The spin-off is all around us…

Take a closer look at this book cover.

As you see, one of the authors is Dave Stewart.

Yes, that Dave Stewart. The guy who formed one half of The Eurythmics with Annie Lennox. And you may be wondering why his name is on a business book.

Well, it’s a form of spin-off.

Yes, Dave Stewart is probably best known as a musician. But he is also a producer… and an entrepreneur.

He applies his knowledge and experience from the music business to business in general. A nice creative twist.

It’s a spin-off.

And when you think about it, the world is full of them.

Just take the stage and screen, for example.

A show does well. A new show is created off the back of it.

Think Happy Days and Mork & Mindy. Think Cheers and Frasier. Think Friends and Joey. (Well, two out of three were worth the effort).

Literally hundreds of them…

Only Fools & Horses and The Green Green Grass. Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley In Their Flying Machines. Inspector Morse and Lewis. Dallas and Knots Landing. Open All Hours and Still Open All Hours. Bewitched and Tabatha. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Sometimes there is more than one spin-off.

Dr Who spawned The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. Plus it was turned into at least two movies.

Talking of movies, there is a glut of them based on the corresponding TV series. Batman, The Dukes of Hazard, Star Trek, The Avengers, The Muppet Movie, The Inbetweeners. The Addams Family. Dad’s Army. Even Mr Bean.

And some sequels (or prequels) might be considered a form of spin-off. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit led to The Lord of the Rings. At the cinema, the roles were reversed.

I could go on. You probably have your own examples.

The point is, you can take a good thing… and make another good thing out of it.

It applies in business and marketing, too.

A checklist becomes a cheat sheet. Tips get expanded to create an e-guide. An update becomes a report or white paper.

Eight, 10 or 12 topics turn a summary into chapter headings for a book. Transform the information into a ring binder and you have the makings of a manual or business pack.

Add some videos, lesson notes and resources list and you can create a course.

Run a series of webinars to deliver content. You can charge for attending the webinars. Record the webinars and create an audio training course.

Speak at an event or run a workshop. Film it and you have a video product available.

All spin-offs.

I recommend you explore how you can use them to add revenue and profits to your buisness. Create new ways to promote what your organisation is doing.

And here’s one of my spin-offs.

Sure, I get asked to write a lot of copy for a wide range of fields and industries. But there’s another service I offer which also proves popular.

It’s copy critique.

People ask me to take a look at their copy. To review. To edit. To revise.

Even re-write it (and sometimes I tell the client that is the ONLY option if they want any kind of positive result).

The quality is the same yet the project is less expensive.

Having a second pair of eyes – a professional pair – works in the same way as a sub-editor checks the copy of a news journalist.

The reporter researches and writes the story. They send it through to the ‘subs’ desk. A sub-editor looks at the story and checks:

– The intro (the opening line or lines)
– The story structure
– The balance of the story
– The mix of reported text and quoted text
– The facts
– The information included
– The information left out
– The grammar (but not ‘Queen’s English’)
– The use of language (e.g. jargon, are technical or specialist terms explained?)
– The close

There may be a word limit or specific space set for the story. So the sub-editor has more work to do.

The story may have to be edited or cut to a specific word length. The story may be a little short – so more words are required.

The story may or may not have an image (or images). For visual design or to make it easier for the reader to read the copy, the journalist may add sub-headings to break up the text.

When it’s all good to go the sub-editor will add the headline (yes, the sub-editor, not the reporter, writes the headline).

The story gets improved through the second pair of eyes.

Give or take, that’s pretty much how copywriting works.

When writing copy, I also play ‘sub-editor’. When the copy is finished I do not send it to the client straight away. I set it to one side. For a day, maybe 48 hours or more. Then I come back to it. Put the copy back in front of me.

Review it. Edit it. Fine tune it. Tweak it. Improve it.

I can do the same for your copy.

All you have to do is ask.

Gary

P.S. To put me to the test may cost less than you think. (think fees starting from £97…)