Word Constructions

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Climate Change is a business concern too

Published 15 October, 2009 | By TashWord

Today is Blog Action Day, with over 6,000 bloggers writing about climate change and its impact on our world, and on us.

Maybe climate change, and protecting our environment, is something you think of at home or when choosing to buy local or low packaging options. Many people act as if environmental concerns don’t apply at work or in business, but we all need to think and act sustainably all the time and in all sorts of situations.

As a small business owner, here are some of the things I take into account:

amongst other reasons, I work from home because it saves any energy or pollution from commuting to an office somewhere else AND I only have one set of base consumption (e.g. I don’t heat an office and somewhere for my baby; I only need one computer for business and personal use)
I choose to reuse paper by using the back of documents and envelopes instead of notepads
I buy recycled paper products for printing
I email invoices and statements to save paper and printing – the computer is already on so sending an email is close to environmentally neutral
I read news items and articles online rather than buying paper versions – and rarely print copies of them
I use email and phone calls as much as possible for communicating with clients – again, this saves using a car or plane for meeting face to face
I turn off my computer, printer, etc when I finish for the day, and turn off my screen whenever I leave my desk for a while
I close the curtains as soon as it starts getting dark and cold – keeping the heat inside saves heating
I choose practical promotional items rather than gimmicky things that use resources to make but provide no real value. So I would prefer a pen, notepad, water bottle or bookmark to a plastic bracelet, inflatable toy, flag or fan

I’m sure there’s more as I care about my environmental impact, but the list shows how easy it can be to include environmental ideas into everyday business. While we may not be able to reverse climate change, I think we can slow it down considerably by taking individual responsibility in the little things as well as the big things.

In Copenhagen next month, world leaders will be making some decisions and agreements about topics around climate change. I just hope that everyone starts working on those targets straight away rather than waiting until the deadlines.

What have you done/are you doing in your business to help our planet? What suggestions do you have for other businesses?

Posted in bit off track, business info & tools | Tagged change, climate, environment, impact | 7 Comments

Capitalising job titles

Published 14 October, 2009 | By TashWord

A few months ago someone asked me (as a comment in a blog post) about capitalising the words in a job title.

My response, in summary, was that job titles don’t need to be capitalised although it is not technically wrong to do so. The exceptions being a title as part of a name (e.g. Doctor Jones) and someone in a key national role (e.g. Prime Minister, Treasurer).

I also noted that some companies list capital letters for extra words as part of their corporate style guide. Thus, we get companies writing about their Managing Director, Marketing Manager and Company when managing director, marketing manager and company would be perfectly acceptable and easier to read.

While I respect that each company can set their own brand, what annoys me is the inconsistency of such capitalisation. That is, most (maybe all!) of those companies would quite happily write about Jack the receptionist, Simone the cleaner and Justine the forklift driver while referring to Craig the Chairman and Mary the Operations Manager.

It annoys me because it is inconsistent (and therefore distracting and harder to read) but also because I find it disrespectful. Using capital letters is usually done as a sign of respect to the person in the job – does a receptionist, cleaner or forklift driver not deserve respect as well? And for anyone who says a Marketing Manager is more important than a receptionist, I ask if you could manage a busy switchboard or how you view companies you call where the receptionist doesn’t do a good job.

So, while I prefer to not use capitals for titles, if you do capitalise titles please be sure to capitalise them all.

Posted in bit off track, business info & tools, grammar & details | Tagged capital, job, letter, title | 7 Comments

Roast carat or carrot?

Published 24 August, 2009 | By TashWord

Carrot: an orange coloured root vegetable from the parsley family and a good source of carotenoid nutrients including beta-carotene
Roast lamb isn’t the same without roast potatoes and carrots

Caret: a mark that indicates where text is to be inserted. In editing, it is ^ but on a computer screen it is usually >.
The fox jumped over ^log.

Carat (ct):a unit of weight used for gems and precious stones. It is a metric measurement based on 0.2 grams per carat.
A five carat opal weighs about one gram.

