Effective business writing: How to craft clear and professional messages
With so many working from home, effective business writing is an essential skill for everyone to develop, regardless of their role on the team.
In the office, a lot of communication used to happen face-to-face. But that is now no longer the case.
Asynchronous text-based communication is quickly becoming the primary channel many businesses use to communicate with employees, vendors, and customers.
It can be in the form of an email, a memo, a presentation, or on collaboration tools like Slack or MS Teams. While each of these formats is different, what these all have in common is they are text-based and require precision in your writing to communicate effectively.
Here are some tips for effective business writing to help you craft clear and professional messages.
1. General tips to improve your business writing:
Make it scannable.
Use bullets.
Be concise.
Avoid long paragraphs.
2. Use an AI writing assistant:
AI can do much more than correct grammar.
Open AI ChatGPT writes full-length content.
They are great for idea generation.
3. Remove most adverbs and adjectives:
You don't "really" need them.
Most adverbs are "simply" unnecessary.
They make you sound "much" less confident.
4. Be as clear and concise as possible:
Why write, "The team is currently in the process of working on rewriting the blog post."
When you can write, "We are rewriting the post."
Remove the unnecessary words.
5. Avoid colloquialisms, do not assume everyone understands:
"Kick the bucket"
"Knee jerk reaction"
"Head over heels"
"Elbow grease"
6. Avoid analogies as well:
They are challenging to translate.
Are easy to misunderstand.
Be direct and use what is called "global English."
7. You can skip the exclamation (!) points:
They don’t belong in professional communications.
If you insist, use only one per week.
I know AI keeps suggesting them.
8. Limit the use of symbols and abbreviations:
These have become popular because of texting.
But stop using "&" "etc." or "e.g."
Write them out instead.
9. When to use symbols?
Use them in a financial or data context.
You can use "$100M" or "56%."
There is no need to write "one hundred million dollars."
10. You should be authentic:
If you're funny, be funny.
If you're serious, be serious.
What's important is to be yourself.
11. What is my top business writing tip of all time?
Write shorter sentences.
Effective business writing is about more than just correct grammar and spelling; it's about creating simple and direct messages that get your point across.
“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words." —Mark Twain
