Purpose
To make your business writing purposeful, clear, persuasive and successful.
Objective
By the end of this training participants will have learned how to use the writing techniques practised by accomplished Business Writers.
Overview
This training includes all you need to know to be a good business writer – emails, reports, instructions, meeting notes, attendance notes, position papers or appraisals: they’re all the same at heart. Why? Well firstly because all business writing is there to inform, instruct, persuade or document. Secondly, and as much to the point, because practically everything these days is either sent as an email or uses email as the vehicle. Meaning that practically everything these days is read from the screen – desktops, laptops or Blackberries.
The Screen-reading point matters. Screen reading is 25% harder on the eye than print reading.
To redress this and make business writing screen-friendly, we’ve adapted the techniques developed by the masters of screen-reading science: the multi-billion dollar website design industry. This is the sort of content we cover – typically in a seminar followed by a 1:1 coaching session for each participant:
Everything’s an email. Well almost
- Reports, instructions or simple emails; they all need to be screen-friendly and display a clear sense of purpose, logical organisation and a natural and direct style.
Triple-A: thinking first, writing later
- Knowing your Aim, Audience and Approach.
Screen-style and how to write it
- Strong Subject Lines; Effective Paragraphs; Effective Sentences; Active Writing; Concise Writing; Clear Writing; Parallel Writing; Positive Writing; Human Tone.
Proofreading matters
- Correct grammar, punctuation, spelling and word use. Hints and tips.
Email etiquette
- Winning behaviour: “Cutting slack” to “NO Blitzing!”. Not forgetting “Email “Tag”!
PowerPoint is not evil …
- But it can be dull, confusing and overdone unless you give it the Mary Poppins treatment *. The pitfalls and how to avoid them.
* “Why do you always complicate things that are really quite simple!”
