Clutter is the enemy of good business writing. The way to defeat it is to watch for superfluous words and get rid of them. Show no mercy. Watch out for
inflated words, buzzwords, bad word clusters, and anything that doesn’t contribute to the writing. Your goal is clear communication.
Early in his classic book for nonfiction writers, On Writing Well, William Zinsser tells us that writing isn’t something reserved for English teachers or those with a gift for words. Anyone who can think clearly about a subject can write clearly about it.
The essence of good writing is rewriting. It’s not unusual to rewrite an article or a business report 3, 4, or 5 times. Did you choose the right words? Are any unnecessary words hiding in there?
If you wrote a long word when a short word would say the same thing, use the short one.
- Implement (do)
- Numerous (many)
- Facilitate (ease)
Are you using word clusters?
- At this point in time (now)
- With the possible exception of (except)
- Until such time as (until)
Good business writers don’t use inflated words to sound important. They avoid jargon and buzzwords. The more superfluous words you cut, the better the writing. Don’t forget to watch for unnecessary modifiers, e.g., a personal friend (a friend).
Remember Strunk and White’s rule in The Elements of Style: “Omit needless words”.
Years ago I knew a start-up company that had emerged from the research and development phase with an array of innovative products. Apparently the 
products were superior to anything on the market and had tremendous potential. But R&D had consumed millions and the company needed new funding, on an emergency basis, for an ambitious program of marketing and manufacturing.
R&D had left them broke. They needed to move fast.
Senior officers focused all their attention on attracting private investors who would share their vision of the company. A group of investors entered the scene. They liked what they saw. They had the money to invest and were ready to proceed. They asked to see the business plan.
The most recent plan had been written several years before. Some market research had been done, but management still had decisions to make and essential company information wasn’t available.
- How much new funding was needed? Over what period of time? How much control would the new investors have? How would the new capital be deployed?
- Financial information wasn’t current and there were no financial projections. Tax returns weren’t up to date. The company had never hired a chief financial officer.
- The company wanted to sell products into several industry segments, but there was no marketing plan. No senior officer was in charge of marketing. There were only conflicting marketing ideas under discussion.
The company attempted to update the old business plan, but – lacking vital information – they ended up with something that discussed the company’s history, described the products, and speculated on their potential, but fell short of telling the investors what they needed to know.
Because management hadn’t planned their business plan, they weren’t ready when the time came. The investors went away.
Do you want to develop good web-writing skills?
In his excellent 1993 book (updated in 2002), Write Tight: How to Keep Your Prose Sharp, Focused and Concise
, William Brohaugh gives us a handy exercise that gets results.
Go back to something you wrote a year or so ago – a blog post, a magazine article, a business report, or a poem – and look for fluff. Ask yourself how tight it is, not how good it is. Chances are, you’ll see redundancies, unnecessary words, or phrases that just don’t contribute to the writing. You may see that you meandered off the subject. Delete the words and phrases that don’t belong. I bet the new version gets to the point much faster.
Each time you cut something that shouldn’t be there, the remaining words shine brighter; they work harder.
When you revisit your writing with an eye on concision, you’ll likely see that you can improve your tight-writing skills.
This has always frustrated me. In big and small companies I see competent professionals who are serious about their business. They focus on their responsibilities and want to succeed. They’re well educated. But they care nothing about writing well at work. Apparently they see no value in it.
Some examples:
- Email that looks like texting from a busy 9 year-old
- Over-use of jargon and buzzwords
- Letters that are signed but not proofread
- Confusing memos
- Unintelligible website content
- That letter from your insurance company
Why is bad writing bad for business?
- Brochures, website content, and correspondence (including email) with bad spelling, grammar, and punctuation create a poor impression. How can that be good for business?
- Obscure writing can cause confusion and misunderstanding. Who needs the aggravation, and even litigation, that could result?
What to do, short of putting English majors in charge?
Some of these remedies may help:
- Set standards of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and clarity. Squelch the “who cares?” attitude.
- Try writing workshops.
- Appoint and train certain staff members to be proofreaders, as an additional duty.
- Retain a proofreading service for designated writing such as customer correspondence.
