Here are six rules of thumb that will help you write a sales message that actually helps you move an opportunity forward. I’ve got a few examples below, too, so you can see how to turn a bad message into a better one.
1. Write like you talk.
Sales messages are meant to be spoken. Even when somebody reads the message, you want readers to feel like you’re talking to them personally. Therefore, whenever you write a sales message, ask yourself: “Does this sound like something I’d actually say to a real person?” If not, your message won’t work well.
Before: “Engineers efficiently evaluate and improve their designs using our software tools. We are dedicated to building the most advanced vehicle system simulation tools.”
After: “Engines designed with our simulation software are more fuel-efficient than those that aren’t.”
2. Use common words rather than biz-blab.
Unfortunately, when most business folks sit down to write something, they turn into Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss and start writing in gibberish, stuffing sentences full of important-sounding terminology that means little or nothing. The cure is to use simple nouns and verbs that have a precise meaning.
Before: “We provide ‘one stop shopping’ for all of your HR needs. Through a single relationship, you have access to HR services for the continuum of the employment life cycle.”
After: “We help our clients with hiring, compensation, compliance, and training, so that they can spend more time running their business and less time and hassle dealing with HR details.”
3. State facts rather than promises.
Promises are only meaningful to people who already trust you, and that list probably doesn’t include prospects who aren’t yet customers. In fact, most people view a promise from a stranger with skepticism if not outright suspicion.
It’s more effective to provide a quantitative, verifiable fact that creates credibility.
Before: “You’ll love our dedicated account managers, comprehensive inventory, reliable delivery and competitive pricing.”
After: “Our customers save as much as $100,000 a year when they purchase directly from our account managers.”
A recent Wall Street Journal article validated many of the tenets upon which I founded our firm nearly nine years ago. The article was entitled, “M&A Blind Spot. When negotiating a merger, leave a seat at the table for a marketing expert.” Unfortunately, this rarely happens.
The article talked about the integral role of marketing in securing and consummating a deal through internal acceptance by the organization. It reminded me of a statistic I heard nine years ago to explain M&A failures. Dr. Michael Hammer said “that 80% of mergers and acquisitions fail and that 50% of the reasons that they fail are due to personality and culture clashes between the companies and their leadership.” This is just as true today as it was a decade ago.
In my opinion, marketing and branding are lynchpins of a successful merger and acquisition. All too often, however, marketing is just an afterthought. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants have a place at the M&A table to ensure that the deal lives up to its potential in regards to risk minimization, asset evaluation, and legal due diligence. But where are the marketing experts? They should be at the table as well to ensure that the organization embraces the merger, positioning it with positive benefits inside and outside the company. Effective communications and messaging can win over all the critical stakeholders and ensure success.
Find me a lawyer, accountant, or banker who can manage all this:
1. Vision and direction
The company must have a clear sense of direction and vision after the M&A plan is laid out. The vision should be in simple language (with examples) so employees can relate to it and understand the benefits for themselves and their company. Marketing departments and their leadership are trained and experienced at creating this kind of messaging.
Creating a new, combined vision is clearly the role of marketing. Imposing one company’s vision on two merged entities often alienates half of the people the instant the merger is launched.
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Overcoming uncertainty through employee engagement
Without doubt, uncertainty is the number one issue after announcing a merger or acquisition. Overcome it by enrolling the staff through relevant messages and experiential communications programs.
Marketing professionals understand consumer insights and motivations that translate into actionable tactics and communications. With knowledge and understanding, employees gain motivation. After internalizing the merger value proposition, they finally gain inspiration. They will be engaged and enrolled. -
Understanding where your employees stand on issues
Companies should segment their employee audience the same way they segment and analyze their external audiences to measure their acceptance of change and learn the best ways to communicate with them.
These are the types of questions that marketing will answer:
– What motivates employees?
– What inspires them?
– What are their opinions of management and the corporation?
– How do employees relate to management and management communications?
– What forms of communication do the employees prefer?
Marketing professionals are analytical. They are in constant search of insights and buyer values that can be deployed toward an internal employee audience as well as an external one.
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Experiential communications
Particularly in an M&A situation, old forms of internal communications are no longer relevant or successful alone. New and more creative methods, with involving and entertaining communications, are more appropriate for adult learning.
