Who We Are
Grow and Convert is a content marketing agency that helps companies grow by publishing in depth, informative articles that educate their target customers. This post will give you a good sense of who we are and why we’re different than most content marketing agencies out there. We have a wide range of clients mostly spanning B2B and B2C companies in many verticals. Some examples:
- One of the top concussion clinics in the U.S. (Cognitive FX)
- An international patent research firm that works with Fortune 500 clients (Grey B)
- Advanced digital marketing agencies (Inflow, Powered by Search)
- Various SaaS businesses and startups (Patreon, Pilot, Leadfeeder)
About our Writers with Developmental Editing Role
Unlike typical business “blog” content that is bland, introductory level, and written for Google, not humans (what we call “Mirage Content“), Grow and Convert produces high quality pieces with compelling stories that teach our clients’ readers something new (examples below). Thus…
- We’re looking for a writer who has experience doing “big picture editing”, aka “developmental editing” or “substance editing”. Because, as explained below, this shows that you can think critically about what the thesis of a piece is, is it really saying anything worth saying?, is it resonating with the pain points of the target reader, are the solutions presented unique or interesting?
- Ideally the writer should be passionate about interviewing business people, patent research experts, real estate contractors, medical patients, and various other professionals and consumers about their craft or their experience and turn them into educational articles for our clients.
- These educational articles (primarily business related) will teach your readers how to accomplish something or think about something in a new way.
- Bonus points if you have experience in these fields: marketing, business growth, real estate, patents, medical industry, tech and coding. But it’s not necessary! We’ve noticed that smart people who can find the “why is this interesting?” behind a story can apply this skill to almost any field.
- You should have an understanding of empathy as it relates to marketing: understanding what the client’s customers care about vs. what they don’t care about.
Here are some of the articles our writers have produced:
Email Is Still King: Why We Built a SaaS Company to Make It Even Better (Gmelius)
From Financial Distress to Monthly Income: Jack Lowe’s Journey as an Independent Creator (Patreon)
Independent Contractor vs. Employee: A Detailed Breakdown of Costs, Facts, and Business Needs (Pilot)
33 Years After a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), This Businessman Reclaimed His Life (CognitiveFX)
How ConvertKit Grew from $98k to $625k MRR by Doing 150 Webinars in 1 Year (Leadfeeder)
How A Circuit We Designed Helped Solve A Prior Art Puzzle (Greyb)
5 Steps to Predictable, Monthly Income for Any Creator with an Audience (Patreon)
Why are we looking for writers with such specific editing experience?
Why aren’t we looking for “bloggers” or “content marketers”?
Because “content marketers” have bad habits that we have trouble undoing. You see, most companies hire “bloggers” or “content marketers” to write bland content for Google (not humans). They don’t go through any filtering or editing process. The writer submits a blog post, and the client says “thanks” and moves on. As a result these posts tend to just use the Google keyword a lot, explain topics in a very general, uninteresting way, and in general just be boring. Think “10 tips for…” or “Beginners guide to …”.
Instead, we’ve found that our best writers can think critically about what makes a topic interesting, and whether there is anything worthwhile to be said on a topic and what that is, and how to get that information works a lot better.
The writing skills are almost secondary, it’s the thinking skills that are paramount.
And don’t worry about marketing skills (SEO, etc.) we can teach that easily (and have).
So we’re looking for writers who can demonstrate (with document(s) they can upload or share a link to in the application below) that they have done developmental editing where they’ve shown the critical thinking necessary to poke holes in an argument, find the best angle, make sure the body ties to the promises made at the top, and more. This is the kind of critical thinking we are looking for.
Necessary skills for our writing team:
When working with writers, we provide the strategy and topic, but you’ll be tasked with finding an angle for the story (on that topic) that is interesting or educational to the target reader (the client’s target customer). Posts are often based on an interview with an expert on the topic you’re writing about, although you may be asked to do some of your own research depending on the piece.
We’re still a small, close knit business, so you can discuss things with both founders (Benji and Devesh), who are here to support you and give you every chance to succeed in this role.
– You must have something we call “clarity of thought,” i.e., understand what makes a story/angle worth telling and how to convey them without fluff. This is more important than actual “writing” in terms of language, style, wordplay etc.
– You must be able to respond intelligently to editing and feedback. We always provide constructive criticism and expect to work with you to make the post as strong as it can be.
– You must be empathetic and know what matters to the audience for each piece.
– You must be responsive (we don’t assign pieces or deadlines without checking with you and usually have at least two weeks built in for back-and-forth on each piece).
– You must be willing and eager to learn. We’ve created a number of educational resources to help you understand exactly what we do and what we want from you.
– Must have experience/portfolio showing prior experience producing in-depth articles, but also at least one example of developmental editing you have done on someone else’s piece. This is the #1 criteria we are looking for. In this role you’ll be writing your own articles, BUT, we want writers who have experience poking holes in other writers arguments and structure and flow.
Benefits of working with us:
– We are fully remote, you can work from anywhere at any time.
– Stable, reliable income. Even though we pay per piece, we build a relationship with the writers that work with us so they know ahead of time how many pieces they are doing for the following month and usually proceed at a consistent cadence (e.g. 4 pieces every month) so the income is reliable.
– Once you are a vetted writer that’s a good fit, you don’t have to pitch us articles (you never have to) we pitch you the articles (“Hey we want to do a piece on X for client Y, are you interested?”)
– We have a set pay scale or all writers. (1)Brand new writers get $300 per post on their first 3 posts. After 3 posts it’s either a fit or not. (2) If it is a fit, all writers get $350 per post. (3) After 3 – 6 months, for the best writers who are very independent in the writing process, the get $450 per post. This is rare. Many continue at $350 per post for a long time. It doesn’t matter how many words the post is or how long it took you. If you can get efficient writing for one account, great!
– Long-term engagement (if mutually good fit after a couple of paid test pieces). We are running this company for the long haul and are looking for writers to work with long term.
– Lots of room to grow — either into writing for multiple accounts, being an editor, or moving into a content strategist role.
– For some accounts, stories will be published in your name.
– You’ll be able to build relationships with influential industry leaders
Looking for multiple writers.
If interested, please apply here.
