79: How to Write During COVID-19: 3 Steps to Communicate Better During the Pandemic

Ah, here we are at the end of April, and for most of us, heading into month three of a COVID 19 response. So whether you're running a business or communicating for one, you might be at your saturation point for creating content and information for your audience, for your stakeholders, or delivering it. The same is likely true on the receiving end in your email box. An overload of information. You can probably hear it in my voice. For many communicators, it's all so much. We're burnt out. However, I'll share a tip with you. Over the past few months, I have tapped into a resource that I want to share with you on the podcast. That resource Ann Wiley Hands down, Ann is my favorite writing coach. Ann runs Wiley Communications and she works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. I attended a writing workshop of Ann's in early February, and the tips I learned in those two days transformed my writing just in time for one of the biggest crises to ever happen in our lifetime. I am grateful to Ann for the help and grateful that she could come on the podcast and share these writing tips, these valuable writing tips with you, my listener. So this episode the key to writing during a crisis to make your messages clear, compassionate and confident.

How to get the word out to.

Worried readers Understanding where your audience is right now, finding the right message, the approach and the tone in your writing. And also how to balance communicating early and often in an environment that's changing but by the minute. Take a listen.

Ann Wiley, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast to talk about writing.

I am so happy to be here. Molly, thanks for inviting me.

So here we are in the end of April. We're in the middle of this COVID 19 pandemic as communicators, but I'll start off right off the bat. I'm so excited to talk to you because it was only two short months ago that I was participating in one of your workshops. I flew down to North Carolina and rarely do I get on a plane to go to anyone else's workshops because I'm traveling so much. But there was a call because there is something about the way you teach in your framework about clutter, flow, free writing and clear, concise writing that spoke to me and honestly was one of the best workshops. So I'm so happy that you're here on the podcast to help my listeners right in a time of the pandemic. I appreciate it.

Thank you. I'm excited about it too.

Now Even though I don't ever recall reading this or seeing this about you. You're not necessarily a writer who writes for only public relations or crisis communications. What is your background? You have a mix, correct? It's marketing, public relations.

I have set at every chair at the table. I have been a journalist, I've been a PR pro in an agency. I've been an in house communicator for Hallmark cards. And I have my own firm now and have done in my own firm both writing and training people how to write. So I write for everyone from Coca Cola. I helped them with a website last year to. I once interviewed the two guys who change all the light bulbs at Hallmark and I once don't hate me. Molly interviewed Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Robert Redford. So I have literally sat at every chair on the table.

Okay, we have to pivot for just a moment. Did you interview them all at the same time? Was it for a movie?

I interviewed them separately. I had a little side gig at one time, a little side hustle as a movie reviewer and I got to travel around. I had giant per diems at fancy hotels and I got to interview famous people. It was a really fun little sidebar, but certainly didn't end up being my full career. But I enjoyed it the few times that I did it.

Oh, that sounds like a great happy hour story, like sitting down over drinks and talking about it. It also hearkens back to the movie Notting Hill with Julia Roberts. I guess when all the movie people came in on the press tours, the junket tours, but wow, I didn't know. I didn't know that now. And just for your experience, I mean, whether you're writing and marketing or PR for Coca Cola or geez, Brad Pitt, do you think writing itself has changed significantly in the past few decades or pretty much the same?

You know what? I think we learned the same things over and over again. And so we get so surprised when we find out, as Chadwick Martin Bailey did a few years ago, that people really share information and respond to information, if it's got information they can use to live their lives better and if it's entertaining. But the truth is a man named Wilbur Schramm discovered that back in 1947. And so we're learning the same things over and over again. I believe that technology changes, tools change, channels change. Certainly the amount of time we have to focus on reading has changed a lot in the last few decades. But the truth is, the one thing that remains the same through all of this is that we remain human and our readers remain human too. And so the same things that appeal to them in the 1950s and the 1960s, in the aughts, even day before yesterday, they remain the same. It's just a matter of we have to kind of change them and channel them a little bit. And so I'm seeing even those same needs for writing now. But some of them are really amplified right now because of the pandemic. So some of these classic things that we learned in the mid century of the 20th century, that we've learned over and over and over again, they apply in the pandemic. But sometimes they apply more or less, sometimes they become more or less important. And that's what I'm seeing right now.

