Portfolio Sample - Writing to Get Results

Writing To Get Results

by Kelle Campbell

(Originally featured in Secrets and Strategies for Office Professionals)

Writing or ghostwriting for your boss or your company can be an intimidating prospect. The main objective of business writing is to get results: produce action, close sales, make contacts, or set meetings. Writing that charms and persuades is a powerful professional tool while an incoherent, cluttered document gets put at the bottom of the "To-Do" pile.

Fortunately, there are 12 easy ways to attain your goals when writing:

State your purpose in the first paragraph. Experts say you have approximately five seconds to hook a reader's attention. That leaves you with no time to beat around the bush.
Tailor your message to the recipient. Are you writing to a customer, an investor, or a manager? Each one will have different concerns and perspectives. For example, the customer is interested in the benefits the company's services or products offer, the investor cares about the organization's profit margin, and the manager is concerned about the productivity in his or her division or company.

Specifically addressing your recipient's concerns even when they are unstated will give your writing an extra persuasive edge; people will perceive your company was the one with their best intentions in mind.
Address the recipient directly. That is, use the words "you" and "your" to create a sense of conversation. After reading piles of impersonal form letters, people find writing with a human touch a welcome relief.
Use the active voice. It makes your writing concise and gives the impression of confidence, power, and personality. "We appreciate your comments" has more impact than "your comments are appreciated."
Keep adjectives to a minimum. Adjectives make your writing unnecessarily wordy, and embellished prose wears on a busy reader's patience. The proper choice of nouns and verbs can do a good descriptive job while keeping your writing concise and forthright. "ABC Co. has plans for timesaving and cost-reducing management" can be reduced to "ABC Co. plans to economize."
Don't use technical jargon unless your recipients do. But be certain that they do. If they understand jargon, you will build rapport; but if they don't, you will alienate them. When in doubt, use simple, common words.
Be specific. Solid facts and figures are more interesting than generalities. Take the time to research background or make some calculations of your own from raw data. Specifics hold attention and give an impression of assurance and competence that, in turn, increases the recipient's confidence in you.
Qualify your statements only when necessary. Don't use qualifiers such as "to the extent that," "sometimes," "might be," and similar phrases unless you legally must. You sound more confident without them.
Vary sentence length to keep the reading pace lively. The best average sentence length is 14-16 words. Sentences of 35 words are readable but they begin to push the limit and should be used only occasionally. Peppering your test with short, crisp sentences (less than 12 words) increases the impact of your message and keeps readers alert.
Use a numbered or bullet list for making several points. A busy reader will be able to scan through your document and still gain a sense of your message.
Tell the recipient what to do next. If people are not sure what to do, they'll often "solve" the problem by doing nothing. So, ask them to mail the check, expect a call, review the situation, whatever. If possible, put the burden of action on you and your staff; you're more motivated to move on to the next stage.
Buy yourself a grammar or style manual. Then read it through and always keep it handy. Two good choices are Strunk and White's classic The Elements of Style (fourth edition), Allyn & Bacon, 2000; and Blake and Bly's The Elements of Business Writing (first edition), Pearson Higher Education, 1992.