Communication Skills

There is one big difference between an informative presentation and a sales presentation. In an informative presentation you are also trying to sell your ideas, but in a sales presentation you must do more. You must sell in a more specific time frame, typically sooner rather than later.

In a sales presentation, you must give out data and inform, but you must do more than that. In both types of presentations you must conclude your thoughts.

However, in a sales presentation, you must do more. You must CLOSE. Closing requires a very specific action that you are requesting from your prospect. It does not mean being high-pressured or acting unethically, but it does mean asking your prospect to do something highly specific, such as select your firm over another, sign a contract, or place an order. At some point during the close, you must ask the prospect directly for his or her business.

A surprisingly high number of sales people feel too awkward or embarrassed to ever come right out and ask people for their business. This is a big mistake.

Most people like to be asked for their business. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

If you conclude a presentation by asking people for their business, the worst thing that can happen is that they say no. But if you don’t ask, there is the possibility that your prospects liked you, were impressed with you, were inclined to hire you, but simply got distracted and then you became out of sight, out of mind. Then, you have poured money down the drain.

So don’t just conclude your sales presentation, conclude by closing.

TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide

We re all taught to avoid clichés by our high school English teachers. And this is good advice, when it comes to writing reporters, articles, or even giving speeches. Reporters have also been taught by their instructors to never, ever write or utter clichés in news reports.

However, there is one big exception to this rule for both newsmakers and news

reporters: Reporters LOVE quoting experts, executives and newsmakers using clichés.

Why?

Because clichés are often more colorful ways of making points. Clichés become clichés in the first point because they are a more memorable way of making a message stick in someone’s head.

A journalist’s job is to make new information more understandable and more memorable to readers, viewers or listeners. When a reporter combines new information along side a cliché that repackages old information, the result is often a better understanding and context of the new story.

If you want to be a masterful media communicator, sometimes you have to swallow your pride. You have to realize that you are not the journalist or writer—your job is to get your message out. Your high school English teacher might not be impressed if she sees you quoted while using a cliché, but that should not be your concern. Your job is to get quotes that reflect your message.

“At the end of the day…”

“The bottom line is…”

“We hit a home run when we…”

None of these clichés are brilliant, but they may help you insert your main points into a story.

One of my clients was a financial regulator for the state of Florida. His office often had to shut down fraudulent boiler room operations. His message, after each shut down, was that consumers should be cautious if someone calls them at dinner time and offers to turn $5000 into $10,000 in three weeks in an oil well investment.

That was the message, but how did he get this idea into newspapers, TV and radio?

He said, “Remember citizens, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Same message as above, but because it is a cliché, the news media quoted him. And they quoted him using this cliché EVERY 3 MONTHS FOR 20 YEARS.

Not only do clichés work, but they will keep working for you over and over again.

Remember “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide

One great way to get your message quoted by reporters is to state your ideas in the form of a rhetorical question. Why do reporters like rhetorical questions?

Because journalists like to break up the structure of their stories. If every sentence begins with a subject, is followed by a verb and ends with an object, the story can look boring very quickly. An occasional rhetorical question surrounded by quotation marks helps mix up the flow of a story.

“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

“Are we going to face a possible bankruptcy next year?”

“When is management going to listen to its own workers?”

“When will the airline unions realize that if they get all of their demands, there will be no airline left in business?”

“Why has the governor betrayed the faith of the voters?”

“Will Microsoft Office revolutionize the way workers get their jobs done?”

The one thing all of these questions have in common is that they aren’t real questions. They aren’t the expressions of one person seeking new information.

They are rhetorical questions, meaning they are simply a way of making a point in the form of asking a question. But they question doesn’t have to be answered in order for the point to still be understood.

Do I think it’s good to communicate your message points in the middle of an interview by using rhetorical questions? Yes I do.

TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide

Thousands of years ago, Aristotle wrote that believability is one of the three most important facts in being a good speaker—this has not changed. A speaker must be believable to have an impact on an audience.