Karat (k): a measure of the purity of gold – pure gold being too soft for jewellery, it is mixed with other metals to make an alloy.
My necklace is 18k which means it contains 75% pure gold.

Telling them apart can be simplified. Carrot is the most commonly used version, and the only one likely to rot.

Caret is a very specific word that most people would rarely come across, especially as the word cursor is used more often in a computer sense.

As for carat and karat, carat refers to how much gemstone you have to carry (i.e. the weight) while a karat refers to the King’s gold!

Posted in Monday Meanings | Tagged carat, caret, carrot, define, karat, meaning | Leave a comment

Making an offer

Published 20 August, 2009 | By TashWord

A few days ago I wrote about a beautician sign offering 50% off clients, focussing on the poorly communicated message.

I have another issue with that sign, and their special offer for new clients.

Offering new clients a major discount (50% is big) may well bring in more customers and keep them busy, which is obviously a good thing for business. However, there are some other parts to this offer:

how many of those clients will come back to pay twice as much for the same service? Does the business make enough profit from one half price service to warrant the discount if they never return?
are they cheapening their services with this offer? are they giving a message that their services are so over priced they can afford to take off 50%?
are they concentrating on new clients at the expense of existing, repeat customers?

There are other ways they could attract new clients through specials, such as:

new clients get a discount voucher for their second visit – even if it is the original 50% discount, at least they have paid full price once and you are teaching them to come back
customer rewards where they get a free {specific service} every five visits
new clients get a free {extra service} when booking over $x in services
new clients get a goodie bag on their first visit – include discount vouchers, relevant product samples, vouchers from complementary businesses, a chocolate, a branded pen/magnet/etc, and so on

What’s imortant to remember with special offers is that you continue to make a profit and that the offer won’t hurt you more than it helps.

Posted in business info & tools | Tagged client, new, offer, profit, repeat, special | Leave a comment

A company is singular

Published 19 August, 2009 | By TashWord

Most people understand that the verb needs to match the number of subjects – that is, if the subject is singular, the verb is the single tense, but if the subject is plural, the verb must be the plural version.

For example:

the boys go to the park daily OR the boy goes to the park daily

they sing very well OR she sings very well

my friends eat quickly OR my friend eats quickly

Where people sometimes get confused is with words that appear plural when they aren’t, or singular when they are plural. For example, children, women and men are plural even though they don’t end in s, and words such as crowd, group, herd and pack are singular even though they have multiple parts.

When writing about a business, it is also a singular word even if it sounds plural (for example Woolworths and Brambles are both singular so ‘Brambles is in Australia’s top 100 companies’ is correct.)

Remember that the business name could be replaced with the word ‘it’ so match the verb with ‘it’. A business or a company is a thing (the people behind it are its staff or owners) so does not use the pronoun ‘they’, although is a common misuse in conversations.

Posted in grammar & details | Tagged company, match, plural, singular, verb | Leave a comment

New weight loss system?

Published 16 August, 2009 | By TashWord

I was on a walk yesterday, and I noticed a sandwich board out the front of a beauty shop. As well as the usual details, it included some text to the side as if to attract attention. The text was:

50% off new clients

If you are very overweight, you may be happy to know they could remove 50% of you (I wonder if you get to choose where the 50% comes from?) If you aren’t overweight enough to want to loose 50%, we can only hope they don’t remove other parts of you!

Of course, what they really meant was new clients pay half price on their usual services – but it is important to write what you mean rather than assume people can understand you.

How could it have been better?

50% off for new clients {yes, adding one word makes all the difference!}

half price for your first visit {longer, but very clear and also shows the discount is for only one visit}

Have you read your marketing messages to be sure they say what you mean them to?

Posted in bad writing examples, writing | Tagged mean, message, special, write | 2 Comments

Ask before sharing emails

Published 11 August, 2009 | By TashWord

We all hate spam. Most of us get too many emails to deal with them all properly. We don’t have time to read every enewsletter, not even time to read all the good ones, so we can’t subscribe to them all and stay sane!