Now, just in the introduction, you had said that you had had every seat at the table in communications. And something that I have been saying now for the past few weeks and in relation to COVID 19, is that communicators need a seat at the table now. And there is the importance on this position is stronger now than I feel than ever, because communicators and writers and public relations professionals and marketers, they're the ones. I feel like there's been this intersection between crisis management, crisis communication, and just these hard skills like writing and communicators are so valuable, especially during this time of the pandemic.

I've been having a series of little virtual happy hours with some of my friends and clients and colleagues. And one of the things that I'm noticing is this is our crisis. I mean, we're the ones who are literally saving lives by telling people how to wash their hands, by telling people how to stay home. And so all of this advice we're getting, all of the information we're getting is all coming through communicators somewhere. I have talked to people who get up, stumble to their desks, and they stop when it gets dark outside, literally working 12, 14, 16 hours every single day. I've been talking to people who are getting calls every 15 minutes from the CEO because they're the person who can help. And I've been getting calls from people who didn't even know that executives knew their names, who are now getting formal thank you notes from the executives. And so we are front and center right now. We've never been more important. And I really do, and I mean this sincerely, I thank these people for their service, for getting this information out at this important time.

I feel the same way. I am always the biggest advocate for communicators, and I feel they need to be heard and they need a seat at that table. Like I said, with leadership. And now more than ever, they are the ones that are communicating this very important and critical information for organizations and businesses. Now, what we're going to talk about today, I mean, I could have you on for weeks. You have such helpful advice that I learned from you firsthand when I sat in your workshop. But today we're going to talk about something specific and that is writing during a pandemic or really a crisis. But you have found some tips that you were able to call with all your years of experience that resonate for writing during a pandemic. And let's start off and they all. There's an alliteration there, which I love. But let's talk about who you're writing for and how you're writing for them. In other words, the tone. What could you share about how you're writing?

Yeah, I think one of the most important things is for us to take a step back and really think about readers, where they are right now. And we always do that. That's part of step one of a communication plan, is to consider the audience. So I think all of our communications during a crisis should be compassionate, confident and clear. And when you look at compassionate, we're talking about considering people where they are right now. We've got some of these people who we just talked about. They're on from seven in the morning till seven at night. We've got people who are in essential jobs, but perhaps worried about contagion. We have people who are working at home for the first time ever. And, and also having to make sure that their kids have the right things that they need for their robotics class that starts in seven minutes on Zoom. And we have people who are unemployed and worried about getting their next paycheck. And I think it becomes really important to consider where your audience is right now. And we may all of us have people from each of those groups in our audience. If we're able to target them, I think that's great. If we're not, we just need to be compassionate about it. But one thing to consider is that everybody is a few rows down on Maslow's hierarchy of needs right now. If your audience members are worried about safety, food and toilet paper, they are not concerned right now about self actualization. And so we need to consider that when we're framing our message or positioning our message to the readers.

Now Ann, when you mention the hierarchy of needs right now, so we are at the time of this Recording. I'm putting you right on the air on the podcast. In this last week of April, we're kind of past that, that scare phase, that initial phase where everyone had to go to the store and get toilet paper, that there was just this rush of the supply chain and fears of it running short and marketers certainly had to watch what their tone was. Now I don't know if you would agree with me. I feel like we're in a second phase now that some of the states are reopening quicker than others, but we're slowly getting back to the business of business. Do you note that there's some that the temperature has changed a little when it comes to businesses like writing for a business? Let's say it's not in, it's a non essential business. What is the tone that people are using now? Is it still in that state of those basic needs or are they shifting out of it?