This is why it is so important to eliminate obvious issues that can easily destroy a speaker’s believability. Reading from a script destroys believability because your audience doesn’t know if these are your ideas or even if you understand the ideas you are reading. Excessive looking at notes inflicts the same damage. Obvious displays of nervousness also eat away at the perception of believability.

“If he is really so confident of his ideas, why is he shaking like a leaf?” your audience muses.

The single easiest way to come across as more believable to an audience is through your eyes. Give long, luxuriant, and steady eye contact to as many people as possible, one at a time. Do this throughout your presentation and you will be believed.

TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide

Far too many speakers attempt to look and sound smart by drowning their audience members in a sea of facts. “More is More” is their philosophy. The problem is that no matter how quickly you speak during a 20-30 minute speech, there is no way you can get your audience to know as much as you do on your area of expertise.

The other reality is that your audience can already get all of the facts on your subject from the internet. People are not suffering from a lack of information or facts. There are more than 100,000 books published every year and, seemingly, another 100,000 blogs run by self-appointed pundits published every hour.

The world does not need more information. Your audience doesn’t really want more information.

Instead, your audience is looking for someone (you) who can sift through all the info they don’t have time to go through and distill for them what they really, really need to know. In short, your audience is looking for wisdom.

Are you providing wisdom for your audience? It would be nice if every speaker could come up with stunningly original and creative thoughts for each audience.

But this is not always required. You can impart wisdom to your audience by giving it a well-organized perspective on your subject matter. This means you don’t get them lost in a forest of facts. It’s not that facts don’t matter. It’s just that facts without context and priority have no meaning. As a speaker, you can give wisdom to your audience by giving them an overriding metaphor or a new thematic way at looking at a particular problem or cluster of issues. By creating themes or overriding messages, you help your audience interpret some small slice of the world in a more coherent, and hence, more meaningful way.

And when you are adding the value of meaning, even if it is how to make award winning paper airplanes, you will be perceived as a speaker who adds the value of wisdom to your audience.

TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide

The surest way to get quoted by the media is to attack somebody, even if it is yourself. Reporters love attacks. Why? Because attacks are a part of conflict and every great drama involves conflict.

The best story to be on if you are a reporter is war. Walter Cronkite became famous by covering WWII. Dan Rather got famous during the Vietnam War. Wars are interesting to cover because people are attacking each other every day.

The second best story to be on if you are a reporter is a national political campaign. Why? Because the leader of one party is attacking the leader of the other party every single day. And vice versa.

When you attack your opponents by name, your competitors, your boss, or yourself, you instantly make reporters excited. The more forceful, pointed, or emotional the attack you make, the greater your chances are of being quoted.

“General Electric is destroying the Hudson River!”

“McDonalds is on a mission to make every kid in America weigh 300 pounds.”

“I hate myself for forgetting to report all of my campaign contributions.”

All of these quotes will make it into final radio, TV and newspaper reports because they contain attacks.

Of course, as always, just because something is interesting to reporters doesn’t mean it is a good idea for you to say it. If a part of your message is to attack government waste, or inequality, then, by all means, attack away. But don’t ever attack anyone or anything in front of a reporter unless you want to see that attack in headlines connected with your name in tomorrow’s paper.

TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide

Of all the advice I give to my media training clients when it comes to how to answer questions during a media interview, the hardest piece for people to grasp is the need to communicate all three of your message points in every answer (that’s EVERY answer). When I tell people this, they think I am kidding, or they think that I meant to say “all three message points during the course of the interview.”

That’s not what I am saying. I urge people to try to say all three of their message points in every single answer.

“But TJ,” you cry. “I’ll sound insane! Reporters will run away from me.”

No, they won’t. The trick is that you don’t want to sound like a computer or a broken record. You want to hit all three of your message points in each answer, but do it in a different order, using different examples, and using different words.

