#290: How Engineer Adam Kimmel Launched a Part-Time, Six-Figure Writing Business

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. The number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, growing a full time writing business to the six figure level takes a great deal of focus and dedication. Getting to that level while working in the business part time takes even more, and that's why it's rare. But Adam Kimmel has done just that. Adam works full time for an employer as an engineer, yet over the past few years, he's also built a six figure writing business on the side that six figures is in six figures total, not the equivalent of six figures. And if that weren't enough, he's recently also created a comprehensive writing course specifically for engineers and technical professionals. How did he do all this? Well, among other things, through focus positioning, strategic thinking, and by carefully analyzing and continually improving every aspect of his operation. In this episode, I sit down with Adam to learn more about how and why he launched his writing business just a few short years ago. We discuss what's enabled him to generate success so quickly, and we get into how he's able to juggle so much without burning out. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Adam Kimmel. Adam, welcome to the show. Great to be talking with you today.

Oh, thanks so much for having me, Ed. Great to be here.

Yeah, I know we've had some conversations here over the past couple of months and I've just been really impressed with your track and your success and very intrigued to dive in because I really haven't asked you too much about the details, just know about the results. But before we dive into that, I'd like to just kind of talk a little bit about your business today. So why don't you give us just a quick summary of what it is you do Right now I know you're up to several things and you got some new things in the works, but what you do today, what kind of clients you work with, and then we can kind of take a step back and you can tell us how you got here.

Yeah, so I, Adam Kimmel, I'm a technical content writer. These days I do content writing and strategy and a little bit of SEO copywriting as well for B2B technology and engineering companies. So I'm an engineer by degree. Twice And I'm very passionate about the environment. So I got into this trying to just chase that down as much as I can. How can I do whatever I can to help promote the environment and help with sustainable solutions and things? And so I have content blogs and white papers and case studies that I produce regularly for agencies and mid to large size companies. I have a course that just launched in February that's been great. It's kind of the first step that an engineer wants to learn the art of content writing. They can work with me and I help them through that. That's been really amazing because if you're asked a question enough times, I think there's got to be a more efficient way to answer it. It was kind of the way that I approached it. So I said, well, I'll put together some, you know, it's like a nine week program where we just dive into writing basics, how to do the digital end of things, and just, just what are the things that an engineer would need to know how to learn writing? And so that's what I've kind of been doing most recently.

So I'm curious how an engineer got into content writing because it's not your typical path for somebody in that profession. So how'd you end up here?

I was an R and D engineer and so I would work on some really, really complicated things. And what I found out was whenever I would kind of come up with something, I would have to explain it to somebody. What did you do? And so I would start launching into this monologue about all the features it has and how difficult it was to do. And I was usually met with kind of blank stares like, yeah, but so what kind of thing? Why do I care about this? And you know, the combination of a complicated solution and not really being able to tie it to a problem struck me. It's. And so then I began to kind of put together at that time slide decks for not just features, but benefits like, what does this solve? Who does it help? How does it make things better? And I started to develop some techniques as to what worked and what didn't work. And the feedback I got was great. It was, oh, hey, this document worked really well. Can you put one together for this, you know, project you didn't work on and can you help so and so learn how to do this? And so I thought, well, maybe there's a need here, kind of an underserved need. And so at the time I didn't even really know what content writing was, but I knew that there was this need to explain complicated technical topics to, you know, either business leaders or technology decision makers, you know, in a way to get them not just interested, but excited about the outcome.

Interesting. How did you find your way through this? Because I know typically it was in a similar situation. One of the questions I asked myself was, where can I learn more about this? Obviously this is a skill. There's got to be information out there on how to do it. Even better. Where did you end up going?

