Business Writing For Dummies

Natalie Canavor

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118583623
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Redacción empresarial

How many pieces of paper land on your desk each day, or emails in your inbox? Your readers – the people you communicate with at work – are no different.

So how can you make your communication stand out from the pile and get the job done? Whether you're crafting a short and sweet email or bidding for a crucial project, Business Writing For Dummies is the only guide you need. Inside you'll find:

• The basic principles of how to write well
• How to avoid the common pitfalls that immediately turn a reader off
• Crucial tips for self-editing and revision techniques to heighten your impact
• Lots of practical advice and examples covering a range of different types of communication, including emails, letters, major business documents such as reports and proposals, promotional materials, web copy and blogs - even tweets
• The global touch - understand the key differences in written communication around the world, and how to tailor your writing for international audiences

Part I

Winning with Writing

For Dummies can help you get started with lots of subjects. Visit www.dummies.com to learn more and do more with For Dummies.

In this part. . .

• Learn the craft of business writing and watch your business or career reap the benefits.
• Understand your audiences in order to address their interests.
• Inject enthusiasm into your language to make your writing rise above the rest.
• Optimize your writing by assessing its readability.
• Fine-tune your work to ensure clarity in your communication.

Chapter 1

Make Writing Your Not-So-Secret Weapon

In This Chapter

Rising above the pack with good writing

Accepting that you can write much better than you now do

Applying a planning structure to everything you write

Writing successfully for print, online and spoken media

Crossing borders with globalized business English

Good writing can change your life. Does that sound like an extreme, even ridiculous, statement? Maybe, but I believe it.

In this digital communication age, most opportunities come to you through writing. You need letters and résumés to get jobs. You need proposals to earn buy-in, marketing material to sell, and reports to show what you accomplished – and get promoted.

You need websites, blogs, and social media to reach beyond your geographic territory and personal ability to be wherever you need to be. You may want to script yourself for speeches, video, and even important conversations. And most of all, you need to be part of the everyday global communication fabric of email, texting, and perhaps tweeting.

Good writing is one of the most powerful weapons you can add to your career arsenal. It can make a big difference in the personal side of your life too, enabling you to stand out in a host of competitive situations. To speak from my own experience, I came out ahead in competing for a desirable apartment, obtained refunds when a purchase or service disappointed me, and even avoided a traffic ticket once – all by writing good letters.

Writing is a major tool for achieving what you want. As with every facet of business today, just showing up isn't good enough anymore. The competition is simply too vast to turn out adequate, ordinary writing and hope to succeed.

Consider these statistics:

• 100 billion business emails sent daily
• 200 million active Twitter users, 400 million tweets per day sent
• 634 million websites
• 200 million blogs

Of course, you're not competing with all of them or reading every one. But people nowadays are extremely selective about what they choose to read because they have so many options. See the sidebar ‘Communication in perspective’ for an even more expansive view of these trends.

From a writer's viewpoint, you no longer have a captive audience. Getting your messages read is a challenge in itself. Getting them acted upon demands writing that is not only good, but also strategic.

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Communication in perspective

Once upon a time (but less than 600 years ago), writing and reading were the domains of the privileged elite. So was travel, which meant that few people could extend their personal networks beyond the places where they found themselves.

Then came the movable type printing press. Almost overnight, many more people could read, learn, and in some cases, circulate their own ideas, research, and thinking far beyond their own locations. Material of course had to be printed and physically distributed in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, and all the rest. For the past five centuries, this didn't seem like much of a limit.

But leapfrog to the 21st century. Thanks to digital communication and the Internet, everyone with access to basic systems and equipment can communicate with anyone, anywhere, as instantly as she wishes. You're limited only by your imagination and capabilities. Now everyone can be his or her own author, editor, critic, publisher, and distributor.

The opportunities for individuals and organizations of every kind are nearly overwhelming.

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What is strategic writing? Simply, planned communication that achieves a set of goals. The good news is that to write strategically you need only add a mindset and set of writing techniques to what you know.

Following are some of the things you already know.

• Your subject: You've invested in your field and are knowledgeable about it
• Your audience: They may be people you work with, colleagues, prospective employers, or a target market
• Your goal: You know what you want – now and further down the line.

Here are some of the things you may not know yet – that this book shows you:

• How to capture and retain reader attention
• How to make people care about your message
• How to select the right content to make your case
• How to use writing techniques that make your material persuasive and convincing
• How to use every single thing you write to build relationships and advance your cause
• How to sharpen your ear and eye so you can spot your own writing problems and fix them

This chapter highlights the core elements of good business writing and points you in specific directions to solve your most pressing communication challenges. It introduces an audience-plus-goal structure that makes all your writing easier, more effective, and more fun.

Planning and Structuring Every Message

Faced with a blank page and something to accomplish, many people freeze at the first question: where do I start? The answer? Start with what you know – your audience, your goal, and your subject. However, you need to think about all these things more systematically than you ordinarily may.

Your over-arching goal is usually more far-reaching and complex than your immediate reason for writing. And you must analyze your audience in depth to tease out the factors that tell you your best approach. Then you can translate what you know about the subject into content that supports your message.

For example, suppose you want to ask your supervisor for a plum assignment you see on the horizon. You can simply write:

Jane, I'd like to present myself as a candidate for the lead role on the Crystal Project. You know my work and qualifications. I'll really appreciate the opportunity, and I'll do a great job. Thanks. – Jake

This is maybe okay – clear, no obvious errors – but definitely not compelling. All Jane knows from the message is that Jake wants the opportunity and thinks he's qualified.

Jake would fare better if he first looked at his own goals in more depth. Perhaps he wants a chance to:

Exercise more responsibility

Show off his capabilities and be noticed

Expand his know-how in regard to the project's subject

Add a management credential to his résumé

But he also has the longer term to consider. Jake almost certainly will find it useful to:

Strengthen his position for future special assignments

Remind his boss of his good track record

Build his image as a capable, reliable, resourceful leader

Build toward a promotion or higher-level job in his current organization or elsewhere

From this vantage point, Jake can see the pitch itself as a building block for his overall career ambitions, which calls for a better message than the perfunctory one he dashed off. He must think through th...