IN THIS CHAPTER

Rising above the pack with good writing

Understanding the three imperatives of strategic writing

Using an easy structure to plan everything you write

Writing successfully for print, online, visual, and spoken media

Delivering your message well and being heard. What could be more important in today’s world of over-communication?

If your career ladder involves applying for jobs, you need strong résumés, letters, and face-to-face skills. To earn a promotion, your everyday communication must signal your reliability, judgment, and resourcefulness. If you run your own business, or work as a consultant or other professional, I bet your success depends on proposals and presentations. And today, whatever our aspirations, most of us want to create an effective online presence. We want to team successfully with others and advocate for our own needs and ideas.

The foundation for all of this, of course, is … writing! Surprisingly few people realize this. When they think about polishing their communication skills, most people jump straight to presentations. Knowing how to give a good speech may seem sexier than writing, but it leapfrogs past the reality: Even a 20-second elevator pitch needs to be written before it’s spoken. Good websites, videos, Twitter campaigns, blogs, and most other communication tools start with the written word.

There’s a simple reason for this. Human beings think in language. No matter how big a role visuals play in a communication “product,” whether print or digital, writing provides the indispensable support structure for planning. And if even a few words appear in the ultimate message, they must be just the right ones.

In this chapter, I highlight the core elements of good business writing and introduce a planning structure that enables you to figure out what to say and how to say it in just about every circumstance. This step-by-step approach to writing works for every communication platform with just a little adaptation for each one. You’ll find that improving your writing offers even more benefits than you may suspect, and that you’ve already begun to build the foundation for it. In later chapters, I show you how to apply these ideas to all your business communication.

Putting Good Writing to Work for You

Can you imagine building relationships without language? Today we initiate most relationships — especially in business — through the written word. In-person contact may follow, or it may not. When the first contact is successful, we continue to rely on writing to build the connection and collaborate.

From everyday email to reports, letters, and digital platforms, today’s working world runs on writing. Therefore, the rewards of good writing have never been more extraordinary. The Internet enables us to reach beyond our personal geographic and social reach to almost anyone we want to sell to, collaborate with, or learn from. Almost anyone with time and dedication can start a business and sell a product or service, post her artwork, publish a book, or establish his authority as an expert on a subject.

There’s just one catch. Because anyone can do this, unless you are a narrow specialist, the competition is overwhelming.

Consider these statistics:

• 112.5 billion business email messages are sent daily. (That’s 122 messages per user!)
• There are 130 million active Twitter users, and 303 million tweets per day are sent.
• The Internet holds 1 billion websites.
• There are 300 million blogs.

Of course, you’re not competing with all of these email messages, tweets, websites, and blogs, or reading more than an infinitesimal fraction of them yourself in each medium. But people today — just like you — are extremely selective about what they choose to read because so many options vie for their attention.

There are few captive audiences in today’s world. Check how many messages you’ve recently received that you must read. Even if you hold top-down authority, there’s no assurance that your message will be read. Attention, along with respect, must be earned. Writing a message that someone will actually read is an achievement. Writing messages that people will act on demands not just writing that is clear and direct, but also content that is well thought-out and framed to the reader’s own perspective. In other words, today’s business writing needs to be strategic.

What is strategic writing? Planned communication that achieves a set of goals — your goals, and often the goals of your employer and clients. The good news is that you already have a solid base for knowing how to write strategically. You’re in command of the three imperatives:

• Your subject: You are invested in your field and possess in-depth knowledge of it.
• Your audience: You know who your audience is, such as prospective employers, coworkers, and target markets for your business.
• Your goal: You know what you want, now and in the bigger-picture future.

Here are some of the things you may not know yet:

• How to choose the right communication tool for the job
• 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 understand other people’s perspective and predict their responses
• How to sharpen your ear and eye so you can spot your own writing problems and fix them

I show you how to do all these things in this book.

Notice that almost every item in this list relates to the thinking part of writing, not the technical part. Master the art of thinking your content through and you move way ahead of the competition. But of course, the technical side of writing — how you use language — matters, too. I cover that as well. You’ll find a whole resource of practical tips for improving your sentences, word choice, and organization. Instead of grammar lessons, I give you a broad resource of practical tips for improving your sentences, word choice, and organization. Try them out and discover the techniques that work best for you.

Let’s start with a planning structure that will help you figure out what you want to say and how to say it. You may be surprised at how much better your messages are received, and how much more often you get a positive response, once you start applying it.

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 the three components of strategic writing. You already know them:

• Your subject: What you’re writing about
• Your audience: Whom you’re writing to
• Your goal: What you specifically want to accomplish

To create a good message and get the result you want from your reader, you need to think about all of these things more systematically than you ordinarily might.

You must “read” your audience in an organized way — I show you how. And you benefit from visualizing your goal in a broad way. Consider that for almost every message you write, you actually have a whole set of goals beyond the immediate: communicating your own professional image, for example. When you combine your knowledge of the audience with your set of goals, it becomes easy to 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 insofar as it’s clear and contains no obvious errors. But it’s definitely not compelling. All Jane learns 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 more in 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 the actual assignment demands and how his skills match up. Then there’s Jane — his audience — to consider. What qualifications does she, the decision-maker, most value? What does she care about?

