apple
My role
I was engaged for six months to edit sales enablement materials written by instructional designers. As the team’s needs grew, my contract was extended to Apple’s 18-month limit for contractors.
The project
Apple asked me to build an executive writing workshop for sales leaders. Participants in the Sales Leadership Development Program (SLDP) were writing business briefs for CEO Tim Cook and other senior leaders—but the briefs were unclear.
Timeline
1 year
My approach
I started by talking to the stakeholders who had initiated the project, then asked to read the briefs. Getting access took a while, so in the meantime, I interviewed sales leaders to diagnose recurring problems. I wanted to find out two things: whether they were aware that the briefs weren’t landing, and where they struggled the most with writing.
I’m not a salesperson, so I also spoke with stakeholders to determine what I might be tempted to edit that actually needed to stay put—like technical terms, or conventions for presenting data in tables.
Once I had the briefs, I filled in the gaps.
From there, I worked with a fellow editor and several graphic designers to build a keynote for the workshop—along with a video and resources—all of which would live on the SLDP intranet site.
What I delivered
I turned my findings into several assets:
A two-hour workshop (which I presented to 90+ leaders over Zoom) with speaker notes
A four-part framework defining principles of the Apple voice
Checklists and resources
Grammar essentials
A three-step writing process
A proofreading checklist
Business brief essentials
A business brief style guide
A vetted list of writing classes
Noteworthy wins
100% of workshop participants—across NA, EMEA, LATAM, and APC—reported stronger writing skills. And Apple now has a workshop any facilitator can run from the speaker notes.
Samples
The workshop content is proprietary, so I can’t share it. But I’m happy to walk you through my approach.
Want a program like this for yourself or your team? Contact me.