If you aim for all three message points and you only get to one or two before the reporter cuts you off or interrupts you, well then you at least hit one or two—not bad.

The mistake many novices make is that they deliver all three of their message points exactly once, near the beginning of the interview. Then, they proceed to answer questions in a totally reactive way for the next thirty minutes. At the end of the interview, the reporter looks down at his or her notes and sees 57 separate message pointes, each delivered exactly once—therefore none stand out.

The reporter then chooses to include a random couple of points from your 57 points.

If you are happy with a 3-57 chance of success, then continue to use this strategy. If you want to increase the odds that the message you care about actually ends up in the story, then you must be more proactive, specifically by trying to interject all three of your message points in each answer.

TJ Walker, Media Training Worldwide

Some companies out there will charge you thousands of dollars to look after the SEO on your ecommerce website. In this article we’re going to look at some top tips and “quick wins” for ecommerce business owners in order to get websites as high up the rankings as possible with very little work.

Use lots of unique content: Don’t be tempted to use bog-standard manufacturer product descriptions. It might save time but your website won’t rank at all well.

Commission someone to write you a solid set of unique product descriptions of at least 300 words each. Unique content is the lifeblood of SEO so don’t go without it!

Use pictures: Buyers will buy with their eyes in a lot of cases – they won’t read your product description – instead they’ll look at the picture when making a decision.

Use pictures and lots of them on your website – don’t forget to fill in the alt tag section of the picture though – this helps greatly with SEO.

Pictures are great for search engines and visitors alike – throw in some other media like embedding related YouTube videos if you have time.

Fill in META info on every page: Make sure you fill in the META title and description on every single page on your website.

A crazy amount of sites out there are missing META data which means that they don’t sit as well as they should in the search engines.

Writing a short META description takes seconds – as does putting in an appropriate title. If you don’t have time to do it all, outsource it!

Read two more good ideas on dukeo

Be Brief

One of the worst mistakes email copywriters make is trying to shove the entire story into the email message. Think about when you open a marketing email in your inbox. Do you read every single word in there? Probably not. It’s more likely that you scan for important points so you can glean the overall message, and decide whether you want to take any action. So if you’re sending email with hundreds of words of copy, you’re making it much more difficult for recipients to decide whether they want to click through … because they can’t quickly sift through all of the information in your email!

Instead, find a way to summarize what the reader will get in a compelling way, and let them click through to a page on your website for more information. Take a look at how this HubSpot customer and Certified Partner Precision Athletics drafted a brief email that encouraged readers to click through for more information:

There are a few lines of copy used to set up the purpose of the email and, of course, thank the recipient for utilizing their free training session. But after that, Precision Athletics gets to the point of the email — delivering success stories from those who have completed the training program to motivate the email recipient.

Keeping your message on-point is the key to writing brief email copy. What’s the point you’re trying to make with your email? If you know the action your email is supposed to drive — recipient buys a grill the size of a Foosball table, recipient remembers to buy their Bruce Springsteen tickets, recipient gets motivated to work out — you’ll have a much easier time drafting succinct email copy that remains focused on that one end goal. And if writing succinct email copy isn’t enough of a motivator for you to narrow down your goals, remember that having just one primary call-to-action in your email marketing results in better click-through rates than emails with competing calls-to-action!

Use Actionable Language in Your CTA

That’s right, emails have calls-to-action, too! Well, the good ones do. First and foremost, your email call-to-action should be extremely easy to identify. Remember, people scan their emails, and if there’s one thing you want your recipient to pick up on, it’s your call-to-action. If you’re sending an HTML email, you may decide to include a button like this AmazonLocal email did below.

A set of four rules articulated by Abraham Lincoln in 1840 can help corporate communicator create richer, more interactive and more effective relationships with the people upon whom success depends.

(Note: a version of this was first published in Ragan Report, European Supplement, June 2003)

Discussing employee research methodologies with a prospective client at a prominent London financial institution, the client recounted an admonition from his recently departed CEO, when asked about the prospect of an online employee survey. “We will NOT run this company by referendum”, bellowed the Chief Executive.

