, I saw something new. A comment on YouTube:

“As a deaf person, watching the sign language interpreter was phenomenal. He didn’t translate the lyrics word for word, he showed the underlying emotion of the song through sign. That’s one of the most amazing things about translating songs into sign, you see another layer of the song’s emotion in how one chooses to translate it.”

Wow. Another layer of lovely.

It might be time to Trust Our Talent. Like Sia did with this performance of Chandelier on Saturday Night Live in 2015.

Here’s Sia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hg_rIqOZHc.

As I get older, making the time to make more times where nothing matters, matters more.

I think I was 9-years-old. Lying on the roof of my friend Timothy’s shed, my hands cradling my head. A 9-year-old Timothy lay next to me. Mirroring.

It’s a summer evening. The sky is blue-grey. Hundreds of bright stars begin to pop. One. By. One. And it’s silent.

The thing I remember about Timothy is he ate white bread tomato sauce sandwiches. And the thing I remember about Timothy’s shed is that our young legs strained a little if ever we stepped onto it’s elevated, slippery floor. The floor of Timothy’s shed was higher than the average shed floor because there was a thick layer of hundreds and hundreds of mucky magazines strewn wall-to-wall. A foot-or-so deep. Their shiny covers slithering against each other under our feet. Timothy had two older brothers.

I wonder why I remember that on-shed evening so vividly? I think it’s because it was so peaceful. Outside my head. And inside.

Pornographic magazines to a 9-year-old me were nothing more than a stackable, skateable adventure. I didn’t know Timothy’s last name. Just the tomato sauce sandwich thing. And I never knew what time it was on nights like that. I do miss it.

As I get older, making the time to make more times where nothing matters, matters more.

Roll the dice! Be brave! Because if we don’t. Nothing happens.

Every Monday to Wednesday I flop into my car, or drink coffee on Zoom, and help business leaders find the sweet place between crazy-random and boring. The exact spot where beautifully surprising and brand additive live.

Then, we roll the dice and see what happens.

When Bob Mortimer went on Last One Laughing, and sang his Slender People song to Daisy, he didn’t know that eyesonlegs would do a remix and pop it on Spotify. Here’s Bob singing to Daisy on Last One Laughing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9BXwM9HRMc. Here’s the eyesonlegs remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV76I2JAn10.  Bob rolled the dice. And the cool remix – and a few million listens – just happened.

Similarly beautiful and surprising is a plumber called Pete Gilbert. Pete decided to show, well, whoever wanted to watch, how he does plumbing. His chosen method of delivery? Take the piss out of whiney customers. The result? An educational, real, funny thing where more and more customers (the people he’s taking the piss out of) joined the queue to book Pete for plumbing jobs. Here’s where Pete, and his third-of-a-million followers are on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/beaplumber/.

Roll the dice! Be brave! Because if we don’t. Nothing happens.

There’s a business case for feeling. This week, I blurted (I do blurt), this:

“I’d rather work with a business leader that doesn’t quite know what they’re doing – but that really feels it. Than someone who knows exactly what they’re doing – but doesn’t feel it.”

Similarly, if all a business is interested in is making money, I get bored with that.

Similarly, if someone offered me a book of precisely what to do to (robotically) make a million dollars (dollars somehow sounds sexier than pounds so I’m saying dollars) – I wouldn’t want it.

All this makes sense to me, because there’s a business case for feeling. If you feel it, you can make them feel it too. And if they feel it, you don’t really have to persuade. You just storytell around the journey. And if the change you want to make matters, and you’re patient, you should be OK.

So I do stand by this:

“I’d rather work with a business leader that doesn’t quite know what they’re doing – but they really feel it. Than someone who knows exactly what they’re doing – but doesn’t feel it.”

Lanxiety is that sickly feeling we get when entering a room filled with people wearing Lanyards. There is no known support group for this condition.

Seasoned Lanyard Wearers recognise Lanxiety sufferers. They see it in our eyes. And once spotted, it is only a question of time.

The Seasoned Lanyard Wearer is lithe. They circle, then slither in. Their slightly too soft handshake lasts slightly too long. And in their other hand, they hold their lanyard at eye level, slightly too close for you to read. So leaning back, you absorb, ‘Steven Jones. Abacus Accounting. The Accountant You Can Count On.’ As Steven echoes, “Hello. I’m Steven. With a ‘v’.

The Seasoned Lanyard Wearer’s head is to one side as they speak. Their eyes lock on yours and their eyebrows are raised, and stay raised, as they wait for you to hold your lanyard up and read it back to them.

Known methods of escaping the Seasoned Lanyard Wearer include pretending your phone is vibrating in your pocket, and taking an imaginary call. Or saying you have a coffee order to fulfil, walking away muttering (something like), ‘2 Cappuccinos, 1 Latte, 3 Flat Whites…’

If you adopt this second method of escape, you will notice other Lanxiety sufferers standing at the coffee station too. Cheeks puffed. Slow-breathing. Afraid.

Lanxiety is that sickly feeling we get when entering a room filled with people wearing Lanyards. There is no known support group for this condition.

Would you make a really good Spitting Image puppet? Is a good question to ask. About you – and your business.

Distinctive people (and businesses) make the best Spitting Image puppets. Characterful people. Different people. People that are uniquely identifiable for a cluster of recommunicable reasons. People whose brave (and sometimes bonkers) decisions have made them notable and that get them noticed.

Quirks. Visual attributes. Going first. Saying what others won’t. Being funny. Doing what others don’t. (Being pioneering, in other words). And even shortcomings – things they don’t or can’t do. All of these are good Spitting Image puppet creds.

If you think you’d make an awful Spitting Image puppet, that’s bad news. It means you’re a bit boring. And your business is a bit boring. You know, you’d be the kind of Spitting Image puppet that when people saw you, or heard you, they’s say, ‘Err, whose that?’ Because there’s nothing about you. There are no hooks. Nothing memorable. Nothing compelling. Nothing uniquely you.

The good news of course is that it’s all fixable. Just do and be some of the good and brave things mentioned earlier. So long as they’re (roughly) on brand and strategically sensible. Boost  your Spitting Image creds. And away you go.

Would you make a really good Spitting Image puppet? Is a really good question to ask. About you – and your business.