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Tash
Bringing IWD into your business
International Women’s Day on 8 March – what does it mean to you?
International Woman’s Day (IWD) is on Saturday 8th March. It is both a celebration of women and an acknowledgement that many women are living difficult lives.
In some countries, IWD is a public holiday (at least for women) and is similar in importance as Mothers Day.
While it is not a holiday in Australia, you can choose to make it important – or simply acknowledge that it is important to many of your customers.
Celebrating IWD
Some of my ideas for celebrating IWD as a business are:
- treat your staff to breakfast or morning tea – even if your staff consists of you and a pot plant!
- get the males to do something nice for the women they work with (obviously this requires the men to be willing to participate!) Maybe they bring in food for morning tea, make the tea/coffee all day or ‘man the office’ so the women have a longer lunch break
- offer specials or extras to female clients for the day/week/month
- encourage women to take an interest this month, especially if you industry is not seen as particularly female-friendly or of interest to women. For example, I’ve helped AvSuper prepare information about super for women; a mechanic could run a basic car maintenance course for women; local tradespeople could teach women to do minor repairs through a class or articles in the local paper
- put up a poster in the office/shop or add a banner to the website to acknowledge women – it could be generic or somehow relate to your business
- do some fund-raising during March with the proceeds going to a women-centric organisation
- donate x% of March profits to a women’s cause
- send an email or card to your female clients thanking them for what they do (and for being your client of course!)
- sponsor a local activity or group participating in IWD – schools and sporting groups in particular may appreciate this
What ideas have you considered for your business?
Have you been inspired by another business’ involvement in IWD? What did they do?
Consistent pronouns
Mixing pronouns is a little like mixing drinks – both can lead to a fuzzy head!
Pronouns
Some common pronouns that make writing (and reading) English much easier.
Just as a reminder, a pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun. So ‘he’ replace’ John’ and ‘her’ replaces ‘Suzie’s’, and so on.
Pronouns are useful for
- making writing shorter and clearer (it takes less to write ‘they’ than ‘John, Mary, Chuan and Connor’ for example)
- avoiding repetition of the noun (compare ‘Joe rode Joe’s bike until Joe felt too tired’ and ‘Joe rode his bike until he felt too tired’)
- provide emphasis towards one noun (such as ‘The teacher herself missed the error in that question’). Mind you, this is a somewhat old fashioned way to write and I don’t recommend its use in business writing.
There are different pronouns depending on gender and whether the noun is plural or singular.
Use pronouns consistently
When using pronouns, make sure you maintain the same or matching pronoun throughout a sentence and paragraph.
I recently read
For more details about {our product}, contact us on 1234 5678 or visit their website.
The writer swaps from being part of the company (by using ‘us’) to being external to the company (by using ‘their’). Which is jarring and somewhat confusing.
If in doubt about which pronoun to use, swap in the correct noun and make sure the sentence makes sense.
Or make a conscious choice about the type of pronoun (such as if your business uses me or we, us or it), put it into your style guide and stick to it.
Do you have any trouble with pronouns? Have you ever checked the pronoun use on your website is consistent?
Correct details in tests are critical
I came across another example of errors in details being an issue.
Our daughter’s school sent out an email including ‘(1 of 2)’ in the subject. The attached pdf explained they were testing the communications system for parents so we should expect two emails – if only one arrives, contact the school.
Testing communications seems like a good plan and the test seemed simple enough.
Then I got a second email which referred to being the first email of two and had the same attachment. Was it an error to get this email twice or did they accidentally send it twice? Should I reply to say I got it twice, possibly like hundreds of other parents, or give them a chance to explain the duplication first?
Responding to a mistake can lead to a flurry of emails – avoiding that is one good reason to check details before hitting send!
Then, I got a third email asking me to log into the school’s site to read a letter. The letter was the same attachment as in the original email (which clearly states ‘this is the first email and please contact us if you don’t get a second one’).
Which detail is wrong – the letter stating a second letter was coming or the sending of the same letter twice?
Where does that put their test?
On one hand, I got both types of email so the systems are working and my contact details are correct.
Do they have my email address in the system twice so I will get two versions of every group email they send?
Was it human error to get the same attachment in the second email type or is that a failure of the system?
I can not reply as I got both emails or I can reply and explain I got three emails and the same attachment.
Which do you think will help their testing process more? What would you do?
Get the details right
Are you a details person?
Many people are bored by details (probably all of us really – we just like details in some things, not all things) and that includes details of grammar and good writing.
You can’t convince me with poor attention to details
I received a letter a few days ago.
A nicely presented letter has little value if the details in the letter are wrong.
I like getting letters, and it doesn’t happen as often now we have so many electronic options available to us. So it’s disappointing when the letter turns out to be spam or a scam rather than something interesting.
This particular letter I recognised as spam straight away as I’ve received rubbish from this group before (and so have clients who luckily ask me if it is legitimate before acting).
However, standing in the sun was nice so I actually read their letter and found numerous reasons to not act as they wished.
- they were using an email address I have never used so obviously made it up – to convince me you are credible, use my real email address
- they missed the .au in my email and website addresses – and coming from an Australian company wanting to promote me in an Australian directory makes it even more pathetic to my mind. It wouldn’t take long to look at my website to discover the .au in the URL
- it was sent to my home address but addressed to Word Constructions – a detail that made me instantly suspicious anyway.
- paragraph one includes “This now includes additional subscriber benefits listed below” which is grammatically poor; paragraph three includes “… entitle you to additional subscriber benefits (see below).”
However, the letter does not contain any subscriber benefits. - a smaller detail is lack of consistency such as “The Internet reaches 15 million… (internet analysis…” (Internet or internet – they need to choose one and list that in a style guide)
- multiple sentences were missing words or just didn’t make sense – one will be discussed and improved in my March newsletter I think!
- two sentences in a row ‘kindly’ requested me to do something – is it kind of me to sign a form to (supposedly) get promotion via their directory?
Businesses need to watch the details
Get the details right and people are not distracted by the mistakes – meaning they can focus on your call to action or message.
Get the details wrong and people doubt your professionalism and worry whether you pay attention to details when they are paying you. That is, if you throw together a letter instead of putting effort into every word of it, will you also rush through fixing my car, cutting my hair, building my house, designing my website and so on?
It’s nice to think people will ignore errors because we’re nice people with good intentions.
But first impressions count and if those incorrect details are the first thing a potential customer sees, it can be enough to give your competitor the job.
So how does your business avoid errors in the details?
How does your business react to potential suppliers if they get details wrong?
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