Well, the first place I went is academia. I thought, well, maybe there's something in like either professional organizations or through university channels just to. Is this work being done anywhere in academia? And so academia didn't really work out. And then I thought, maybe there are little companies that are doing this for big companies, like an agency. And so then I just started on the Internet, searching engineering marketing marketers for engineers, you know, this kind of topics. And then I came across a few agencies that are really dedicated to this. They serve various verticals. There's a lot in the technology space. I noticed there really wasn't a lot in the engineering space. And so I would say it's really, you know, when I looked at my specialties, those became my niches. So I walked into this already with pretty defined niches, which is not typical, at least from the conversations I've been having, and thought, well, maybe I could partner and start to write for some of these agencies. With my expertise, I'm able to talk the technical piece and then maybe this partnership will help me develop, kind of strengthen the writing muscle. And so that was my approach. And so I started contacting agencies about freelance postings they had. And that was really all the further I knew. And that would have been probably around 2018 or so when I started that.

And so you did this. And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, you still kind of don't do this full time. But you started doing the writing for agencies part time while you had your day job as an engineer, correct?

Yeah, I mean, I still love the technical work. I mean, engineering is a really exciting field and especially right now, there's so much innovation in pretty much every place you look. I like the ability to actively still be helping and doing that work. So I thought, well, maybe I'll build this alongside. It's interesting to me. It's a different, you know, thing to think about and it's a different part of your brain. It's a creative, you know, there is some creativity in R and D, but still much more analytical. Yeah. So I wanted to use the other side. And yeah, so I built it on the side. And even today I really don't work more than about six to 10 hours.

A week, which is as an engineer or as a writer.

No, as a writer, yeah. Still doing full time technical work. And so having to flip back and forth has been critical and being efficient with how I use my time has been another thing I've had to learn.

So let's talk about that. Because someone who's juggled several things at once, couple of times, two, three times in my career, I know that can be a challenge. So you obviously you love your profession, so that's still your full time gig. And I'm assuming you work for someone. Right. So you're not an independent consultant. As an engineer, you have an employer.

Yep, exactly. Yeah, you know, it's changed a few times over the years, but the industries are pretty consistent. It's all to do with, you know, electric vehicles and sustainable energy and hydrogen and those kind of topics.

Got it. So they happen to be in. Right. In areas that you're really passionate about personally, a lot of innovation going on there as opposed to being an engineer and you know, some kind of industrial production facility where, you know, there's very little innovation happening. And you write six, ten hours a week, you've got this course you've created. I mean, you're obviously a very ambitious guy. How do you juggle all that?

Well, time becomes pretty quickly the biggest limiter to any of it. And it's, you know, so when I worked for some of the, when I first started, I was, this was pre Covid, of course, so I was working full time on site in a cube and I started to pay a lot closer attention to how every minute of my day was being spent. How long is my commute to and from? How long is somebody sitting in my office talking about whatever it is, either relevant things to work or non relevant things to work. And one of the companies I work for had multiple sites and I spent a lot of my day driving between different buildings. Sometimes there would be some travel involved and so where is all the time going? And I quickly figured out that I could probably unlock, I don't know, four to five hours a week by optimizing the kind of business I worked for. So it was all about increasing flexibility. So every move I made increased flexibility in terms of how that work got done. And you know, fortunately, as your career progresses, it's not such a critical thing to be in chair. I mean, you can do your work anywhere. And I think Covid has taught us a lot of, not most, but a lot of jobs can certainly be done remotely. And I began to seek that, say, all right, well, how can I still do what I love to do in a way that provides me this extra time? And so that was really the first layer. And after that, it was more being efficient while working. So what tasks can I do or do I have to do with writing that no one else can do? So to write in my voice, it's got to come from me. But are there other tasks that I can get some help with? And so I have started to get some virtual assistant support. And I have a researcher that does a great job helping me with some of the topics that I write about. Not all of them, but based on expertise. She's able to help with a ton of just kind of that front end research work, to kind of prep articles for me to write, versus me having to do all of that myself.

Interesting, interesting. Let's talk about that a little bit. Because I know a lot of people find this idea fascinating. And my experience has been that it's not always as easy to find the right people as it sounds. So how were we able to find a researcher who could give you what you needed efficiently and then you could just kind of just jump right in without too much duplicate work?