What corporate communicators often don’t realize—is that in actuality, every company and marketplace is run by referendum. Every corporation is in some respect a democracy—even if it doesn’t feel like one.

What do you mean, a democracy? A major logical fallacy present in the way organizations communicate is one where the organization acts as if the targets of an official communication have no choice but to accept the message as the truth, at face value. But in reality, the target is completely free to accept or reject the message—and to ‘vote’ on its acceptability in any number of ways. Going to work and keeping your head down is only one way of ‘voting’. Inside companies, other ways of voting include:
• Choosing whether to show up, call in sick, or walk away from the job
• Choosing whether to attend to appointed tasks or to surf the internet
• Choosing to resist, support or obstruct change initiatives
• Choosing to express supportive or cynical views about co-workers, managers, or company policies to their colleagues.

In the external sphere, there are a wider variety of ‘voters’, whose support or opposition could have massive impact. Some are more obvious—the unsatisfied customers who can switch products or suppliers, the irate shareholders who could sell up—or turn the shareholder meeting into theatre of the absurd, or the disgruntled employees who can vent about their companies over drinks in airport bars, in the press or on the chat boards on the Internet. With public and employee cynicism toward corporations at or near an all time high, looking at companies as operational ‘democracies’ offers an opportunity to renew, rebuild, and re-energize a company’s key relationships.

The Lincoln Rules: Democracy’s Toolbox

If one wants to apply the notion of the company as a democracy in a practical way, a set of tools for making things happen in a democracy could prove useful to a corporate communicator. A set of four rules articulated by Abraham Lincoln in 1840 is one such toolkit—time-honored for its simplicity and effectiveness. The rules, first spelled out in a speech by the future President to the Illinois Legislature are:

• Make a perfect list of all voters
• Determine with certainty whom each voter will support
• For someone who is undecided, send someone in whom they trust to persuade them
• Turn out all the good Whigs on Election Day

These rules may seem basic, simple, and self-evidently applicable to the task of winning elections. But applied in a corporate context, each rule provides a framework for recognizing the freedom each voter has to make his or her own choices and share his or her opinions. In recognizing this freedom the corporate communicator can use the rules to create richer, more interactive and more effective relationships with the people upon whom success depends.

Make a perfect list of the voters
A perfect list does not necessarily mean the ‘list of all employees’. More frequently, it may mean a list of all individuals who can influence an outcome—or at least of those most likely to influence an outcome in a certain way. No list is ever perfect—but continually maintaining lists and looking for ‘who’s missing’ will keep it valid and relevant.

Determine with certainty whom they will support
Knowing with certainty whom is on your side not only provides you with a sense of your odds of success, it also forms the basis of building a support team to expand your coalition—by working with them to engage their peers, friends, and colleagues to seek their support for the current initiatives.

Send someone in whom they trust
In engaging people who are undecided, or are persuadable to a point of view, they need to be made see that backing that point of view is tangibly in their own self interest. Anodyne messages from the CEO—or worse, the disembodied ‘Voice of the Corporation’ is not going to cut it. Identifying credible individuals who agree with the corporation’s positions, support its desired outcomes, and are willing to act as advocates–is arguably the most important success factor in any change initiative that requires any degree of persuasion.

Turning out the Good Whigs
Unlike election campaigns which focus on a single day, corporate initiatives often require a continual series of ‘election days’ where people need to take action to deliver particular outcomes. Having a clear understanding of the key people who are on your side provides the ability to mobilize your supporters to act, consistently, effectively and responsibly. By using knowledge of how your support base is structured, it is possible to develop mobilization programs (either centrally or through a team of credible people throughout the organization) that encourage people to take the required actions and deliver the outcomes in question.