I think they're. First of all, yes, I agree with you. I've seen this change. About maybe two weeks to 10 days ago, I started noticing a shift that would have been mid April even in how my clients were coming to me and asking for stuff that was like, okay, we're after the initial freak out, we're able to see that, you know, we're going to business is going to continue on. And so I think that's true. I do, I do still think there are people who are in crisis mode who are still worried about disinfecting and protecting. But I do see that we're able to at least start opening conversations that go beyond just hey, D and E, payment relief, you know, we can start talking, I think at this point about products selling stuff which I was not recommending a couple of weeks ago. But as we move into this, I think one of the things that we need to think about is in everything we write, think about where those readers are right now and then think about what they need. You know, every single organization in the world is affected by this pandemic. Every single human in the world is affected by this pandemic. And that can add up to a lot of email. And so as you think about even whether to send and what to send, I think asking what do these people actually need right now? Should be top of mind. That should be top of the list. Is it still payment relief? Is it a tool you can trial free? Is it tip sheets on how to stay safe at home or how to entertain the kids at home? What do they need? And that should be driving whether, whether and when we send messaging.

Okay, then tell me in terms of specifics on what they need. So you're making it clear that we want to point out and write about the needs and not necessarily the wants. Right now. Are there any tricks to the writing itself, like the pronoun use or the wording that you're using? How do you write to point out what people need?

I think once you figure out what they need, then make sure that you're positioning that message as a need to them. And so the way you do that is you focus on them in the writing instead of focusing on you and your stuff. So I got something from Delta the other day that outlined their new program. They're going to extend all those trips I had to cancel. They're going to extend the time that I can use those credits. And they didn't say, you'll now be able to use your credits well into 2021. They said, we have a new program. We are now doing this, and that's called wee weeing on your readers. We don't want to wee wee on our readers. Nobody wants to be we, we on. And so instead you want to focus on the pronoun you. And I think, you know, in, in business to business communications, and business commute to consumer communications. At any time, but especially now in the pandemic, it becomes more important to make the reader the story. The reader is the topic of the story, your topic, your program's not the topic, the reader's the topic. How are they going to use this? And I went through one of, one of the early COVID 19 updates I got that was, I thought, particularly bad. And I ran the we you ratio on that, on that message. And to do that, you just do a find for all the wheeze, a find for all the use. You do a find for the company name, a find for what they would call their consumer or their client or their customer. And then you just see what the ratio is. And I found 27 company names to 16 references to the consumer, four we's to every two you. And so that's just a sense that you are wee weeing on the audience. You're talking about you and your stuff instead of about the audience and their needs. And so use that technique to make sure you're writing about them instead of you.

And I received the same email from Delta, and as I read it, I remember from your workshop about writing in the imperative voice. And I noticed it in that email as a frequent Delta user, the Ann Wiley came right out at me and I had noticed that whether it's writing for crisis or not, marketers or anyone writing should really focus on the you instead of the we. We. Correct?

Absolutely. And, Molly, I'm only hoping that you and I were reading that at exactly the same time and having that exact insight at exactly the same.

I think we were.

Yeah.

It came out and I read it and I went, there it is. There it is. Okay, so when you speak about writing, that sounds like that's the confidence that you need.

When.

When you write, can you speak more about that? Like when someone is sitting down, and I know from communicators, they sit at their keyboards and they are, whether it's for social media or for a blog. And there is a lack of confidence because they know there's so much weighing on their words right now and what they're saying. What kind of advice could you give to someone who's writing in a time of crisis? Where should their headspace be when it comes to writing?