Well, the one that I ended up with is, you know, we had a mutual friend that kind of connected us. And she connected us in the spirit of, you know, I've been doing this at that time, I had been doing it two to three years, and she was just getting into it. So she said, look, my friend said, could you just talk to her and kind of mentor her or give her some tips as far as how to get into the business? And we just had a wonderful conversation. And I think anytime you have a conversation that inspires you, you look for ways to kind of increase that relationship in some way and to kind of help just continue to nurture it. Once I figured out that I had more work than I could handle, I reached out and said, look, would you be interested in helping me with research and things and what kind of things do you know about? And so from there, she didn't have direct experience in what I did, and the likelihood that I would find somebody able to do it that had that direct experience is almost zero. So what I was looking for was, does she think the right way? Does she know? I mean, science has got to be there. But, you know, I think her background was kind of biochemistry. Well, that was a niche that I didn't write about before. So along the way, once I figured out that she thought the right way, she shared a similar value system. Kind of believed in the mission I was trying to do. This was a way I could expand my vertical markets to include some of the biochem topics. But the key thing was the match, the personality match. Can we communicate effectively? Does she take direction? Does she adapt to the style that I need and things? And I mean, all those boxes were checked and so then it's just about what are the extras that come with it? And so with that came another niche that I could use in my portfolio.

What kind of projects are you typically working on? I'm sure it's a wide variety of things, but is there a concentration in two or three different types of projects?

Yeah, a lot of what I get requests for is one blog post, I think, to the point you made earlier about the construction industry. I mean, there hadn't been innovation, I mean, at least disruptive innovation in a while, but with technology, the IoT is starting to reach there as well. So as far as autonomous construction equipment and things like that. And so I'll get a company that's just starting to wake up to what content might be able to do for them due to some of this disruptive innovation. And they'll ask me for a blog post and the first thing I have to tell them is like one blog post is not going to change the game for you. Unfortunately, no matter how well we do, it just is going to take more than that. And so I try to take the request for a blog post and at least convert it into a mini campaign of like a pack of three blog posts. I mean that you can get some momentum around that cross link to each other and get some traction around some recent content that's related, but all around the same topic. Then I begin to start talking about their strategy. Well, do you know what your value prop is? Do you know how much content you think you need? Is there something you're getting ready for or a product launch that you want to help generate some excitement about? And so there is kind of this interview process that happens, but then typically after that I'll, you know, so from that blog post request, I'll at least have kind of an intro pack of three or so that I'll start with. And that builds credibility, it strengthens a relationship and helps me be able to ask, all right, what else can we do here? How can we partner together more? Have you written a white paper yet? And a lot of times the answer is either, yeah, we write them all the time, or what's a white paper? Yeah, it's kind of one or the other end of the spectrum. White papers are a great way for thought leadership. And I think the type of content I write lends itself to long form. So the blog posts are going to have to be. I mean, you can't get much done in 300 to 500 words in my experience, so it's got to be at least 700. They have these kind of 700 word intro pieces. What about a 2,500 word white paper? And then the other one would be kind of a case study to help solidify a buying decision that they were trying to help encourage by saying, all right, well, how did the solution work for someone else? So a lot of times I can talk to subject matter experts and engineers as a peer. That's been really effective because I know the depth of questions to ask and what things aren't being said that are being implied that I can dig into a little bit more. So really it's the blog post white paper, case study, and what's been coming more as kind of an overarching content strategy to help tie all this together with the value prop. So maybe those four pieces.

Very cool. And how involved would you say your researcher is across that spectrum of projects? Do you get her involved pretty intently or consistently?

Yeah, I mean, every project is so different, as you probably know. Some of them don't make sense. Some of them I'm just so close to and they're so unique. That conversation relationship that I'll have with an editor or marketer will just. The outline will just fall out and some of the research, sometimes they'll even send a skeleton outline with a couple of articles. Well, that's an outline. I mean, that's all I would need. What I really have found her the most useful for, and again, the goal is to save as much time as possible is if somebody comes with a half of an idea of what they want, how do we put something together that excites them? But we're sure we'll also move the ball. I mean, we'll look into SEO terms for them. What are some competitive articles? Where is the white space and content in this area? I would say that onboarding a freelancer to help with research has been the most helpful in that area. It's just saved a ton of time in putting a first kind of plan together for some of these projects.

Tell me about your virtual assistant. I think you mentioned you had a va who also helped. How do you leverage this individual?