After some thought, Jake may come up with a list like this:

• Job requires: Planning skills; ability to meet deadlines; knowledge of XYZ systems; experience in intra-departmental coordination; good judgment under pressure
• Jane values: Collaborative teaming; people skills; department reputation; effective presentation. She is weak in systems planning and insecure with new technology.

This bit of brainstorming helps Jake produce a blueprint for persuasive content. His email can briefly cite his proven track record in terms of the job requirements, his ability to deliver results as a team leader, his awareness that success will enhance the department’s reputation, and that he’ll use his excellent presentation skills to ensure this result.

The weaknesses he pinpoints for Jane give Jake another avenue for presenting himself as the best choice. He can suggest a planning system he’ll use to make the most of staff resources and/or a specific way to incorporate new easy-to-use technology. These aspects of his message are likely to catch Jane’s attention.

All Jake’s points must be true, needless to say. I don’t suggest ever making up qualifications, but rather, that you take the trouble to communicate the best of what is real and what matters in a particular situation.

Further, never assume people understand your capabilities or remember your achievements, even if they’re colleagues who know you well. Other people don’t have time to put you in perspective. They’re thinking about themselves. That’s why doing it yourself has such power.

Even if Jake doesn’t get the assignment, writing a good email contributes to his longer-range goals of presenting himself as ready, willing, and able to take on new challenges and to be seen as more valuable.

What Jake’s message illustrates is how to use a simple structure for everything you write. My shorthand for this is simply Goal + Audience = Content. When you define what you want to accomplish with a specific message, and think about the specific person you’re writing to, content decisions help make themselves.

When you use this structured thinking to plan your messages, whether they’re email messages or proposals or anything in between, you move far toward the real heart of good writing — real and relevant substance. Writing is not a system for manipulating words, and don’t ever expect it to camouflage a lack of thought, knowledge, or understanding. Good writing is good thinking presented clearly, concisely, and transparently in ways that make sense to your readers.

I make you a rash promise: For every fraction you improve your writing, you’ll improve your thinking along with it. Plus, you will improve your ability to understand other people, which will help you build better relationships and achieve what you want more often.

Chapter 2 gives you an in-depth demonstration of this planning structure and shows you how to translate it into successful messages. While you may pick and choose which sections of the book to read and draw upon them at need, I encourage you to invest in Chapter 2. It gives you the entire foundation for deciding what to say in any circumstance. Remember that the ideas apply equally to communications that appear to be dominated by visuals or spoken language.

The other essential groundwork for successful writing is how to say what you want. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 demonstrate common-sense techniques that professionals use to spot problems and fix them with the least effort.

Try This: To quickly upgrade anything you write, use the say-it-aloud diagnosis. When you read your own copy aloud (or whisper it to yourself if you’re not alone), you get immediate signals that something isn’t working or can work better. You may be forcing your sentences into a sing-song cadence that denotes awkward construction, unnecessary words, and overly long sentences. You may hear repetitive sounds or inappropriate pauses created by poor punctuation. You can easily fix all these problems, and many more, once you identify them this way. Many professional writers use this approach. It works beautifully for business writing, because when well done, your writing sounds conversational.

Chapters 3 through 5 give you a host of down-to-earth strategies for monitoring your own work and improving it. These include computer resources like Microsoft Word’s easy-to-use Readability Index, which provides helpful clues for making your writing clear.

No matter where you now see yourself on the writing spectrum, I guarantee there’s room for improvement. Most journalists, corporate communicators, bloggers, and public relations specialists are obsessive about discovering better ways to write and build their skills. They want to create material that’s ever more interesting, persuasive, informative, and engaging.

For people inhabiting any part of the business, nonprofit, or government worlds, the rewards of better writing are often immediate. Your email and letters get the results you want much more often. Your proposals are more seriously considered and your reports are more valued. You are perceived as more authoritative, credible, and capable. People accord you more respect, often without knowing exactly why. And you move toward your goals faster.

You also find yourself actively building relationships that benefit you over the long run. If a negative relationship hampers you at work, the structured thinking I show you in Chapter 2 even provides a tool for turning that relationship around.

Applying the Goal-Plus-Audience Strategy to All Business Needs

You may have felt challenged at times to write differently for so many forms of communication, or may even have avoided using new or unfamiliar media. Here’s the best encouragement I can give you to experiment and venture forth: The strategizing process is the same for all media, present and future. Planning a brief effective email is very much the same as planning a proposal or blog post, presentation, or resume. The Goal + Audience = Content structure will never fail you, no matter how hard the writing challenge seems.

For this reason, I begin with “small” messages like email. Once you absorb the thinking process for this everyday workhorse, you’re well prepared to tackle more formal business documents and strategize your digital presence and face-to-face communication.