As you scale a marketing agency, talent’s importance increases exponentially. When I started Sharp Pen in August 2021, we had a couple clients, and I was delegating only one weekly assignment to a freelance writer. This month, we’ll serve more than a dozen companies, and I delegate almost every writing assignment. 

As I play a smaller and smaller role in fulfillment (to focus on growing the business, managing highly urgent issues, and making strategic adjustments), the quality of my writers is the quality of the customer experience. So, there are fewer items higher on my priority list as the owner than finding and nurturing talent. In fact, I view talent as one of my four core long-term responsibilities as CEO, along with strategy, marketing, and biz dev. 

Over the past two years, I’ve worked with well over a dozen freelance writers. Here are the four qualities I look for when hiring and evaluating talent.

Writing ability

Obviously, marketing writers need to be able to write clear, persuasive, accurate, and engaging content. This is already saying a lot. There are many writers who write engaging copy but aren’t especially clear. Some writers excel at narrative or descriptive writing, but most of our content as a marketing agency is persuasive. So, an ideal marketing writer ideally needs to check all four of those boxes.

Because this is the most important quality in strong marketing writer candidates (and because strong writing is something that’s hard to teach on the job), I view trial writing assignments as the most indispensable part of the writer hiring process. Yes, I also usually do a short interview just to set expectations and get a sense of how I would collaborate with a person. But the quality of the writing assignments is paramount. 

Productivity

I did a comparative literature PhD before starting Sharp Pen; I was also a journalist. Many people who match these descriptions are excellent writers, but many academics struggle to keep up with the pace of marketing writing, especially at an agency. I loathed the slowness of academia, where getting an article published could take several years, and I love the pace of marketing agencies, where writing a strong article in hours is a huge advantage. Not all writers share this disposition.

Some content marketing thought leaders really downplay the importance of productivity. Quality over quantity, they are quick to remind us. I don’t love this trend in content marketing discourse. Of course — you can’t peddle bad content and survive on productivity. But there are writers out there who are both highly productive and competent — who, to return to the formula for writing ability, write clearly, persuasively, accurately, engagingly, and quickly. Those people are very valuable to a marketing organization, especially at an agency.

Collaboration

Many marketers will say, “Don’t be an asshole.” This is a worthy goal, and one of the best parts of running your own business is that, indeed, you don’t need to work with people who are condescending, rude, or overly negative. Respect and professionalism are essential.

But a highly collaborative writer goes beyond not being an asshole. They also recognize that everyone participating in a project is partially responsible for its satisfactory and efficient completion, not just the project manager or head of content. So, they communicate proactively and clearly, clarify their availability and respond in a timely manner, and go the extra mile to get the job done. 

Accountability

Accountability is the hallmark of all great team members, be they writers or not. Accountable people own the tasks assigned to them. They under-promise and over-deliver. If they say they are going to get the essay done by Wednesday, they get it done by Wednesday, and not only that, but they also think about the potential roadblocks that could prevent them from getting the job done, clearing them early to create a positive result for their teammates and clients.

Accountability also means owning your mistakes. Errors happen to the best of us. But top-tier colleagues don’t obfuscate or deny; they recognize the mistake, own up to it, and propose next steps to resolve the problem. This in particular is one of the green flags I look for in contributors: people who spot an issue, whether of their own making or not, and propose a path forward. These people aren’t just accountable writers; they’re candidates to lead organizations.