Well, she is in the uk, which is cool because we can cover more hours in the day that way. I wish I could say that was my intent and that I strategically planned to have somebody in Europe, in Europe helping me. I did not do that. But there are a lot of admin tasks that once the writing project started to come in more consistently, I converted myself to a. Well, I had an LLC to begin with, but I began filing as an S corp for taxes. And so there's all kind of accounting things that are needed for that and financial summaries and things. And so what I've started to have her help me with is one, can you help me with organizing my schedule and making sure I don't miss a meeting or something? I mean just kind of the really first layer. But then she acts as a virtual business manager for me. So she kind of helps me strategize what we do as a business versus kind of a project based approach. And the benefit of the business of course, is the cohesion. I mean, is all of this stuff making sense? Are we spending our time in the right places? Am I looking at the right types of clients? I mean, what I love to write about the most may not be the most profitable or the most business wise thing to do. So maybe there's another vertical market that could help. So she helps me talk through some of those items and strategize. And the latest thing that she's been able to help me with is kind of the financial picture of the business. How healthy are we? Where is my revenue coming from? How is it broken out by content type, by client, by cut in a few different ways? Is there one time of year that's more or less impactful than another? And having that visibility has been great because it really, it helps you Pareto, you know, are you spending your time with the right clients? And usually when you do an analysis like that, you find a bunch of clients that you spend a lot of time on without a lot of results and maybe vice versa. So to the point of 80, 20, you want to optimize who you work with and you know, do you enjoy working with them? Do you like the topic? And then kind of wind down the work with the ones that aren't a perfect match. And you know, there's many referrals and things that you could do to help get the client served. But if it is an exact fit, then it's really not helping either side with their time. And so she's helped me with that view of which client should I strengthen relationships with and which ones should I kind of sunset?

That's a very important analysis that I find most people don't take the time to do. And it can be very revealing once you have enough data to really make sense of it. I'm just impressed that you found a VA who took a proactive approach to this, because not to take anything away from VAs, VAs are extremely valuable, but that's typically not their skill set. They're very task oriented. They need direction. To have somebody who could just help you from a strategic standpoint is pretty impressive. Sounds like she's definitely a keeper.

Yeah, absolutely. And the way that. And I've tried a couple VAs in the past, and they were great. They were very collaborative, positive, helpful. The results for me were about a B to a B plus. I needed somebody to really help me with the strategy because I knew that this is a clear need and I need to leverage this. But I can't be working on the business and in the business as much as I need to. That just. That's where the time goes away. And so I need to be doing a little of both of those. But in the interim, how can I get support? And, you know, one of the other aspects was the technology side. I mean, I think I'm that old yet, but it just feels like technology always locks you up at some point. And to have somebody develop systems for the business that streamline invoicing and all of these repetitive kind of tasks that happen with every client was another great thing that she was able to do. So to have somebody with a view into. All right, well, what are some tools that are out there? There's CRM tools that you can use to manage your clients. Once you have too many balls to juggle in the air at the same time individually, just put them into a CRM system that's a really low dollar amount, and then you can organize it, and then it's visible on a dashboard. I mean, I didn't even know that those things existed. So having a view into how other clients may do things has been nice. So that maybe the benefit of freelancers in general is kind of a market view of how these problems are being solved and which solution might be effective for me.

I'm curious, how did you end up finding her?

LinkedIn. I do almost everything on LinkedIn.

Did you post something and then she responded? Or you did a little bit of research and then found her?

Yeah, I did a little research. I mean, I took some dedicated effort to brush up my profile. You can SEO your LinkedIn profile, by the way. I mean, of course it is essential to do that. And engineers, my target clients, that's where they live. I feel like LinkedIn is consistently second or third or lower on the list of social media platforms in general, but that's where my clients are. So I knew that early on. And that's where I go for information. And I can kind of, you know, if I wear the subject matter expert hat, I could say, all right, well, what would I want to see? What would make me click on this profile? And so I was on there and I just began to search, you know, for virtual assistants and things like that, and I found a few and tried them out and then I began to look at the content they post. So it's yet another example of what types of posts was she putting out? Was this content resonating with me, her target audience, you know, and what are the kind of terms that I would be looking for that made her pop for me? And right away, so we had an intro call and it was just clear that again, like minded, you know, mission focused, I don't know, it was just a personality click. And when I figured that as soon as I saw that the skills and the personality were there, that was enough. I mean, that was certainly enough to try. And the results were obviously really great.

