What are the best words to express a client's vision? Creating content that resonates and connects

No matter how wonderful your philosophy or vision may be, it will not be conveyed correctly unless you choose the optimal words and express them in a way that is easy for the reader to understand. Yadorigiya is a company that focuses on the "understanding" of the intended audience and works with clients to think through better ways of expression.

Sometimes, through interviews, we rediscover strengths and charms that the client was not even aware of. The key to supporting the journey toward understanding through words is to grasp the essence. We present an interview about the passion that Yuki Yadorigi, the representative of Yadorigiya, puts into content creation.

Decided to become independent because I wanted to face "people" more, not just "numbers"

――You have been independent for six years now. Could you tell us about your career leading up to your independence?

I joined an advertising planning and production company right out of university, where I was involved in planning and concretizing promotional projects in response to client requests. My main duties were listening to client requests and concerns and summarizing the path to the goal in a proposal. At that company, I was able to learn the basics of business, such as "how money circulates in society."

I found it rewarding to take something that had no form yet, put it into a proposal, and give it shape with words. However, the more I could see the big picture, the more uncomfortable I became with presenting clients with estimates that were many times the actual cost. One could say that is just business, but I did not find it interesting to chase sales figures.

Gradually, the stress caused by this discomfort grew, and I changed jobs to a company that operates vocational schools. There, I was involved in supporting students from enrollment to graduation, creating curriculum, and assigning instructors.

The work of facing people suited me, and the students were fond of me, but I was ordered to transfer to a department involved in sales and budget management because my abilities were recognized. Although it was a promotion in terms of career path, I had to face increasing sales again, and my motivation plummeted in inverse proportion to my salary increase. To be honest, at that time, I just wanted to be near the students and listen to them more.

I found myself disliking the work required by the organization. I had no interest in business scale or promotions. Feeling that "I am completely unsuited for working in an organization" was the trigger for my independence.

――Neither your first nor second company was a publisher or editorial production company, so why did you choose writing and editing work when you thought about becoming independent?

Since I became independent because I was not suited for an organization, I was not particularly picky about the job type as long as it was something I could do alone. However, since I could not do anything without some skills, I looked back at what my strengths were. I realized that listening to client concerns and summarizing the necessary approach in a proposal at my first company, and recording interview content with students in writing for internal sharing at my second company, were roles where I could provide value.

In other words, even without being at a publisher or editorial production company, I was doing work similar to interviewing people and writing. Among various tasks, I really loved the work of listening to someone, inputting that information, and outputting it through my own filter in writing.

Looking at the whole picture to find bottlenecks, scooping up thoughts that the person themselves was not aware of, and intuitively choosing a sequence of words that would gain people's empathy... I realized that this seemed to be my strength, and I chose the job of a writer thinking I could utilize those abilities.

I want to provide proper value to clients at a fair price

――You started small as a freelancer and incorporated as "Yadorigiya" three years later, right? Could you tell us about that process?

It sounds good to say I became independent, but I had no connections, so at first, I was receiving writing jobs through crowdsourcing sites. However, the jobs requested through crowdsourcing had such low unit prices that I was barely making a living by dipping into my savings. With no economic safety net, I thought I had no future unless I created other channels for work, so I registered on "Wantedly" after a friend told me about it.

There, I was lucky enough to be scouted by a startup and had an interview. Thinking I had to seize this chance, I utilized my experience from my first company and made a proposal from a management perspective: "Your company's current issue is this part, right? To solve that, I think you need to disseminate this kind of content."

The president seemed to find that interesting, and said, "You should be involved from higher up in the business rather than just as a writer." They even made me business cards for that company with the title "Chief Editor," even though I was a freelance contractor. I think that title made me the "right-hand person of a company that provides text."

I was entrusted with all product user interviews and employee interviews, and the articles I interviewed and wrote were well-received not only within the company but also outside. It seems that members of the company who entrusted me with the work were asked by others, "That article was very good, who wrote it?" and by introducing me each time, requests through word-of-mouth increased.

However, there were several times when companies with proper corporate governance turned me down simply because I was a freelancer. I realized painfully that conditions other than skills are also involved in work. Thinking, "If I become a company, the range of work will increase, and I will be able to take on work from the upstream in an integrated manner. In that case, it might be good to incorporate," I incorporated in 2020.

—It feels surprising to hear that you, someone who thought they weren't suited for working in an organization, started your own company. What kind of change in mindset led to that?

It is true that I started as a freelancer with the negative feeling that I wasn't suited for an organization, but through the process of providing writing services for various projects, I was able to regain my confidence in business.