Why the Lincoln Rules are Really Different

Fully integrating the Lincoln Rules into corporate or organizational communication strategy may well require a paradigm shift for communicators and the organizations they work in. But there are some clear advantages to those who wish to take the leap:

1) The Lincoln Rules do not release anarchy—in fact, quite the opposite. By acknowledging the freedom people already have in making choices about participating in your corporate initiatives, they provide the ability to engage people in a way that authentically respects their freedom.

2) The Lincoln Rules challenge an organization to get a clear picture of where support or opposition to its desired outcomes can be found—thus building a foundation for a credible mobilization campaign—and highlighting the challenges in the way of success

3) By focusing on identifying, connecting and mobilizing those people who actually see their own self interest in the success of corporate priorities, it is possible to build on those connections and develop lasting lateral and direct communication networks to complement the organization’s formal channels. This approach also delivers outcomes based on the personal credibility of network members—as opposed to glossy design, clever wordsmithing, or expensive executive conferences.

4) Energy and passion are channeled by focusing on the people who care about and support initiatives—rather than dulled or destroyed by ill-tailored, one-size-fits-all communication approaches. In short—using the Lincoln Rules begins by appreciating the democratic nature of the social dynamics that exist in any organization. By then using political tools, the communicator can take the underlying reality of democracy in the organization to deliver specific results through targeted communication, and building on the help of credible leaders at all levels. At one level, it’s not much different from seeking ‘buy in’ or ‘stakeholder management’—but the fundamental difference is that these political tools reflect the ability of each individual to vote yes or no, and to ‘lobby’ their colleagues—and users take that freedom into account when tackling corporate communication challenges. 

Mike Klein, VimpelCom

The value of this Business Plan process is the thinking that it forces you to do about your business, your products and services, your goals and the actions you’ll take to achieve your goals. Even if no one but you ever sees the plan, you will have given purposeful and logical thought to the purpose and direction of your business. This process helps ensure that the many activities you squeeze into your limited hours are time well spent – focused on moving your business forward in an aggressive yet realistic way.

Part 1: Analysis

Core Services

• List the core services (or products) you offer
• Be as specific as possible, but put similar items in a group (e.g., “Editorial Services” includes writing, editing, etc.)

Target Markets

• List the market segments you serve
• Be realistic; if you realistically cannot serve large corporations, for example, then don’t include them
• Be as specific as possible, but put similar items in a group unless there is a compelling reason to list them separately (e.g., “School Groups” could include secondary schools and colleges, but these segments might have different needs)

Competition Analysis

• List your competitors and a brief description of them
• Unless a specific competitor presents unique challenges to your business, it is OK to list them in groups (e.g., “Independent Practitioners” or “Small Agencies”)
• The purpose is to provide yourself a picture of what your business is up against as you market your core service

Vision and Mission Statements

• It is useful to have Vision and Mission statements that keep you focused on what is important to you
• Vision Statement should describe the “ideal state” of your business; it should be achievable, but also something to strive for
• Mission Statement succinctly states what your business is about, its purpose, the role it plays in the market

Part 2: Assumptions

Business Principles

• It is useful to develop a set of Business Principles that guide how you will conduct your business
• These principles have a direct bearing on your relationships with customers and clients
• The reason to include it under “Assumptions” is because your Business Principles are conditions under which your business operates; as you will see further in this section, you will list other conditions under which your business operates as well

Economic Assumptions

• List things you know about the economy (local, state, regional, national, international – whatever you believe affects your business)
• Include relevant historical facts (e.g., “the U.S. economy fell into recession in 2001”) and how they affect your ability to do business
• Note the impact of past, current, or anticipated economic conditions on your business and the products/services you provide

Financial Assumptions

• List things you know about your personal and/or business financial situation that affect your ability to do business and to grow your business
• Include things like cash flow issues, savings programs, the financial picture as a result of actions or conditions (a recession, recent investments, loan approvals, etc.)
• Reflect financial “realities” about your business (e.g., the need to control expenses, taxes owed, upcoming capital expenditures, expanding payroll, etc.)