Very cool. I would have not thought to check LinkedIn first, but makes a ton of sense. Let's go back to what we talked a little earlier about, your work capacity, because I'm just fascinated by this. You've done very, very well for yourself in a relatively short period of time. You got a lot going on, you work full time. And I'm curious, how much of a challenge has it been to just manage your capacity? Well, because you don't have a ton of wiggle room, right? You got things that take up a certain amount of time. So if you bring a new client in and you know, you can take that on, but then an existing client suddenly has all this work now you're kind of over capacity. So that's one of the things that so many of us struggle with week to week. How have you been able to manage that?

Well, I think being proactive with existing customers is always important. There was one main client. It was an agency is an agency client that we've just had an amazing relationship for two years. And that was really when the wheels got off the ground on this thing. It was really due to my work in partnership with them. And it taught Me a lot of things about why is this going well, what things make this easy, what things make them love me and vice versa, and what things would make it harder. The first thing was that they paid a reasonable fee. I mean, you know, when we started, it wasn't exactly what figured market value would be for somebody with a master's in engineering with all this experience. But I really didn't have a leg to stand on with content writing experience, so I was willing to take a little bit less. But if you spend too much time on lower paying clients, that's inefficient. In the name of this game is efficiency. For me, I have to make absolutely certain that I'm being efficient with every minute I spend there. So I would say making sure that the fee structure works so that you don't have to do 10 times the work to get the amount that you are looking for. You can do an efficient amount in a way that is the output is going to be better quality and you're going to be happier about it. And the relationship would be all things get positive. Then the other one is kind of what extras are there in addition to the writing, which is really the deliverable? Is there a subject matter interview that I'll need to carve out time for? Is there SEO research that I have to do? Is there some strategy that is being asked for either directly or indirectly? Can you pitch me some topics? You know, well, that's time. So I think being very clear about the rules of engagement has done that. It's understanding. All right, well, what's the deliverable? What are the extras that you're going to need from me? Do you need me to find my own subject matter experts? That's become a deal breaker for me. I'm not a good journalist, I'm an engineer and introverted and I'm not able to just go out in the world and find people to talk to me. But when I talk to subject matter experts, it goes well. So I'm happy to support, you know, subject matter expert interviews. But what are the little extras? Like do you need a LinkedIn post text, you know, if this is a blog post, you know, what are the extras? And then charging accordingly. So if there is some strategy or pitch work, there's a fee usually associated with that. I mean, that's work that I'd have to do. I'd have to leverage my expertise to find it. And time is money, so there has to be a fee associated with that. So being efficient with making sure that you're getting A return on the time spent and spending time on the things that add value to the project, I think. Or another one. If there's a platform that I have to learn or an email address that I need to set up, I mean, that's really not value add. So I try to resist things like that as well.

Is this agency still a client of yours?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It sounds like they're one of your bigger clients then, right?

Well, I mean, I would say they were. And I've made a dedicated effort to make sure that not too big a piece of the pie came from one place.

Yeah, that's where I was going with this.

Yeah. I wanted to spend time this year diversifying, which is the name of all of this too, is, you know, I didn't like the idea. I mean, I came into the workforce in 2004, 5, right before the recession. That taught me, don't hit your wagon to one horse.

Yeah.

And I wanted to keep the full time job because I love it. But at some point it's a. The business decision became, I'm expendable. That's my problem to solve, not theirs. So I thought, well, how do you diversify? And so that adding content writing as a discipline was one thing, but then within that, I want to make sure that I'm writing about for enough clients in case I lose one or the work just winds down for whatever reason, like Covid, it was a huge disruption that there's still opportunities to make that up. And so not just individual clients, but industries. If I wrote about the technology industry and there's a chip shortage and everything stops, that isn't what happened. But if that was all the content that was about and things slowed down, I'd be in trouble. So to be able to write about construction, about alternative energy, about electric vehicles, about, I don't know, healthcare, information technology, I mean, these give a lot of different options to make sure if one industry's slow, another one might be picking up.