Yeah. You know, I think. And again, I think this is true whether you're writing in a crisis or not. But I think at some point it would make sense, and it would have made sense to already do it. But it's not too late to do it now to sit down and have a conversation with the team about what is our voice now? I remember in another crisis after 9 11, rewriting, my team rewrote H and R Block's website for people who had lost somebody during 9 11. And even if you had lost someone, they still had to pay their taxes. You still had to pay your taxes. If your paperwork was in the trade towers when they went up, you still had to pay your taxes. And so this was pages and pages and pages of advice about what different form do you use? How do you handle it this time? And we at the beginning of the project sat down and said, the voice for this is going to be your favorite uncle, Uncle Frank, a former cpa, who says, sit down, honey. Pick up a pencil. We're going to get through this. And I think naming that person and giving that person a quality is better than sitting down with a list of adjectives and saying, it's going to be warm, it's going to be compassionate. And so I think that's a really good practice for any time. I think we should be doing that all the time. Just describing our voice for right now, my feeling is that the voice of CEOs sending out these Executive Covid updates should be a warmer version of Keep calm and carry on. And I think we Want that extra warmth. I think we often do want to hear from the CEO right now, but I think that warmth can devolve into hand wringing. I saw another COVID 19 update. This was from a hotel Molly, that. I'm sure you saw this same one, too, since you travel all the time. And it went beyond concerned and respectful to hand wringing, executive hand wringing, and sort of gnashing of teeth. There were lots of adjectives in it, like insidious, daunting, devastating. And I started to become concerned that the CEO was going to forget to wash his hands because he was so upset and that he was so upset, I wondered whether he could capably run his business. And so Tone can, I think when we're trying to warm it up, Tone can easily kind of veer off into this. Like, you know, when you're grieving and you don't want your friend to grieve for you, you want them to hear you grieve. It sort of felt like that. Like, I don't want to hear how sad you are about this. I want you to make me feel better. And so I think that's kind of where we want to land right now in terms of that confident tone. Confident means, you know, think of. Think of Governor Cuomo. You know, you feel like he's confident that he can run this thing. He's really not happy about it. He's very sad for the people, his neighbors and his constituents who he's lost. But he feels capable and confident. And I think that's sort of where we have to hit in between that overly warm, kind of sicky feeling to just sort of stone cold somewhere in between them.

Oh, and now you're. You're fully in my lane right now, so I have to ask you this. This is going to be a little bit out of left field, but I know you're going to have an answer. What you are speaking to, even though we're talking about writing, you are speaking to a value system and how you're conveying it through the written word or through statements. This week, there's been a lot of chatter about the PPP loans, you know, the SBA loans that a lot of these big public companies received intended for small businesses. And like the Ruth Chris Steakhouse and the Steak Shack, they return the money. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it because in my client base, I have a number of CEOs, CEOs had that had to make that choice. Do we really need the money? So from a writing perspective, and Putting yourself out there. So I'm going to ask you just, I'm going to tap into your PR sense. How would someone, if you were a CEO, how would you write about that loan piece? Because I know a lot of companies are looking at this right now, whether you, whether you went for that money and took the loan because you needed it or not. How would you counsel a leader or leadership to write around a situation like that? Is it important to be truthful first or to explain a lot or any thoughts on that?

You know, I think we tend to get into over explaining a lot. And I think when we're in a crisis, we tend to overwrite and we tend to forget that overriding looks like obfuscation. And so just the volume of what words. I mean, think about what, what trial lawyers do if they're commanded to give you a document that they really don't want you to have. What they do is they back up a truck to your office with banker's boxes filled with documents and say the document is in here, we've delivered. And so it's it. Sometimes I think when we're in a situation like this, our response looks like that we're backing up the truck with the banker's boxes full of words and hiding the response in that. I think when you're in a crisis, it becomes very important not to spin, not to decorate, and to avoid even the appearance of obfuscation. And so that means super short words, super short sentences, super super short paragraphs and super short messages. And so don't send me a 1200 word scroller of long paragraphs of your, of your CEO, you know, lamenting this or trying to defend it or trying to explain it. You know, I think a simple explanation. We needed the money, but we can see that other people need it more. So we're returning it. I think the simpler the sentences, the simpler the words, the simpler the message, the more it appears. And you know, it can appear like you're trying to obfuscate even when you're not. The more it appears that you're trying to do the right thing. And I think that becomes even more important during a pandemic.

Yeah, because you're talking about two things there. You're talking about just honesty and transparency, but also clear writing. Before I get to the clear writing. You know, going back again, you know, this paycheck protection program has been in the news and I think it is impacting so many reputations right now, whether it's higher ed or publicly traded companies, but it will, it will affect nonprofits down the road. I think it's going to be there for a while. Tell me how you write. I don't know. Is that safe or is it, is it a good thing? Does it help a reputation or is there a way to write it with still showing confidence?

I think a way to write, I don't know, with confidence is the, you know, the three most beautiful or the most powerful words in the English language. I don't know, period. I think that makes a great sentence, and I think we should be saying that more often because we don't know. None of us know. And I think that there are things that we don't know whether they're going to be happening. There are meetings that we don't know whether they're going to occur. We don't know whether we're going to go back to work. We don't know. We don't know. And I think this is a really good time to be saying that often and clearly. And I think three words with a period at the end is a good way to do that one.

