The only thing you need to know about business writing
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Let me save you a lot of time and money that might otherwise be spent on taking business writing courses.
There is no such thing a “business writing” anymore.
Even when it was a real thing, it was a pretty awful way to communicate with people.
Most of it was needlessly formal, wordy and lacked warmth.
Things are different now. We live in a much more literate, text-driven world. Audience attention is the new scarcity.
There is only good writing and bad writing.
Good writing is clear and persuasive.
It respects the reader’s time and intelligence. And it is designed to achieve well-defined objectives you have for yourself and your reader.
That’s as relevant to writing a novel as it is to writing an email to your boss.
Bad writing moves you in the opposite direction.
It’s wasteful. It’s evasive. And it’s fixated exclusively on your needs. It reveals in all its jargon and five-dollar words what you are trying hard to avoid saying. People can sense that the way a dog can smell fear.
Spend more time understanding your reader.
Too often, we devote our energy to writing in a manner that assumes things need to be explained to people: that if you just organize your facts in the correct order, you will win both hearts and minds.
This is a mistake. People don’t like to be preached to. They resent being sold to.
But what everyone wants is to feel understood.
“I see you, I understand what you are looking for, and I can help you with that.”
Good writing says these things without actually saying it.
Very best, Patrick
Very best, Patrick
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