So I'll come back to my earlier question now that you've given us a little bit of context. You've got several clients and you've got so much time to work on this stuff other than what you just shared with us in terms of being as efficient, as strategic as possible, how do you make decisions? You're already pretty full for the next few weeks. Suddenly a client that you've been nurturing comes back and says, actually, we could use you right now. And you know, this is not an easy decision because it's not as easy as saying Sorry, I'm too busy. Let's say it's a big name. How do you make that decision?

I think setting the relationship up from the very beginning is important. And I don't know this because I didn't kind of grow up in journalism, but it really felt like the relationship between writers and editors was a really one way street. And I think the best way to make sure that you can have capacity for who you want to have capacity for is to change that dynamic off the very first conversation. I mean, establishing a good rapport. And I use words like partnership and like, how can we partner for content? How can we, you know, it isn't me with my hat out looking for, hey, can you pay me to write something? It's, you know, how can I help you achieve your goal by providing this service?

Yeah.

And I think framing it in terms of partnerships has really been an unlock. And it's so simple and it sounds like, why would that make such a huge difference? But it, the dynamic of the relationship at the very first couple conversations is everything. And, you know, setting the expectation of, you know, like, when we're talking, I'll, I'll put in like my standard, you know, timeline is two weeks. I can't promise anything earlier than two weeks. Okay. There's rush fees and things available if the need arises. But my standard has got to be two weeks because of existing workloads. You know, some parts of the month are better than others. And so if I reach out to say, hey, I know we had a great couple of chats, where are things? I'm busy this time, but I've got a window here, is there something that may fit? And so, you know, being proactive to try to stir the pot a little bit on those conversations and, you know, it's not like I'm the only thing they're thinking about. I mean, they're getting, they've got other priorities and things going on. And so just kind of helping remind that, hey, if you want to do something, here might be a good window of time that's far enough in advance that we could plan and prepare. And then, you know, if things just get totally, if the bucket gets totally overfull, that might be where, you know, I ask for some help or refer, you know, some work to a colleague, you know, or someone like that. So I mean, the debate in my mind right now is do I grow into a larger agency to try to hire others like me to do this work? Because it seems like it's been growing and growing in a good way. And you know, at some point I will run out of time. You could be efficient, but once you reach kind of 100%, you. There's no 120%. So if my priorities remain what they are, maybe there's some growth opportunity. And so that's kind of a fun decision that I'm thinking through at the moment for the next year or two.

Yeah. And that's where I was going is have you considered scaling this with other writers? Not overnight, but is it something you're considering?

For sure. I mean, it's clear to me that engineering and technology companies are either very aware or waking up to the fact that they have to get here. They need this type of content. It's so powerful. It establishes leadership in the marketplace. You know, and these projects help subject matter experts understand their content better and their material better. It helps them get a better view of the market. Only good comes from it. They're lead generation magnets. I mean, you can use them for almost everything. You can repurpose it for content to be visible, you know, either on Google or on LinkedIn if you're using, you know, the approach kind of that I took. The problem is finding engineers that know how to write or write the way that I want them to has been a real challenge. And I think that's the balance. And the argument that I'm having in my own head right now is kind of, am I able to find enough people? I would love to find writers that write like me in disciplines that I don't know about. I mean, what a great way to augment the business that would let me write about what I love and then let my partners write about what I know less about, but still provide the same quality. The problem is there aren't that many, which is again why I created the course. I thought I need to help people that understand that there's this need and that this is an opportunity to, you know, you can take your degree and maximize the ROI a little bit more and increase it. You know, that's kind of the other thought I had was I have these degrees. I mean, how much more mileage can I get out of. Maybe I could learn content writing. I mean, if others have this idea to pivot their careers, I'll probably have to teach them to do it, to write the way I want them to write. And so that's really the goal. It's to see how much interest there is and how much growth opportunity there is in some of these different verticals.