Oh, I, I love that. I could not agree with you more. And also, I don't know. And as it relates to the paycheck protection program, I didn't know. We didn't know. And that's why we're doing this now. Those are great words. And so let's now go to that third piece about writing with clarity and, you know, writing in, in very clear and concise sentences, saying, you know, three words. I don't know. What could you say about this that, like, what could help someone become more clear when they write?

You know, I think that's more important now than it usually is. And of course, you know, clarity is like, you know, one of our top mandates when we're, when we're communicating. But I think now it's more important. And, and the first reason is because of that appearance of obfuscation. If we want to avoid even the appearance that we're trying to hide something, we need to be careful about that. If you've taken that check, you know, from the PPP program, if you have, if you're insisting that your employees come to work despite stay at home orders, if you are commanding that your employees stop washing their hands right now, hide it in a long paragraph. Because if you hide it in a long paragraph, nobody will be able to find it. But conversely, if you write a long paragraph, people may wonder what you're hiding. And so I think right now, or during any crisis, and particularly, you know, this is a crisis that. Well, the PPP is one that you might have created in your own organization. But certainly COVID 19 is not anything that we've created. But especially when it's a crisis you've created, avoiding that illusion of obfuscation is really important. Another reason is we're in an infodemic. Again. Every single company that has access to your email has sent you an email in the last few weeks and is going to continue to send you emails. We just have too much information, so much information that the information from the World Health Organization and from the CDC might get lost. And so because we're in an infodemic, it becomes important for us to be clearer and more readable. And then finally, I think our audience members cognitive resources are somewhere else. Even if they're not immediately concerned about catching the virus, they have a lot of stuff on their mind, from cranking out all these messages, to reading all these messages, to working at home with the kids, to worrying again about a paycheck or going to work at an essential piece. So I would think about several things there. The first is I think this is a real time for us to question the frequency mandate of crisis communication, which is communicate early and often. There are just too many emails going on. I think the way we figure this out is to ask, what do my audience members need from me now? Give it to them. And don't worry about being. I'm talking to lots of people who are like, we're concerned about being absent at this time. I'm like, oh my gosh, your absence is not being noted and it's not unappreciated. You know, you don't have to speak up just because everybody's speaking up. You don't need to send out a message saying we're washing our hands because everybody else has. And so let's rethink that communicate early and often concept I think would be a good place to start.

Oh, so okay, so communicating early and often, you might modify that. But what about over communicating? Like I know I've said it. I've had guests on this podcast that have said it in the last few weeks that you can't over communicate. But what. It sounds like that there is a difference. There's a slight disparity between the infodemic as you, as you speak of, but also over communicating if you are going to communicate. It sounds as if you need to give your readers, your audience, your key stakeholders the information that you need. Like you can't over communicate that much if you're Helping them. But if you're just writing for the sake of writing, that's over communication.

Communicating. Yeah, I mean, I think I just question the idea that you can't over communicate. I think that we've got, you know, everybody's got a spam filter, everybody's got an index finger. If you keep sending irrelevant stuff to them, they're. You're going to lose the opportunity to speak to them after the virus or even immediately. So I question the whole theory that you can't over communicate. I disagree with that idea. I think you, you definitely can over communicate, and we're seeing some over communication right now. But then I think when you do communicate, you look at that message and you say, how do I make it short and sweet and easy to understand. I've been receiving 1200 word emails from my two daughter's vets. I just don't need this much information about how my vet is handling the situation. Maybe that would be something that would be more, more appropriate if I had an appointment and they wanted to let me know how to get ready for the appointment. So you see the difference between we're going to send everybody in our email database. I'm not taking the cats in to the vet unless something bad happens during this time. And so I don't think everybody in their database needs it. Maybe we think more, maybe we target our audience. That's something we used to do a little bit better. I was looking at Governor Cuomo's tweets the other day, and I'm just so impressed with how he's handling the communications. I feel like he's sort of giving us a master class in crisis communications and executive communications, including the writing of those things. And he has paragraphs in his tweets. He hits return, short sentences, short phrases, short words. He has bullet points in tweets. You know, those are things that we can, that we can steal now that will help us communicate better and have our messages really show up during this crisis, but also will help us as a practice, after the crisis.

