Every piece of business writing should deliver intended results and inspire people to take action. Whatever the audience, speeches should leave people eager to support the speaker’s vision. Corporate reports should ignite buy-in for an idea. Web sites, email and newsletters should make people engage with your organization or buy a product.

Writing reaches this level when it’s focused, clear, original and captures the authentic voice of an organization. When it does, influential people tune in, investors commit, employees step up to the plate, your reputation swells.

That’s the kind of writing I produce with my clients. I’m never satisfied if my work doesn’t astonish them.

Before launching my own business, I ran large accounts for two public relations agencies – Hill & Knowlton in Toronto and The Catevo Group in Raleigh. I also directed employee communications for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. Twenty years of experience have taught made me skeptical of the term “freelance writing.” It’s like “house salad” at a restaurant where you’ve never eaten before. You might wind up with the best plate of field greens you’ve ever seen, with a heavenly vinaigrette and a delightful mix of seasonal vegetables. Or you might get a chunk of iceberg lettuce with mushy tomatoes, a heap of onion and industrial-grade ranch dressing.

Here’s what I value in a corporate freelance writer, and what I believe I offer:

- Business thinking. A business writer should be a business thinker first. Every piece of corporate writing should support business goals – sales, reputation management, market awareness, alliance building, etc.

- Communications strategy. It’s rare for a web site or a marketing brochure to deliver results unless it’s tied to communications strategy. Look for freelancer writers who want to know how a specific piece fits into your overall communication strategy.

- Audience focus. After strategy, nothing is more important to first-rate business writing than tending to the audience – usually customers, prospects, employees, other businesses and government agencies who can make you or break you. A great freelance business writer helps me any my clients succeed writing to hook a target audience, not by writing to hook me.

- Delight in writing. This is tricky. Every freelance writer I’ve worked with loves to write. You can hear excitement in their voice and see a confident twinkle in their eye. But the ability to write a great magazine article is not enough to produce great corporate writing. You need someone who understands and delights in business communication. An excellent corporate freelancer gets excited first about helping you achieve your business results; excitement about writing should follow.

- Love of language. I want my writers to be walking thesauruses. I want to hear words tumble from their mouths that I haven’t heard since I took my SATs. It’s not that I’m looking for eggheads. I’m looking for corporate writers whose verbal style is full of surprise, originality, precision and scope. I especially like people who’ve got a lot of powerful verbs in their toolkit. Verbs make writing soar.

- Grammar geekiness. NPR’s Click and Clack are the ultimate garage mechanic geeks. It’s how they signal their technical expertise. I like business writers who never commit grammatical errors. I like writers who know the rules of grammar well enough to break them for stylistic effect – and who can discuss, if asked, why rules should be broken.

I’d love to know your thoughts about hiring freelance corporate writers. Send me an email or post your ideas on Inchworm, the Business Writer’s blog.