Write for Your Reader
I’ve been asked several times for my “top ten” recommendations for business writing as we start 2009, particularly with the economic challenges we all face. The “top ten” roundup end-of-year for this and that is an overused writing tactic, so I have deliberately avoided it.
Besides, so many recommendations, whether facing prosperity or recession, are derivations of the single most powerful tactic to improve business writing:
–Focus on your reader’s needs.
Forget about what you want to say, and instead focus on shaping your content so it best matches your reader’s perceptions, interests, and benefit. This will naturally best inform multiple considerations, including tone, content, organization and method of delivery.
Effective business writing, which by definition is writing on the job that advances business, focuses on the reader, not the writer.