- Randomly monitor email.
- Get HR behind the “good writing” policy.
Any improvement in a company’s writing will help to enhance its image and get the right message out.
We’re Web Scanners
People don’t read websites – they scan. They aren’t reading for pleasure; they’re looking for information. This is why you must put your essential information first.
Eye-tracking studies prove that website visitors pay attention to the top of an article – the title and the first paragraph – and then quickly scan down the left margin. If they don’t see something meaningful right away, they’ll move on.
Traditional Method vs. the Inverted Pyramid
- In school we learned to write essays in the narrative style – starting with an introduction, following with the main body of relevant points in some logical order, and ending with the main point or conclusion.
- Busy web readers don’t have time for narratives when they’re looking for information. So says Ginny Redish in her excellent book, Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works. She promotes the “inverted pyramid” style, which begins with the main point, follows with relevant supporting information (use bullet points here), and ends with background information.
Redish’s new book belongs on every website owner’s bookshelf. It’s a thorough overview of the issues in writing for the web and has earned high praise from leaders in web usability.
A mini business plan is simply a condensed version of your complete business plan. Sometimes called a preliminary venture analys
is (PVA) or an enhanced executive summary, it’s suitable for introducing your business to prospective investors. Those investors who express serious interest after reviewing it can receive your detailed, complete plan.
Think of your mini business plan as an elevator pitch on paper. Think highlights.
The plan can be 1 to 10 pages.
Being as concise as possible, include the most important aspects of your business in these sections:
- Mission statement
- Business description
- Market / industry overview
- Marketing plan
- Financial projection charts (balance sheet, cash flow statement, and income statement) covering 3 years. List main categories only. Follow with your most important assumptions.
- Biographical sketches of your key management / technical team
If you feel compelled to use images, be careful to use only those that make a powerful contribution to the plan.
A mini business plan is like a short story – there’s no room for fluff. Every word must count. Avoid jargon and buzzwords. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite – until you have a crisp, clear elevator pitch that gets you to the next stage in building your company.
When preparing to write your sales brochure, assume that the reader already knows about your products or services. Now, he or she has asked for more information.
The purpose of the sales brochure is to help you sell your products or services. Nothing else. It’s an important sales tool that should fit logically into the buying process and move your customer on to the next step.
The successful sales brochure is written from the customer’s point of view. In other words, what’s in it for him or her?
What Should It Look Like?
Your sales brochure can be devoted to all or selected products or services. For example, if this will be your first sales brochure, you may want it to cover all of your offerings. If you’re promoting a new line of goods or a single service, a sales brochure can be limited to that.
The size of the brochure depends on two things:
(1) The extent of the information you want to convey. Remember to include all of the information that your prospective customer needs in order to decide whether he or she wants to buy. This information should include descriptions, prices, specifications, ordering information, and guarantees / warranties.
(2) Your reader’s profile. The average consumer isn’t inclined to read a lot of text, but will respond better to scannable information that is broken into short sections, with useful headings and bullet points. Others — specialists such as engineers and scientists — expect to see detailed information and will probably pay attention to longer written sections.
Give useful information and include everything that goes into your sales pitch. Read more…
Every entrepreneur knows about business plans. You can’t raise money for a startup without one. But once your new venture is launched, do you file the plan away and forget about it until the time comes to woo investors again?
What are the uses for a business plan?
1. Raising capital. A good business plan can convince investors to put up the money to help start a new venture or to move a business to the next level.
2. Financing. Give your loan application a boost. Attach an updated copy of your business plan.
3. Attracting executive talent. Your new marketing VP will understand the company much faster with an up-to-date business plan at hand.
4. Alliances. Would-be strategic partners can learn about your company by studying your plan.
5. Departmental uses. Sections of your business plan can be the starting point for a detailed marketing plan or a human resources policy.
6. Keeping current. Update your business plan according to the calendar or to take account of changes in your company or industry.
7. Staying on track. Are your current activities or near-term goals in line with your original strategy?
8. Long-term planning. Use your business plan as a platform for testing future scenarios.
If you have more uses for a business plan, please leave a comment.
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