So why then do some business people think it’s ok to subscribe to you their lists without your permission?

Just because I am your friend or I have done some work for you does not mean I want to read your newsletter – rather, I may want to but I probably don’t have the time to read something I haven’t carefully selected.

A number of people have added me to their lists because they know me, or because I wrote for them or because I gave them a quote to write for them! None of these behaviours is acceptable to me – sure send me a copy and invite me to subscribe, but don’t just subscribe me.

A couple of specific recent examples that will hopefully help you avoid annoying potential (or actual) clients…

I attempted to watch an online seminar. I gave my email address purely for access to the seminar (there was no disclaimer I was signing to a newsletter) and she started sending me 3 or 4 emails a week. What’s worse is the seminar never worked so I have no reason to read even one of those emails

I responded to a newsletter which mentioned a particular offer; I asked for a few details so I could decide if I was interested. Next thing, I am getting emails from two totally unrelated people. What’s worse, both those people are including me in a cc field with a whole group of people! So not only am I getting unwanted emails from people I never gave my email to in the first place, they are sharing my email with other people! Not the way to impress me into using their services I assure you

someone who contacted me two years ago, and who has not maintained a relationship with me, recently added a new arm to her business and has subscribed me to that new arm’s newsletter. I have never contacted her or shown an interest in her services, so why can she assume I want her newsletter?

So to avoid annoying people and therefore potentially loosing clients and getting bad word of mouth, remember:

don’t subscribe people to your newsletter. EVER. Send a single copy and invite them, but do not subscribe them without their knowledge & permission
if sending a group email, use the bcc field not the cc field unless it a discussion and all parties are aware of each other. Especially as emails can be forwarded so who knows where my email address would end up…
don’t give someone else’s email address to others for their newsletter. It’s one thing to give it as a referral (e.g. “Email Tash on … as she’s a great writer”) but otherwise you should protect the emails you have been entrusted with. If in doubt, ask if it’s ok to pass on someone’s details

Posted in business info & tools, newsletter content | 3 Comments

Accountable communications

Published 29 July, 2009 | By TashWord

What are accountable communications?

It simply means giving a message that is justified and that you are willing to stand by.

For many jaded consumers, the marketing message in many ads and business materials is not trusted because there have been too many hyped up, false promises in the past. And people understand that marketing companies use many techniques to support their message .

To make sure your message is seen as trustworthy and is accountable

avoid exaggerations (the occasional obvious one may work)
justify any claims
only give it in appropriate ways (i.e. don’t spam or annoy people)
check the details
use an appropriate look – colours, layouts, font sizes and so on all influence how your message is perceived. For example, the long letter with yellow highlights style of webpage doesn’t build trust in Australians as much as it appears to in the USA

What messages have you seen that didn’t come across as accountable or reliable?

Posted in blogging, newsletter content, web content, writing | Tagged accountable, communications, justify, trustworthy | Leave a comment

Use of electrocution is shocking

Published 27 July, 2009 | By TashWord

This word is misused so often it is scary – or shocking if you can excuse the pun! In fact, last week I heard a TV host admit to murdering half of his contestants on national television!

electrocution: dying from electricity being applied to the body
He was electrocuted when he touched both live wires.

Electrocution, electrocuted, electrocute – whichever form of the word, it means being killed by electricity. Yet so many people talk about being electrocuted themselves – if you believe in ghosts, that could be possible but otherwise if the person is talking about it they were not electrocuted!

An electric shock on the other hand means feeling electricity through your body but you surive the experience – it can be as mild as the shock you get from synthetic carpets through to an almost fatal shock.

As for our TV host, he had given many of his contestants an electric shock but I’m pretty sure he hadn’t killed them despite saying he had electrocuted them.

Posted in Monday Meanings | Tagged electric, electrocuted, electrocution, meaning, shock | 2 Comments

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