Well, I think one of the IT Sounds to me like one of the big reasons why you've been so successful and you've been able to get here so quickly is the fact that you really leveraged your background, your experience, your skillset in your positioning. You incorporated that as the key element of how you position yourself. And it's a very attractive value proposition if you go to the right market and you've stayed very, very focused. The downside is if you're going to scale, that's the reason why it was so attractive. These agencies, these companies, they can't find people with your background who can also write well. And you're having the same difficulties. So I think you're right. I think it's just a matter of how do we train the people who have the right education, the right skillset, how do we get them up to speed as quickly as possible? It's going to have to come from where you came from. Right. And like you said, you couldn't really find that much when you launch. So it's great that you're putting something together that can help people get up to speed. So tell us just real quick about the course. How's it structured? Who's IT for? What do they get out of it?

Yeah, I mean, I've kind of found that it's easier to teach the engineer to write than the other way around. And so it's really geared for engineers mostly, but also technical marketers and people that, you know, have a view of the technology in an industry. How do you put that into written form in a digital marketing kind of context? So it's a nine week format and it teaches some writing basics about how to tell a compelling story, but then also how to understand who you're writing for. Who is your target audience, what elements should you include if you're writing to persuade or to inform a technical decision maker? A lot of engineers and technical type people write, their default is the journal paper for a technical journal. So super big words, almost like thesis defense type of stuff. And it's less that and more what are the benefits of this? And so learning how to master the subject matter. Expert interview, I think is one of the biggest pieces of that. So it's in module like three or four of the nine weeks where you we really get into. All right, this is how engineers think. I'm well suited to speak on this topic, I could say how things, you know, there's been this tension between engineers and marketers that engineers are a little bit mistrusting. So how do you get over that? How do you come from a place of, look, I'm trying to help and I need you to help me understand that there's male and female dynamic, you know, differences in subject matter experts. So it's diving into that a little bit too. But so how to manage that? And also putting together a piece of content. So the course, the last kind of third of it walks through applying the principles to a polished, portfolio ready piece of digital content just to kind of act as a case study for the principles that we've taught. And it's really exciting and it's something that I've had a lot of questions about over the years. And so that's really who it's for. It's not necessarily for the most advanced. It's really the first step that I think a technical marketer or an engineer should take. If they see this need, if they want to pivot to either add skills to their existing role or do it full time, you know, pivot to doing freelance writing or writing for their company in a marketing role, this would be a great first step to take.

That's awesome. Where can listeners learn more about the course? Where can we send them?

So my website is askconsultingsolutions.com and there's a link right in the header for the course. It says course. And then the website has, you know, details about me, my portfolio, I'm based in Milwaukee. So it has, you know, some of the about things a little bit more on my story. And yeah, so the website's probably the best place to go.

Perfect. We'll make sure to include that in the show notes. This has been great, Adam. I just love to hear about your story, how you got here. It's inspiring. And it goes to show that, look, you don't have to come from a journalism background or even a marketing background to do well in this business. You could take a career, I mean any career, in your case, engineering. And as long as it's an industry that's producing content, that's creating products and services that need to be marketed and sold, then it really lends itself to some of that. In this case, especially in business to business, it's really going to be the writers who have that background who are going to be way ahead of those who may have even better writing chops, but don't understand the profession, the industry, or don't know how to think the way their prospects or the target audience thinks.

Yeah, that's a great point. I think the course more than anything teaches how to think like an engineer and how to speak in a way and write in a way that resonates with that kind of audience. I mean, that's the biggest hurdle. I mean, I get that question, how do engineers think? I just don't really understand subject matter experts. All I have is awkward conversations with them. I can't figure them out. This kind of helps demystify that. And the nice part is, you know, it also gives some access. I mean, we have a community that, you know, throughout the course cohort, students can put questions in there. I mean, ask me anything. You can ask me as a subject matter expert or as a writing kind of coach. So I can, I can help on either side of that. But engineers are a different breed. There's no question we think differently and we, I don't know, approach problems differently. But understanding how to untangle and unlock that is a really important skill that I think I've tried to help other students learn.

Well, wonderful, Adam, thanks for coming in today. Appreciate you taking the time to speak with us and yeah, thanks for sharing your insights and knowledge with us and your story.

Yeah, thanks so much. It was great to be here.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher.com.