From the category archives:
Copying and using another company’s content in sales proposals, manuals, and even proprietary proposal format has serious legal consequences, including steep fines and losing infringement-gained profits.
In a recent convoluted suit reported by Law.com, Graham Co. v. Haughey, a Philadelphia insurance brokerage firm brought copyright claims against one of its former employees and the [...]
{ 1 comment }
I had the great pleasure to recently lead a business writing course with sales and planning employees at the very beautiful Airlie Center, a conference center in Virginia.
Airlie Center has been called “an island of thought” by TIME magazine because many creative ideas have been spawned at conferences there: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on [...]
{ 1 comment }
If an important document is written by committee, it can easily become bloated and unfocused. And, it will lack a cohesive voice.
Too many cooks, throwing in too many ingredients, can easily muddle the audience focus and requisite content:
How to Write by Committee:
Make sure roles are clearly assigned. You need a writer/editor and the sign-off designee:
Choose [...]
{ 0 comments }
“Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write.”
~David Ogilvy, Advertiser
AIDA is an easy to remember acronym for writing persuasively. It reflects the writing elements needed to help you make a sale:
A = Attention
I = Interest
D = Desire
A = Action
In business sales letters, the first step, [...]
{ 0 comments }
Researchers at Oxford University recently compiled a list of the top ten most irritating phrases. This list is very useful to business writers because we certainly want to avoid using them, and they illustrate the morphing nature of language.
The researchers who compiled the list monitor the use of phrases in a massive language database, called [...]
{ 31 comments }
Alan Jacobs, writing in his blog, The New Atlantis, has great insights about the value of writing across many professions:
Again and again in my career I have seen that people who can write well — in almost any field — give themselves a great advantage over their competition. I have former students in the business [...]
{ 0 comments }
Today’s Daily newspaper from the University of Washington headlined an article entitled,”Writing Ability has Become a Marketable Skill, and That’s Scary.”
If you’re a good writer, you can actually use that to differentiate yourself from most other candidates. That probably says more about us than about our potential employers. Some people, their verbal abilities further atrophied [...]
{ 0 comments }
In an interview in the New York Times recently, Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines, identified communication skills and a strong work ethic as the most important skills he seeks when hiring senior level staff.
Here are excerpts:
Q. Let’s talk about hiring. What are you looking for in job candidates?
A. Typically, when you’re hiring [...]
{ 0 comments }
A funny communication glitch occurred in my home last night, after we lost power: I received a ridiculously obscured non-answer from PSE&G, the power company that services my area.
After the power went out in my neighborhood, I called PSE&G to alert them. After holding a very long time, a customer service representative came on the [...]
{ 1 comment }
Recently, I called customer support for a customer rewards program for a business retail store, and encountered a series of recorded messages that made me feel increasingly less valued as a customer.
The first message I heard was:
“All CSRs are busy. We’ll be with you momentarily.”
I had to puzzle over this for a moment before I [...]
{ 0 comments }
