Business Writing Foundation: Harnessing the Power of the Human Mind

1. Business WritingiSpeak Foundation SeriesMonth day, 2012Instructor Name

2. Agenda • Introductions – What do you want to learn? • Itinerary • Ground Rules • Phones on Silent • Ask Questions • Participate & Respect others • Respect our schedule

3. Satori

4. Business WritingUnit One: Business Writing Foundation

5. The Pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaern what oredr the ltteers in a word are. The only iprmoetnt thing is that the first and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the human mind deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

6. What people judge by your writing • Your perceived competence • Your perceived confidence • Your status and power • Your organization • How important or unimportant you find your reader

7. Communication Channels

8. Written Communication Public Permanent

9. Effective Business Writing • Succinct • Poignant • Direct • Relative • Persuasive • Informative

10. Exercise: Ineffective Business Writing

11. Readability concepts • Count words to 100, then keep counting until you reach the end of the sentence • What’s a syllable? • “Beats” in a word • Look for 3 or more beats • Don’t count: proper nouns or any words made three beats by adding the suffixes like -es, -ed, or -ing.

12. Readability Statistics

13. Readability Index • The Economist 13 (difficult) • The Wall Street Journal 11 • The New York Times 10 • Reader’s Digest 8 • USA Today 7 • People Magazine 6 • Tabloid Newspapers 6 (easy)

14. iSpeak Business Writing Model

15. Satori

16. Business WritingUnit Two: Letters, Emails, and Memos

17. Brief Document Types Memo Businessletter Formal Email Email Informal Internal External

18. Exercise: Appropriate Document Type

19. Delivering good news • State good news immediately • Provide support or details • Close cordially

20. Why write good news? • Reminder of excellent customer service • Builds credits • Allows boss or client to pass it on • Creates history for your performance review • Gives your accomplishments exposure to upper management

21. Delivering bad news • Begin with a buffer or neutral statement • State the bad news • Note specific actions to be taken to correct the situation • Commit to a communication plan • Assert your desire to continue the relationship and close positively and sincerely

22. The Buffer A statement or two that softens the blow of the bad news. • Acknowledges the customer’s situation • Indicates the ways in which you’ve analyzed the situation • Reiterates that you have the same goal as the customer

23. Exercise: Compose a bad news message

24. Who is Your Audience? • What’s in it for me? (WIIFM) • What do they already know about the subject? Knowing this will help you provide just enough detail so that you are neither talking over their heads nor down to them. • How do they feel about it?

25. Visual Appeal • Spacing • Formatting • Bullets and Lists • Bold and Italics • Headings • Table of Contents

28. Email in Business • Reading and interpreting email • Look for the facts • Request clarification • Responding to email • Respond in short paragraphs • Utilize bulleted lists

29. Exercise: Reading and Interpreting Emails

30. Email Etiquette • Do these • Customize every email • Answer every question or concern • Don’t do these • Use stock or canned responses • Reply to all

31. Satori

32. Business WritingUnit Three: Developing Proposals

33. Writing Proposals • Prepare • Develop • Write • Review

34. Prepare Proposal Objective • What do I want the reader to: • Know? • Feel? • Do?

35. Exercise: Message Purpose

36. Audience Analysis • Status • Common characteristics • Expertise • Interest • Concerns

37. Exercise: Audience Analysis

38. Best Opportunity for Persuasion

39. Idea Mapping

40. Why Vacation in Cancun? • Why spend the money? • Why go to the beach instead of the mountains?

41. Exercise: Argument or Premise? • This is the best course of action. • The centrifuge is broken. • It will cost $500,000 to fix. • It requires 1200 rpm. • We should bring in a new contractor. • Our engineers are superior to our competition’s. • Our engineers are all college-educated.

42. Deductive vs. Inductive • Deductive – Provide the premises which lead to the conclusion • 2+2=4 approach • Why before What • Inductive – State the conclusion, then provide the supporting premises • 4 = 2+2 approach • What before Why

43. Counter-arguing • Anticipate the likely doubts or objections • Use language, “You might be thinking…” • Verbalize the doubt • Formulate a positive response

44. Features, Advantages, Benefits

45. Exercise: Turning Features into Advantages and Benefits

46. Exercise: Plan your Evidence What evidence can you provide to influence your audience?

47. Call to Action • Related to purpose • Actionable steps • Immediate • Longer term • Make it SMART: • Specific • Measureable • Actionable • Realistic • Time-bound

48. Exercise: Call to Action

49. Proposal Structure • Inductive (Answer First Approach) • Deductive (Building to an inevitable conclusion)

50. Exercise: Write your persuasive appeal