Business is more information-driven than ever before. A significant part of business management involves communicating with others. You need to collaborate and close deals with emails, inter-office memos, written presentations, proposals, and many other types of written documents.
So how can you ensure your written communication is effective and compelling enough to achieve desired results?
For starters, you have to work on your business writing skills.
Advanced writing skills assure that you are rarely misunderstood. However, many entrepreneurs and leaders have little experience with writing, and it proves to be a problem. After all, perfecting one’s writing skills is hardly the motivation for people to attend business school. But lacking polished business writing skills is a handicap in today’s business world.
Here are a few ways you can perfect your business writing:
1. Be succinct
As a business owner, master the art of getting straight to the point. Brief and clearly expressed ideas are easily understood. Succinct writing ensures your audience comprehends what you’re communicating from the start. Shifting the main message of your writing to the middle of the document or email is a bad idea. Present your main idea first and follow it up with an elaborate illustration, when needed.
2. Cut the fat
Leave out the fluff in your business write up. Readers tune out when they realize your document is verbose. Don’t use five words when three could suffice. Each word you include on your document or email should contribute towards your main point.
Once you’re done, read through it to make sure what you’ve written is lean and clean by removing any excess words. Because we are used to speaking, seeing, and writing excess, it ordinarily takes multiple passes to notice and cut the fat.
3. Use simple language
Even though you’re writing for business purposes, don’t use unnecessary jargon. The last thing readers want to encounter when they read your article is $10 words. Using business-specific buzzwords is an indication of clustered thinking. There is nothing that puts off a reader more than a writer who doesn’t write with them in mind.
Jargon is not a sign of intelligence. After all, you’re not writing to showcase your intelligence but to ensure you successfully put your point across.
4. Read what you write
Never publish content before you read it out loud. Put yourself in your reader’s shoes and find out if that’s content you’d want to consume.
When you read out loud, the flaws in your writing easily reveal themselves. You can quickly identify convoluted sentences and paragraphs that read too long. You shouldn’t be aggressive when editing your work, instead, take your time, and ensure your work is flawless.
Natalie Crawford is a seasoned freelance writer, sharing business writing tips on behalf of Writingjobz.com. She focuses on teaching people how to be good writers and also earn online. When she is not writing, she reads about the best writers of all time.
© YFS Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Copying prohibited. All material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this material is prohibited. Sharing of this material under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International terms, listed here, is permitted.