And so you're touching on. I believe that the reason I had mentioned this earlier in the podcast, the reason why Andrew Cuomo is making an impact, okay, so he's the governor you know of, you know of a state that clearly has one of the largest incidence rates and death rates of the coronavirus. But it is his communication and his style of it that is resonating with people. And I agree with you, is that he understands, just like President Trump, though, how to master Twitter. And to master Twitter is You need to understand how to communicate very quickly within 280 characters. And he does a very good job doing that. I agree with you.

Yeah. And I think he's doing a masterful job in all of his communications. He's somebody that we could look to to learn how to do this better.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I agree with you. Now I'm going to ask you one question. I'm sure you've heard of this term just from my crisis back term called, you know, a Black Swan event. It's like one of those once in a lifetime, one of those events that you could never prepare for an Unknown Unknown Like 9, 11 or the coronavirus, if you could go back in time. Now, what have we learned? And there was a lot of comment commentary on this and you just mentioned it now too. In the first week, everyone received an email from everyone, you know, about what they were doing, how they're washing their hands, what they need to do to respond. Let's say there's another Black Swan event like that where everybody goes to an email. What lesson have we learned about those initial forms of communication?

I'll just say that from my own perspective and from my own, the communications I'm doing for my own business, one thing that I wish I had thought of earlier was just how can I contribute to my community at this time? You know, there were a few weeks there where nobody needed a writing workshop. And it took me a long time to kind of process through how can I contribute to my community at this time. I think that should be our first response to these things. Not how do I sell a widget, not how do I do this, how do I keep marketing, you know, fancy clothes when nobody's leaving their house? I think that we just ask ourselves, how do I make myself valuable to my community at this time? And especially when, you know, as in here, many of us had sort of work stoppages for a few weeks. I just wish for myself that I had been faster to process that and faster to get there. And I think next time I will be, and I will consult my clients to be a little bit faster with that too. I think that's the question we ask first.

Okay, so Ann, so to wrap up here, if you had so 60 seconds, 30 seconds with a communicator, an overwhelmed communicator, someone who has to, you know, write either social media or blogs. And it's now, it's late April, we're heading into May in this crisis, what advice would you give them about communicating? If you could sum it up in.

Writing, I think if I had to give one piece of advice, it would be that the reader is always the story, that the reader is the reason for this, that the reader is our audience members are why we do this. And so if you start with the reader, that is going to make you be compassionate, because you're going to be thinking about these real humans who have these problems. It's going to make you feel confident because you're going to be able to know what they need and you're going to be able to give them that. And it's also going to allow you to be clear, because if you're really thinking about your audience members, you know that they don't want reams and reams and reams of information. And so I think just starting by even picturing one of your audience members, you know, somewhere, wherever they might be, I would start with that. I think that could solve a lot of problems very quickly.

Oh, that merges so nicely into public relations writing. It's understanding who your key stakeholder is when you're communicating to them. And you need to write for a purpose and for a reason. And you're absolutely right. Picture who that reader is. It could be an employee, it could be a customer, some type of consumer. So, Ann, you had mentioned writing. I am a fan of your easing. I am overwhelmed with emails, like many people are. But when yours comes across to Transom, I always read it because you offer such valuable tips. So now that you're like me, you had to make that pivot in during COVID 19. So what are some of the things that you're offering online to help people? Anyone that's hearing you right now, how you can help them further online.

Thank you. Well, we've taken all of our writing workshops online, and I don't know if we're still going to be offering them in person. If we can, we will, but we've moved all of them online. So we've got classes on how to Rev up readability, how to catch your readers, how to write for public relations coming up online over the next few months. The next one is Rev Up Readability, and it's on May 4th to June 1st online. And in that, we're going to look at a system where we can run our messages through this power tool that I can offer everybody for free. And they're going to get something like 27 metrics on their messages, from how long their sentences are to how long their words are to how they start paragraphs. And I'm going to give them Targets for every one of those metrics. They'll be able to measure, monitor and manage their readability to improve, make every single piece they write easier to read and understand.