Technological Assumptions

• Since so many businesses – large and small – depend on technology (web, e-mail, phone, etc.) today, it is useful to think about how these issues affect your business’s ability to succeed
• Think about upgrades of hardware and software, the impact of growth and expansion on your technological needs, training that will be necessary, etc.

Part 3: Strategic Summary

SWOT Analysis

• List all the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats about your business
• Be honest with yourself; don’t hold anything back or ignore realities

Key Success Factors

• Out of your SWOT Analysis, what are the key factors that will affect the ability of your business to succeed?
• Examples: strong reputation, broad client base, repeat business, unique provider, etc.

Competitive Advantages / Disadvantages

• Create lists of your competitive advantages and disadvantages based on your analysis of everything else up to this point
• What unique advantages does your business have in the marketplace?
• What distinct disadvantages does your business have?
• Be honest and don’t hold back because you will develop strategies based largely on this informatio

Strategic Goals

• Develop two or three broad Strategic Goals for your business in the next year or the next 3-5 years, depending on the scope of your plan
• Strategic Goals should be “big picture” goals, but they should also be specific enough that you can measure them
• Under each goal, list one to three specific, measurable components
• Example of a Strategic Goal: “Grow Client Base”
• Example of specific, measurable component: “Add at least X new clients by X date”
• Make your goals SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-driven

Tactical Actions

• Out of your Strategic Goals, list specific actions you will take that will help you achieve them
• Examples: Meet with two new prospective clients per month; Join a professional association to expand my network
• Create a calendar that plots when each tactical activity will occur so you don’t forget to do them

Robert Holland

Every once in a while consultants are challenged to put their ideas into practice. Such was my experience this week. Colleague Shel Holtz, ABC and a co-host Neville Hobson, ABC, host a podcast “For Immediate Release” twice a week. This week, Shel invited me to join another measurement guru, Angela Sinickas, ABC as the featured guests on their regular podcast.

For the past year, I have been advocating that communication and management leaders need to include blogs, wikis and podcasts in their arsenal of communication channels. Blogs have been a relatively easy sell. They have increased in visibility, value and usage. Wikis are still a bit of a mystery but there is a small awakening there. Podcasts, on the other hand, are still in the incubator. The innovators and the early adopters of new ideas are just beginning to warm up to the concept.

Podcasting evolved with the birth of Apple’s iPod and the ability to publish audio files on the internet. A podcast is simply and audio blog. The audio files can be accessed on the internet and aspiring broadcasters can self-publish or ‘broadcast’ radio style programming using the internet as the distribution channel. Unlike regular radio, the podcasts can be accessed, downloaded and played by anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Podcasting began in the fall of 2003 and really became a growth phenomenon in late 2004. Shel and Neville launched “For Immediate Release”(FIR) in January 2005. Their listening audience has been growing in leaps and bounds. Their focus is on issues and innovations in communication and public relations. Shel brings a North American perspective from California and Neville from Amsterdam.

Each podcast is accompanied by a detailed guide to the content of the podcast – about one hour in length. Each topic has a time code so that you can select pieces of the broadcast rather than listening to it all in one sitting. Every person, topic and organization mentioned in the podcast is listed in the notes with links to relevant web sites. “For Immediate Release” is a model for others considering getting into the field.

It will only be a short time before enlightened organizations start using this new channel for communicating with customers, suppliers and employees. It has huge potential with its advantages of immediacy, convenience and consumability. It is the ultimate commuter’s communication channel as you sit in the bus, train or traffic jam listening to a podcast that you have downloaded in to your iPod before leaving home or the office.

So how did Angela and I do on our podcast? Well hear for yourself. The podcast was published in the June 22, 2005 edition of “For Immediate Release”. You can find the podcast at http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz with the detailed podcast notes. So you can listen to it all, select the parts that interest you or just see what this new communication channel is all about.

