“Imagine a reality where only 2% of homeowners know how much their homes are worth.
Replace the word ‘homeowners’ with ‘business owners,’ and this scenario is actually the case. Experts estimate that a full 98% of business owners have never had a business valuation done and are basically guessing at how much their business is worth.”
Understanding the Value of Business Valuations | The Targeted Strategies Group
Roles: Writer, researcher, proofreader
It’s easy to understand why entrepreneurs drag their heels in getting an official assessment of their company’s value: business valuations are an expensive, intrusive hassle.
The problem is, without one, any planning is really just guessing. Estate and retirement planners have no reliable figures to go on. Tax and insurance specialists can only speculate. The succession team can’t put together a proper buy-sell agreement. Heirs or purchasers can’t make confident decisions.
In this article, I outline the process for getting an independent business valuation done, including the four main types of valuation.
This is one of many articles I wrote, along with three white papers, as the primary content provider for The Targeted Strategies Group, a life-insurance firm for UHNW clients. See more here. (All but the technical articles on life insurance and the book-award announcements are mine.)
5 Main Threats to Biodiversity | Network for Business Sustainability
Roles: Writer (uncredited by agreement), researcher
NBS is an exciting organization with a tough brief: to take often-turgid academic reports on sustainability and turn them into web articles aimed at business leaders who aren’t necessarily sold on the need to act for the environment. It calls for a writer who can grasp the technicalities of scientific studies and “translate” them accurately into engaging copy at the layperson’s level, with a clear “what’s in it for me” element.
This was one of my all-time favourite gigs. It tapped into my academic chops, my Strunk-and-Whiteian obsession with clean, active prose, and my love of persuasive writing. I joined another PhD, who heads up NBS, in tackling the rewrites, and occasionally, as with this piece, contributed original articles to series whose lead author was another content writer.
“Hands up if you can name this little-known member of the world economy:
- Every year, it provides services valued at between USD $120-$140 trillion—more than 1.5 times the entire annual global GDP.
- More than 55% of the world’s GDP depends on its services.
- It is by far the cheapest and most effective source of the services it offers—and it is in danger of going out of business.
This vital component of the economy is biodiversity. But ecosystem are collapsing as species go extinct—and the cost to business is massive.”
“Neoline is a French start-up with an ambitious solution. The company has designed a sailing cargo ship powered almost entirely by wind. Using the inexhaustible power of marine wind in its 14,000 square feet of sail, the Neoliner has the potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions on ocean crossings by 90%.”
The Future of Shipping: Wind Power | Forbes.com
Article by Tima Bansal, Canadian Chair of Sustainability in Business
Roles: Substantive editor, researcher, proofreader
For a backyard eco-scientist like me, working with Dr. Tima Bansal, Canadian Chair of Sustainability in Business at the Ivey School of Business (Western University), was a fantastic opportunity. Dr. Bansal not only had founded the Network for Business Sustainability (see previous sample) and Innovation North (see Content Writing page), but had just started writing for Forbes.com on sustainability issues.
I worked with Dr. Bansal on all three of these initiatives, happy to exploit the intersection of my 10 years as a writing coach for MBA students, my doctoral dissertation areas of biophilia and evolutionary psychology, and my passion for writing about the environment. Most of Dr. Bansal’s pieces for Forbes.com needed only a light touch; occasionally, as with this article, they required more of a substantive edit, including additional research.
Puzzles and Illusions Gallery | Science World
The problem: The sedate write-ups on the Science World website were a mismatch with the on-the-ground reality of hordes of excited, squealing kids running from room to room and diving into hands-on activities.
The solution: Rewrite all 100+ pages on the site in a vibrant tone that conveyed the fun the kids have at Science World, while also delivering needed information for the parents making the decisions.
The Puzzles and Illusions copy is part of Science World’s 2019 website “refresh”, in which I rewrote almost all the webpages for its galleries, exhibitions, and programs. See some others here. Although many write-ups were edited to adjust for COVID conditions, my writing still peeks through in most of them.
“Nothing is as it seems in our illusions area. Is the line straight or curved? Is the picture black-and-white or coloured? It’s up to you to decide! Over at the puzzle tables, you can test your smarts and skills by tackling dozens of fun, challenging puzzles and games––complete with written hints that can be almost as tricky.”
Pamela Swanigan portfolio 