And for me, going to your workshop, the in person workshop, was so serendipitous because you changed how I thought about writing. It was something that I had. It was a grind for me that I had to get through. And after leaving your workshop, it became easy and I dare say enjoyable. So I was ready to start writing when the coronavirus hit from all of your tips. So I highly encourage anyone if you want to get those fast tracks and those tips that can help you be a compassionate, a confident and a clear writer. I could not recommend these online workshops enough. In the show notes, I am going to include a link for people to find out more information about your online course. But Ann, if they wanted to find out about your about any more workshops, that's all in your ezine as well, right?

That's right. And could we include a link to that ezine so if anybody wants to continue this conversation, they can keep getting tips on how to write during the crisis and afterwards.

Oh, and that goes without saying. And tell me more though about the other piece that you have that I love is your membership site.

Thank you. Yeah, I have Rev up readership and that is sort of my brain on screens. And so virtually everything I have ever written about headlines, writing benefits, making your messages clearer, more compassionate, more confident. And it's, I think, Molly, I don't know how far you've gotten in it, but it's I think it's like 1200 articles or more. It has tools to help you find just the right word and help you do other things that will help your writing. So thank you for bringing that up.

Yeah. And it's super helpful. When I write, there are two places that I go. I always go to the AP Style book, but I also go, I go to your website as well. It is so helpful. So just as I said in the introduction, I cannot recommend you enough. I mean you are my favorite writing instructor. So I knew that you could bring my listeners some very valuable and now timely advice for or how to take. Also take the stress out of writing, but really offer your readers what they need and the information that they need and the relevant information that they need.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay, well, thank you so much, Ann. And also I'm so pleased that you I mentioned my response kit often on this podcast now because where you have this passion for writing. I have this passion for helping organizations and companies and leaders with their response. Because just like you, I think we share the same value system that communicating relevant information that people need is the most critical information that you can do. And I'm so happy that hopefully, like I can include a lot of your information in there as well, because I share your value system with how to communicate. So thank you.

Thank you.

I want to thank Ann Wiley for joining me on the podcast. If you want a summary of what what Ann and I discussed in bullet point form, you can head on over to the Show Notes located on my website for a link to the free download. You'll also find more information about Ann's online workshops, including the upcoming workshop RevUp readability starting on May 4, 2020. Also, you can sign up for her free newsletter and get information about her toolbox. For writers, read Revupreadership.com that's what I use finally, you've heard me mention the Response Kit to Ann. It was an idea launched at the start of the coronavirus outbreak to support communicators in their efforts to speak and write to their stakeholders. It was my gift, so to speak, to help my clients and other people, other communicators like me, communicate during this time. The Response Kit. It hit a critical need in the group, thankfully, and it has been growing ever since. Each week I add resources to help communication efforts online. So those are things like press release templates, social media tips, and this week I added website wireframes. So if you have a business organization or cooperative and you want to update your website, you can download the PDF for guidance. Also, the Slack Community people every day are communicating in there and they are sharing information, supporting people, asking questions about things that are happening around COVID 19 or just a crisis that might pop up at this time. The Response Kit is morphing into a Response kit for any crisis or any issue that needs a response. It also has a new home, a new URL. It's off my website now and onto a new URL responsekit.com if it sounds like it's moving into something bigger, it is. It is now going to become a resource for communicators or anyone in business that needs support in a time of crisis. Now, not every issue leads to a crisis, but every issue needs needs a response. And it goes without saying that every crisis needs one as well. The Response Kit will offer tools to help organizations and their communicators prepare the response when something could happen or that oh shoot moment when something does. Now go on, get into the Response Kit. It's free right now. The Slack Channel is open to anyone. But I will say as a hint, the people who who are in the Slack Channel now, the ones who are communicating, those are the people who are going to be grandfathered and moved into a membership section. They're already so valuable right now. And I encourage you to head on over because these are people that really care about communications and they're so helpful. Responsekit.com check it out today. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. Bye for now. Sam.