There is a link for comments at the end of the notes just like a blog. Give us your feedback and let us know what you thought of the issues we discussed.

 Tudor Williams

Throwing chairs, tossing zingers and misusing the English language are probably not the best tactics to ensure your message is heard

If you want people to hear what you have to say, give them something worth listening to.

Sounds simple, right? If that’s the case, why does effectively communicating a viewpoint seem to be such a lost art these days?

We are living in the age of Jerry Springer, the TV talk-show host who delights in chair-throwing, bleep-inducing confrontations between people who need serious sedation and anger-management training. Not surprisingly, this kind of in-your-face entertainment has spilled over to more “serious” news programs on formerly respectable networks.

Look at what’s happening. There’s the weird rant of Tom Cruise in a “Today” show interview (which really wasn’t news except that Cruise apparently invented a new meaning for the word “glib”). There’s the printed gripe session in my hometown newspaper in which the same five people seem to be bickering endlessly. There are town-hall meetings – both in the public arena and in company auditoriums all over America – in which the greatest applause is reserved for the person who tosses the best zinger. And now there are blogs, online journals where freedom of expression is pushed to the extreme (I can’t wait for the inevitable tests of this freedom in future court cases).

As someone who makes a living out of trying to help people communicate effectively, all of this is frequently disheartening. As the volume increases, it is more difficult to hear what people are really trying to say.

Listening to different viewpoints is fun. I learn a lot from hearing people talk about what is important to them. Businesses can learn and grow, too, by listening to employees, customers, suppliers and other important groups. But good information gets lost when it’s wrapped in anything that detracts from the message.

Here are some ways to make sure your message isn’t lost:

Know how to use the language. For some people, all the rules of grammar and spelling are enough to cause hyperventilation. (I feel the same way about math.) But let’s face it: communication depends on knowing how to use the tools correctly. If you’re writing a letter to the editor, committing a grammatical error like “your an idiot” will detract from your message. There is little excuse for poor grammar and misspelling in these days of dictionaries and computerized spell-check.

Don’t let pure emotion take over. It is OK to be emotional when speaking on a subject about which you feel strongly. But when emotion is so strong that it overpowers the message, your audience will remember the outburst and forget what brought it on.

Keep your message simple. Whether you are speaking or writing, the person on the other end will remember only so much. (Think about how much information overload you have in your own life.) Rather than drift off into a half-dozen tangents, stick to the central message you want your audience to remember.

Keep your sense of humor. Humor is a wonderful weapon for defusing tense situations. Use it carefully, however, and aim it mostly toward yourself. Be willing to recognize when someone else is attempting to use humor and don’t take yourself so seriously.

Kill them with kindness. You can attract more bees with honey than you can with vinegar. My career has included a fair amount of communicating strong opinions, but I learned long ago that you can be opinionated and kind at the same time.

Robert Holland

Web writing is all about emotional impact. We’ve already said web writing is a direct selling environment. (WWUP #1) To attract and retain readers, we must get to the point quickly. But the point we get to cannot be intellectual. It must be emotional.  When I use the word emotional, I don’t mean the writing should be cheesy or sentimental. I mean it should be emotionally authentic. It should build trust, not violate it.

For example, consider this web copy: “When you buy from Company XYZ, you receive personalized service.” That is obviously an empty promise—dead and wooden. It doesn’t build trust. What if we approached it from the point of view of the customer: “Our service representatives have fans. One customer calls her rep, ‘Mr. Trustworthy’ because he always shows up when she calls.  Once, he returned her call while he was getting ready to attend his son’s wedding.  Mr. Trustworthy returned her call and made sure her problem was handled.’” Do you see the difference? In just a few words we create emotional impact by relating a success story.

So, how do you create emotional impact? Particularize. Tell a story about satisfied customers. Get real about how you create delighted customers. Deliver that impact.

What if you’re a new business and you don’t have any success stories you can call on? What if you company business process isn’t there yet, generating quality success stories.

