I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
Read, subscribe to my newsletter, enjoy!Tash
telling customers how they feel…
I just read an article called ’10 hypnotic-like sentences that sell like crazy’. Catchy heading and, as a writer, potentially useful information so I read it.
Well, actually I started reading it and then just skimmed the remaining nine sentences. All 10 sentences are based on the theory that if I write how you are feeling you will start to feel that way as you read my words.
Just one example of the sentences provided: You don’t know it yet but, at the conclusion of this ad, you will feel driven to order and experience all the benefits of our product.
Personally, if I read something like that, I’d stop reading in irritation with someone being so blatant and patronising. Obviously, you can lead readers in a certain direction with good writing, but I don’t like the technique in that article and wouldn’t recommend using it!
Some would say this technique works in the USA, but I’m not convinced they are so different that obvious manipulations like this aren’t annoying Amercians, too.
Positive or negative?
As much as I’d prefer to ignore the election campaign, it is here and I have noticed numerous ads around. And I am surprised (as I am at every election, lol!) as how negative much of the campaigning is.
In business and as a writer, I would never criticise a competitor (mine or for a client) to try to win sales. I believe it is much better to show my strengths and abilities instead of showing how good I am at complaining about others – this builds trust in my skills obviously, and lets clients know if I offer a service they need.
Spouting negatives about competitors surely makes me look insecure or bitter or incompetent (because I don’t have enough positives to talk about), or all of them!
Politicians never seem to learn this simple business principle – and it makes me think of politicians as children!
So, don’t copy the politicians, and use positives in your writing!
Word Constructions ~ for all your business writing needs
What’s in a name?
My daughter recently discovered that people didn’t live at the same time as dinosaurs. She was shocked and didn’t really believe it.
“But if people weren’t alive when dinosaurs were, then how can people know what they were called?” she asked.
It lead to a discussion of why we use names for things – even things that we don’t see in our everyday life. Names save us time, words and energy, as well as individualising us as people.
When writing, the choice of a name can be really important as names also set the scene. Names can give information about the person, such as gender, nationality, personality and age, and about the theme of the writing.
And it’s not just naming characters in fiction stories either. When I am writing something that includes examples, I take care to use names that imply a mix of people – for instance, using male and female names.
Word Constructions ~ for all your business writing needs
Competition in business
Do you run a business? How do you deal with your competition?
I am about to write an article for the Business Mums Magazine on this topic, and the more opinions I have the better the article will be! So please share your thoughts here or answer the survey here – or both of course!
Word Constructions ~ for all your business writing needs
Dilemas…
Writing is easy enough for me, and honesty in my writing is important, but sometimes it isn’t easy to write the complete truth.
For example, when I write a review of something I will be honest – I’d never say it was great if I hated it. I’d always be polite and as constructive as possible rather than slamming it, but I will say if it isn’t up to scratch.
But what about when the less-than-pleasing item is owned/created by someone you want to impress? It gets tough because I want to be respected for honesty and feel the responsibility that if I review something it could influence other people’s use of money & time.
In the past, I have managed this by pointing out all the positives of the item and only mentioning the weaknesses – and obviously not saying anything like ‘great read’ or ‘value for money’. Once I reviewed a book which I found to be fairly boring, but it’s got a lot to do with the fact I don’t like that genre much either. My review commented on how it used simple language and was true to its genre with a few unexpected twists. That way, someone liking the genre would read the book but others wouldn’t bother – win win for everyone!
Keeping to the point…
I had a meeting with clients yesterday and they showed me a competitior’s materials as an example of materials they wanted. Well, the concept they wanted but not the materials themselves.
The document they showed me was 10 or 12 pages long, with a covering letter attached. I only skim read the document but it was clear who had written it – the owner of the business has written it about his precious business and service, and because of his passion and motivations, he tried to tell potential customers everything there is to know about his services.
It is important to know the purpose of any document and just stick to it. If your document (as was the one I saw yesterday) is more detailed than a flyer but is still meant to just give an overview of the service, then just give an overview. Your customers don’t need to know you use a PC or Mac to produce their pdf – and what’s more, they don’t care.
Telling too much will just bore your customers which could well mean they’ll go elsewhere. If they want to know the technical details they’ll ask for them, but you can bet most people won’t.
When writing for clients, I frequently cut back on the amount of information included in a document with the result being a cleaner, simpler document that works.
So as you’re writing ask yourself “Is this really necessary? Does this suit my purpose?”
PS I have a new article on knowing your purpose – you can read it here.
Word Constructions ~ for all your business writing needs
From conference to blog!
Writing a blog seems like an obvious thing for a writer to do and it has been on my to do list for some time, but I never had the time to look into it.
Two weeks ago I went to the inaugral Business Mums Network Conference. It was a fantastic two days and I came out of it with a lot of ideas and plans for my business. Amongst other ideas, was a further incentive to get a blog started, so here it is!
What else did I get from the conference? Well, I am going to change the way my business works so I get more time for writing (which I love) and less time on background communications tasks for my corporate clients. It is important to spend time doing what we love and are good at, rather than filling our hours with ‘stuff’ that may be urgent and even important, but not fulfilling or the most important.
But for now, back to the writing!
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