Do you think you may be ready to outsource your blogging to a professional writer? Maybe you’ve been mulling over the idea for a while, but of course, having someone write for you is another expense in your business. And maybe you’re not sure outsourcing your writing is an investment worth making at this point in time.

As a Content Writer working with personal brand entrepreneurs, podcasters, and small businesses, I regularly hold free discovery calls with prospective clients. And I sometimes find myself in the very awkward position of having to turn people away because they’re not yet ready to outsource their blogging.

Yes, you’ve read that right. I’ve been in situations where I’ve got a business owner in front of me (virtually or physically) who’s pretty much ready to hand over their money to me, and I say no to them. It’s a hard conversation to have – it’s tricky for me to deliver the message in ‘the right way’, and it’s hard for someone at the receiving end to hear it (and accept it).

But I believe in honesty and in getting results. And if I took a client’s money knowing full well that my work wouldn’t help them move the needle in their business, I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favours. At the end of the day, as a business owner, you’d soon get frustrated and resentful about the lack of results, and that wouldn’t do any good to me or my business.

So if you’re thinking of outsourcing your writing (or booking a discovery call with me), here are 8 important signs that you are indeed ready to go ahead and hire a professional writer to take care of your blogging.

1. You know exactly what you’re selling

You’re at a stage in your business where you’re 100% clear on what you sell. You know what products and services you offer, what they’re worth, and how you can best package them up. In other words, you know exactly what you want to promote through your content.

Now, why does this even matter in the context of hiring a writer? Oh, it matters.

If you’re investing money in a Content Writer, you’ll want blogging to work for you. In other words, you’ll want to sell more as a direct result of your investment. And in order for blogging to give you a return on your investment, you have to create content that points to the products and services you’re offering.

Does this mean you shouldn’t blog because you may, at some point in the future, change or tweak what you sell? No, it doesn’t. If you’re at a stage where you’re testing out your products and services, blogging will still help you to connect and build rapport with your ideal clients. It’s only natural that as your business evolves and grows, your offering and pricing may change. So let your blogging efforts reflect that growth and evolution in your business.

What’s important here is that you alwas create content with intention and a clear purpose. If you haven’t worked out (and can’t articulate) what you want out of your blogging, perhaps you’re not quite ready to outsource the task to someone else.

2. You know who you’re serving

I once had a discovery call with a prospective client who told me that they worked with everyone. They didn’t have an ideal client. But for me, as a writer, not having anyone to write to or for means I’m stumbling in the dark. What chances do I have to write something that resonates with someone’s audience if I don’t know who they are and what they care about?

So a clear sign you’re ready to outsource your writing is that you fully understand and can articulate who your ideal customers and clients are. You understand their struggles, problems, needs, and desires. You know what matters to them the most. And because of that, you know how and why you’re the obvious choice for them. You’re able to empathise with them and use language that resonates. If you (or your writer) create content with no one in mind, chances are it won’t resonate with anyone at all. It won’t stop anyone in their tracks. And no one needs that, do they?

3. You know what you stand for

By now, you’ve probably spotted a pattern here. You’re only ready to outsource your blogging to a professional Content Writer when you know your business quite well. So on top of being super-clear on what you sell and who to, you need to understand what you and your brand stand for.

• What’s your USP? How’s your business different?
• What are you passionate about?
• How do you help your customers and clients get amazing results?

This is important because a writer needs to include all of this in the content they produce for you. And unless you’re able to communicate to your writer what you stand for, it won’t magically translate into your blog posts. And this doesn’t mean you have to be sitting on pages and pages of formal documentation that outlines all of this (although it may help if you do). All you need is to have that clarity. And a way to communicate all of this to your writer.

4. You’re in it for the long run

Business blogging, as a form of content marketing, isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not advertising, and it’s certainly not something that will give you overnight results. But, if you want to get to a point in your business where people who’ve never heard of you decide to buy from you as a direct result of the content you share on your website, you need be out there and create that content. If you only ever publish 1, 2, even 10 blog posts and then stop, you may not get the results you’d hoped for.

So if want to give business blogging a go, and you’re prepared to give it at least 6 to 12 months, investing in a professional writer may be the right move for you. Ideally, you’ll want someone who can work with you in the medium to long term and get to know your brand really well.

5. You’re just not finding the time to blog 

You believe Content Marketing is a valid long-term strategy that will help you expand your organic reach and connect with a wider audience. The problem is that as much as you believe in business blogging, you’re just not able to find the time to put out content on a regular basis.

Perhaps you don’t mind writing (maybe you even enjoy it?). That’s not the point – lack of time is the issue here. You’ve tried and tried. But you keep falling off the wagon, and when life gets busy with client-facing work, blogging is the first thing that drops off your to-do list. You have lots of ideas, and you wish you could stay consistent, but it’s just not happening.

If this is you, perhaps right now you’re not able to invest time in a marketing strategy that you believe works (or has worked for you in the past). But if you’re able to invest money instead, hiring a writer may be the way to go.

6. You hate writing or think you’re not too good at it

I am convinced that every single business owner has the ability to write for their own business. And in an ideal world, they all would. But I also understand and appreciate that the vast majority of people (bar the writers and editors of this world) didn’t get into business to write.

It’s a widely-recognised fact that running a business, especially one with an online component to it, comes with a lot of writing. And yet, if you’re someone who doesn’t enjoy writing, there are a million and one things that you’d rather be doing. So if you’d like to have an active business blog, but you really don’t enjoy writing or don’t feel it’s one of your strengths, then why not be strategic and outsource the task?

7. You’re ready to scale and get some help in your business

Chances are that in the first few months (or even years) after starting your business, you probably didn’t have the funds to outsource anything in your business, let alone regular blog writing. But you may now be at a point where you want to grow your business, and you’re starting to realise that the key to scaling your business is to outsource and delegate some of the tasks that you don’t need to be doing yourself. Or that you don’t enjoy doing yourself.

So if you want to free up your time to do the things only you can do, the things that you absolutely love doing, and, of course, to develop and grow your business even further, it may be time to start getting help and build a virtual team of people you can rely on. A writer would be a nice addition to that team, and this leads me nicely to my next and last point.

8. You appreciate the value of having a professional on your team

When clients hire me to do their writing, I effectively join them as a virtual team member. I don’t do things by halves, and when I say yes to a client, they have my full attention, dedication, and expertise. This means my clients benefit from what I’ve learnt over the years. They don’t need to worry about how blogging is or isn’t done, because they’ve got me on board. They trust me to do the job well, and they appreciate any suggestions or ideas I might bring forward. If you want to find out more about what it’s like to hire me as your Content Writer, click here.

At the end of the day, no one knows your business better than you. But if you’re going to hire an experienced writer to translate your message, your values, and your passion into well-written and well-structured blog posts, you need to appreciate the value that they will add to your business. If you feel you’re in that place, then outsourcing may be right for you.