Something surprising thing happened when AI started writing. The value of human thinking skyrocketed.

We recently surveyed our clients on what matters most to them when working with us, and (just as I had suspected) our writing skills are not number one.

Instead, our clients value our ability to think strategically and provide value-unlocking insights. Plus, our deep knowledge and understanding of their audience, sector and business. And how we manage many different stakeholders, while being easy to work with. Instead, our clients value a useful sidekick in content creation.

These are all very human qualities. And they’ve always been at the heart of our culture and values as a business.

For busy small business owners, building a positive workplace culture isn’t always top of mind. But it’s fundamental to the value of Writers as a business, and it’s something I’m most proud of.

As I recently explored in a story for CEO Magazine, it’s why we attract amazing talent away from corporate brand roles or ‘Big 4’ consultancies, and how we provide a consistently great experience for our clients.

But until now, we’ve been keeping some of our best strategic thinking to ourselves.

That’s about to change.

We know words have the power to make things happen. The right message, delivered with care and clarity, can build trust, spark change, or shift how someone sees the world. It’s why clients like Korn Ferry, Macquarie Bank, AGL and UNSW have long trusted us to tell their most important stories.

But there’s something we haven’t always shown the world: how we do it.

The seven herbs and spices of Writers

Like that famous colonel, we’ve developed a secret recipe that helps us differentiate. And in a market already sinking under the weight of generic-AI-written waffle, these flavours make our skills and systems even more compelling.

You can taste the difference when slow, strategic thinking takes place before a single word is typed.

Strategic thinking means asking the questions no one else will, like:

• Why are we creating this content?
• Why will the reader care?
• How will we measure the impact?

And perhaps counterintuitively, being willing to reduce the volume of work if it means increasing your ROI.

It means starting with deep empathy for the reader, and doing the work to check we’re building this on genuine audience insights. Not the new CMO’s assumptions.

And it means challenging the brief, and challenging each other during our internal peer review process.

We don’t just help our clients write better. We help them think better.

It’s time for fresh thinking

We’re certainly using AI to write more efficiently (unless you explicitly ask us not to… which is completely fine). But we see AI as a sidekick, not a starting point. If we don’t put the thinking in first, we won’t get the human hook that makes your message relatable, memorable, and genuine.

And from now on, we’ll walk that talk with our own content too. We’ll start sharing more insights usually relegated to the confines of our team Slack channel, so you can learn more about how to write with an empathy-first mindset or craft a narrative that sticks. And we’ll share what’s working (and what isn’t – warts and all) from all our work spanning almost every industry and audience group.

Plus, we’ll roll up our sleeves and solve common comms challenges in our bi-monthly Writers Content Clinic. Got some complex brand symptoms and need a diagnosis? Our recommendations are more effective (and reassuring) than Dr Google or the GPT walk-in clinic.

Make sure you’re on the list for these (slightly) more regular posts from our team here on LinkedIn and in our newsletter, W. Insider.

1. Subscribe to our newsletter for insights you won’t get anywhere else – straight from the Writers team.
2. Follow me, as well as Nikola Hopkinson, Oyelola Oyetunji, Costa Fillis, Dannielle Duval and Anna Milward. Our company profile is here.
3. Send us a question for our new Writers Content Clinic – we’ll tackle the sticky stuff you’re dealing with in your business.

You can expect insights direct from the people doing the work: not polished for marketing, but thoughtful, practical and honest.

Welcome to our Writer’s room

Since publishing Beyond Solo – a guide to scaling your business without losing the values that matter – I’ve got a clearer sense of who we are, and what we want to build.

We love working with clients who see writing not as the final step, but as a tool for clarity and cohesion right from the start. The ones who start with the problem, and trust us to find the solution. Who value our views and love to collaborate and co-create.

This new series is for them, and for you. I hope to see you there.