Just use business language instead of abstracted, intellectual sales talk. 

An example: “Smaller grocery chains are being inadequately serviced by large food marketing organizations. Company XYZ solves that problem.”

Improved: “As far as the large food marketing organizations are concerned, your grocery chain is not even on their radar screen.”

You could argue using “radar screen” is a cliché. Perhaps you don’t like it. My larger point is to suggest you should use language that delivers the emotional impact without beating around the bush. That kind of language creates trust, keeps people reading your web site and ultimately contributes to making a sale.

The most important words on your web site are not the ones you wrote. Here’s my thinking on this and tell me if you don’t agree: The most important reason people do business with an organization after looking at their web site has to do with trust. They believe the organization is presenting itself truthfully. And, of course, they want what the organization is offering. As you may know, the whole issue of trusted relationships on the web is very current, being discussed by security and work collaboration experts. How do you create trust on the web? There are many ways, but in my opinion, the most effective way to create trust is to include customer/client testimonials throughout the web site. They don’t have to be lengthy—just a few sentences will do. Many organizations will have a page devoted to client testimonials. That’s good, but what I’m suggesting is that you sprinkle those testimonials throughout the web site. The welcome page can have rotating testimonials. Every page thereafter should have at least one testimonial towards the bottom of the page. The point is this: You can’t go on any page of that web site without reading at least one testimonial—people who paid you a compliment and are willing to let you use their name on your web site. They’re going to bat for you. And that communicates trust. So think about it: The most important words on your web site are not the ones you wrote. They are the words your clients or customers wrote about you. Do you agree? 

Here’s a universal principle that frames the experience of writing for the web: “Form ever follows function.” Those words were first written by Louis Sullivan early in the 20^th Century. What does designing a department store or any large public building have to do with writing for the web? And what could an architect who lived so long ago have to say to us about writing web content? Or designing web sites? Everything.

Just as no building architect today would design a building without taking into account how people are going to use it, likewise, no web site architect should ever consider designing a web site without thinking about how visitors are going to use it.

We talk about usability—a word that would have seemed strange to Mr. Sullivan—but aren’t we talking about the form of the web site reflecting the way people use it? And when it comes to writing content, aren’t we likewise trying to make the content as readily available, as comprehensible and effortless to read as possible? I think so. That thought frames everything I know about writing for the web.

So, based on “Form ever follows function,” and the way people use web sites today, let me suggest three thoughts as a guide to web writing: chunk, light, tuna.

Chunk.  People don’t read on the web, they scan. Break your story into bite-sized chunks. Make your writing compact and succinct. A few short paragraphs on one page and you’re done. Bullets and subheads improve readability. Keep it simple.

Light. Keep the writing light. Avoid self-serious or ponderous prose. Focus on benefits. Tell how a product or service improves peoples’ lives or adds value. Tackle serious subjects and be real, but do it in a highly readable way.

One example from a white paper I wrote: “Digital asset management systems can generate a healthy ROI, yet few do. Why? Three important reasons: Planning. Planning. Planning.”

Keep it light, but avoid humor which can easily backfire on the web.

Tuna. This is not a reference to a losing Cowboy coach. By tuna, I mean give people substance. Tell people what they want to know: What you’re going to do for them. Give them benefits. Tell how they’re going to feel after they’ve used your service or product. Most importantly, prove it with testimonials from real customers•statements that carry emotional impact.

Write “chunk light tuna,” and you’ll be writing the way people use the web today.If Louis Sullivan were alive, I bet he would agree.

Chuck Lustig – ExcitingWriting

If this is indeed the year of reading more and writing better, we’ve been right on course with David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, and various invaluable advice from other great writers. Now comes John Steinbeck — Pulitzer Prize winner, Nobel laureate, love guru — with six tips on writing, culled from his altogether excellent interview it the Fall 1975 issue of The Paris Review.

• Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

• Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

• Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

Read full article via brainpickings.org