Good Writing Can Help You Succeed

We live in a tech savvy era with messages capabilities of up to 140 characters – but grammatically correct, good writing is still required when operating in our current business world.

Do you disagree? Do you think any text shortenings and short, sharp tweets are the order of the day? Recently Grammarly carried out a study on 100 LinkedIn profiles – guess what?  Business men and woman who had been promoted one to four times had 45 percent more errors in their grammar than business people who were upgraded six to nine times!

It does not matter what position you hold or whether you are a manager, entrepreneur or academic, there is no excuse for producing work with bad grammar and spelling mistakes. You have to know the basics in order to write proper business. And yes, your grammar, punctuation and your spelling have to be one hundred percent, not ninety-nine percent only. You also have to watch what words you use and make sure that your style is consistent with what you are trying to say.

Bad writing can have a wide-ranging, negative effect on your business, from creating a less-than-coherent business plan and hampering your efforts to attract investors, to communicating with employees, vendors and even your customers.

It is true that bad writing causes bad business. It can have a negative effect on your clients and staff. People might misconstrue what you are trying to say. Instead of attracting investors, you will be scaring them away. This has huge consequences on your bottom line – missed contracts, business plans not followed through properly and customers not receiving well-planned communications.

Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover says that native English speakers who do not know the difference between it’s and its might have their clients worrying about what other simple things they have got wrong.

In addition to the standard rules of grammar, these 10 tips – gathered from around the Web – can help you keep your business writing interesting and concise.

And Brad Hoover’s comments could just as easily apply to investors considering backing your business.

As well as the standard rules of punctuation and grammar, here are 10 Tips taken from all around the Internet to keep you on your toes when you are writing for your business.

10 Tips for Better Business Writing

1. Do not use long, unnecessary sentences, get to the point at the beginning. There is no need to say, “The reason I am reading this report from here ………….”
2. Change any sentences written in the passive tense to the present tense with eye-catching words
3. Use proven, interesting examples of what you are stating.
4. Make sure what you are writing has a standard structure – an introduction, a middle and a conclusion.
5. No long sentences with endless commas – make the sentences short and sharp.
6. Know the audience you are writing for. Investors are different to clients.
7. Once your document is written, make sure you have time to read it over and make any necessary changes.
8. Don’t go crazy with fonts, boldface, and italics. Your documents should be inviting and easy to read.
9. There is no need to use big heading and bold writing to catch anyone’s attention – these usually make a piece difficult to read and confusing.
10. Make your words true and sensible. Sometimes you can laugh at yourself to engage the audience, but plan it well.

About Stimulus Maksima

Here at Stimulus Maksima, our goal is to promote reading preparation, learn to read and reading improvement in South Africa for learners of all ages. We do this by offering a variety of products and services to parents, individuals who wish to improve upon their reading skills and to schools who wish to give their students a boost in their development. Along with this, we also focus on providing assistance and guidance when it comes to mathematics.  For more information on what we do and how we can help, please do not hesitate to get in touch.