As I took on jobs at fair prices and heard feedback from clients like, 'Thank you for writing such a great article' or 'Since we added content to our owned media, we've received more feedback from users,' I began to think, 'It's okay to earn money properly.' Perhaps it was only after I started working alone, without belonging to a company, that I became able to recognize the value I provide.

Even when I was a company employee, I couldn't help but think beyond my assigned tasks, wondering, 'What needs lie behind this work, and who is paying for what?' or 'Where does my salary come from?' Maybe I have a strong desire to see and understand the full picture of things.

Since I was always conscious of the relationship between money and my work, I had strong resistance to making money by adding unnecessary options. However, I found it extremely rewarding to strip away the excess and provide the value that clients truly needed, and to be useful to them.

If you can properly provide something that matches the price, clients who order once will become repeat customers or introduce you to others, allowing the company to grow. Now that I am able to create that cycle, I don't feel the same stress about business that I once did.

I was someone who couldn't easily conform to organizations or businesses created by others, but I realized that if I built a system or business based on the things I couldn't compromise on, I could create a 'win-win-win' relationship for the clients, myself, and the people I work with.

Extracting buried thoughts and turning them into content

—Once again, could you tell us what kind of company Yadokiya is and what its strengths are?

Yadokiya's main business is writing and editing content related to 'words.' Our strength lies not just in writing articles, but in working backward from what the client is struggling with and what their essential issues are, identifying the words that will best reach their target audience, and creating content accordingly.

We handle all types of corporate content, and we are particularly skilled at interviewing executives and employees, translating their unique perspectives into words, and creating content for recruitment.

While writing and editing can include SEO writing or highly authorial essays, Yadokiya does not include these in our scope of work. Yadokiya's role is strictly to turn the client's thoughts into text.

When I conduct an interview, after the client has finished speaking, I confirm by saying, 'So, what you mean is this, right?' Often, they are delighted, saying, 'Yes, exactly! That's what I wanted to say!' or 'Thanks to your interview, I realized what I was thinking.' I feel happy to be the catalyst for such realizations.

—What are you conscious of when interviewing clients?
I think interviewing and writing are similar to the work of carving a wooden statue out of a single log. It's not about creating something from nothing, but about carving away the surroundings so that what is already there—the client's philosophy and aspirations—becomes visible to everyone.

That said, not all clients accurately understand their own company's issues. In fact, there are cases where they have become nearsighted by being on the inside. It is not rare for a client who comes for a consultation saying they have problem A to realize, while talking, that the real problem is not A, but B at the root. I am conscious of stripping away the waste through words and carving out the optimal form for things that even the clients themselves haven't noticed.

It is not easy to carve out what is buried inside something that looks like just a log, but for me, it is an interesting and rewarding task. Perhaps the desire to 'see and know the full picture of what is there,' which has always burned within me, is the driving force.

Using an outside perspective to turn unique charm into the optimal words

—Finally, if you have a message for people or companies who might benefit from Yadokiya's services, please share it.

If you cannot immediately answer three things that make you or your company attractive, Yadokiya can surely help. Every company has a charm that only it possesses, and the people working there definitely have their own unique appeal.

Having interviewed many companies, I have felt that there are many cases where the people working there are unaware of their company's greatness or lack confidence in what they are doing. Even when they tell me very wonderful stories, some add, 'This is probably boring, though.'

Perhaps you cannot incorporate your true appeal into recruitment content because you haven't recognized your own (or your company's) strengths. That is a great waste, so I want to tell you, 'Please make good use of an outside perspective.'

I am an outsider, so to speak, having stepped off the majority career path of a full-time employee, but because of that, I can notice values that are hard for those on the inside to see. It is the same as how someone who has come from the outside can notice the unique charms of a place better than someone who has never left the village where they were born and raised.

Yadorigiya strives to find the attractive qualities in any company and can turn them into content that conveys those qualities to the right people using the most optimal words. When people who resonate with that content decide to change jobs, mismatches after joining the company are less likely to occur.

The recruitment-focused content we provide, centered on interviews, does not lead to short-term results like sales figures. However, if you wish for people who truly fit your company to join you and want to invest in strengthening and growing your organization, stock content will surely become a weapon that gradually exerts its effectiveness.

We welcome consultations even when your ideas are still highly abstract, so if you have something you want to convey through 'words,' please feel free to contact us.

https://yadorigiya.co.jp

(Interview/Writing = ayan, Illustration = Taiga)