Animalz Blog

I feel like being socially adept and charismatic are different from being able to communicate clearly and effectively. The former comes from intrinsic self-belief and acceptance, as well as genuine curiosity about the people you interact with. Clear communication is more of a skill that you could learn from a book or guide. It depends on if you want to write or speak convincingly - writing structured arguments is definitely one way to clarify your thoughts and organize them in a logical way. This guide from Animalz provides one great persuasive writing model: https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/ In terms of interacting with a team and leading different types of personalities, I like the business classic Five Dysfunctions of a Team: https://a.co/d/jc3UExI

I think spaced repetition with critical feedback is the best way to improve, but some frameworks can help. This article resonates strongly with me: https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/ on its two main points: Put the Bottom Line Up Front (contrary to most literary storytelling styles and to many logic structures) and Add Context to minimize context switching. The former is something people can often read and quickly internalize; the latter seems harder for people. "Hey, I'm looking at this Excel sheet; what do you think?" "Well, I think you're an idiot for not even telling me what spreadsheet you're looking at..."

Thought this interview was interested. For startups specifically trying to get off the ground, I highly recommend the Atrium article SEO Playbook for Seed Stage Startups: https://www.atrium.co/blog/seo-seed-stage-startups/ Animalz blog Content Marketing Strategy is pretty good too https://www.animalz.co/blog/

Animalz | Content Marketing | Remote or NYC | Full-Time | Animalz is a content marketing agency that strives to create the best content on the internet. https://animalz.co We work mainly with startups—particularly B2B SaaS tech businesses—to make great content their audience loves. Our focus is on written content that truly helps readers be more successful in their work. Product, design, marketing, sales, engineering, data science and analytics are some of the main areas that we cover for our customers -- so ideally, you'd be knowledgable in at least one of those fields. Here are a few posts from our blog, to give you a sense of our style and approach to content: - https://www.animalz.co/blog/content-marketing-personas/ - https://www.animalz.co/blog/most-blogs-fail/ - https://www.animalz.co/blog/content-marketing-power-laws/ - https://www.animalz.co/blog/content-marketing-strategy/ If you have writing chops, a strong interest in technology, and a sense for marketing-as-storytelling, we would love to talk to you! Check out our open positions at https://www.animalz.co/jobs/ -- right now we're hiring for Content Marketing Analysts ($50k-$65k depending on experience) and a Head of Content Promotion. And you can email me at jan at animalz.co if you have any specific questions about the positions -- just make sure you actually follow the application protocol on the jobs page too! Thanks!

Try the BLUF style: https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/

Put the essence into the very first sentence of the email: bottom line up front (BLUF) [1] [2] [1] https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/ [2] https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision

I practice BLUF (Bottom line up front)[0] for that very reason, and never send bare hello messages. [0] https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/

https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/ is the blog post that I can most credit with changing my written communication style. Knowing what's expected of me prior to engaging in a full-fledged conversation helps me triage, and also helps me prime the discussion when I context switch over to it.

I've become a big fan of military-style Bottom Line Up Front writing[0]. In this case, the article could have started with "we're deprecating the scp protocol and updating the scp command line utility to use the sftp protocol instead." [0] https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/

Make that three. I learned about "Bottom Line Up Front"¹ via an article that popped up here on HN a few weeks (?) ago². I've since made a concerted effort to apply that strategy to all my writing³, and I believe those writing news stories ought to do the same. ---- ¹: For those unfamiliar with BLUF, in short: start with the main point, then layer on further explanation. BLUF's a military term, but it's pretty similar in concept and purpose to writing an abstract in an academic paper, or the SYNOPSIS section of a manpage. ²: https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/ ³: At least in professional-ish settings, e.g. work emails, reports, documentation, etc.

you need content. if you're not sure where to start, checkout this article on movement first content: https://www.animalz.co/blog/movement-first/ Wistia's CEO recently posted about mistakes made early on, and a better approach to building affinity vs awareness through relationships. https://twitter.com/csavage/status/1180148970825437191 Sales matters, patience matters, but content brings people already seeking a solution to you...and/or agitates a pain point they've forgotten.