Media should vary by audience: video games, gadgets, viral campaigns, role playing, one-on-one meetings with senior folks, skits, outings, company-wide challenges, events, internal trade shows, a staff radio station, a webcast-whatever draws them in. The key idea is to engage the employees to participate in the exchange and learning. -
Developing the message
Like any other marketing campaign, internal branding starts by understanding the change readiness of the organization, followed by developing messages that are relevant and meaningful at all levels-corporate, team and department, and individual. The company needs a clear positioning and sense of what it aspires to be.
The messages should be presented by the leaders of the organization who know their business and the marketplace best. -
Establishing brand ambassadors
Seek out the critical internal stakeholders and opinion leaders for their support and help first, then build consensus within the organization.
Involve the full spectrum of employees. Ask for their input into the program-they know the customers and the business from all angles. -
Project management, not ad hoc effort
Treat the plan like a program-management launch. Assign a great program manager and allocate the proper monetary and HR resources for the effort to succeed.
Reinforcement is critical. Your employees need to see the message all the time, in lots of different media via different channels. You can emblazon it on a lapel pin, a parking-lot sign, a redesigned uniform, or a lunchroom banner. Or anywhere else that it makes sense to remind people. -
Measurement and Feedback
Take measurements and make adjustments. The campaign will need fine tuning as it gains momentum. Gauge how the organization’s culture is receiving the message and reacting to it. Then modify your emphasis as needed.
Budget for post-campaign analysis and an audit of effectiveness. Conduct before-and-after employee surveys to measure business literacy, brand awareness, and awareness of M&A messages and corporate initiatives.
In the end, what matters is an educated and aligned workforce motivated to get behind the sale, acquisition, or merger. You want your people to be inspired to work for your firm. They should be proud of what it stands for and what they do. If they care about being part of the process, they will spread the word to your clients and to each other. By enrolling your employees, you will accelerate the changes you have planned and get down to business faster, with fewer internal squabbles, and with a steady stream of re-energizing successes that will sustain itself over time.
Is your company facing a merger or acquisition, or just going through major changes such as ERP implementation or reengineering? Don’t forget to reserve a place at the table for professional marketing counsel. With marketing present as an equal partner with the lawyers, bankers, and accountants, you will ensure success of the merger and win over your employees, who are ultimately responsible for making it all happen.
Dick Weiss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch does some neat stuff on writing in his Weiss on Writing at STLtoday.com. His address is weisswrite@marketvolt.com. Recently he did a nice paragraph about punctuation and then took off about the exclamation point. His title was “Ban the exclamation point — period.” It’s a bit overstated, but that’s OK. I feel even stronger about banning MOST dashes. I say beware the dasher who when it doubt dashes. If you see a dash in the first paragraph, start counting them. Dashers are even worse when they have another point to make in a sentence and can think of no way to add it except after a dash. Another sentence usually works just fine. I had a teaching assistant once who said her high-school teacher told her class that they were allowed one dash per essay. I like that. Save the dash for dramatic contrast or emphasis.
Some members of our magazine faculty here at the Missouri School of Journalism got stirred up over something the person who is teaching Magazine Editing this semester wrote. He questioned the use of the semicolon, especially in direct quotations. He doesn’t mind the semicolon to break up lists that have commas inside them, but he wonders why and how we can determine whether two complete sentences or independent clauses are closely related enough to skip the coordinating conjunction and use the semicolon instead. I think that careful writers often do want to show a close relationship between two complete thoughts. For example, “He enjoyed writing; he wrote every chance he had.” Certainly we don’t want to join two complete sentences with simply a comma. A comma alone joining two independent clauses is a comma fault or a comma splice. I don’t allow them — ever. I do allow three or more short sentences to be joined with commas.
The professor questioned how we ever know a speaker means to have two thoughts closely related. Isn’t that interpreting what the speaker is trying to say? My answer is, first of all, that if the speaker does not use a conjunction, we shouldn’t insert one. Second, we always interpret what a speaker is saying or trying to say. People don’t speak using punctuation marks, except perhaps for Victor Borge. We insert punctuation marks such as commas, question marks, and even sometimes, exclamation points.
He emailed me that he thought semicolons in direct quotations looked funny. I emailed him back that he had a strange sense of humor. Of course, I don’t think we should overdo the semicolon between sentences, especially in direct quotations.
See how journalism professors spend their time?
3. Editors can’t read your mind, and neither can your readers. Often writers are so immersed in their material that they forget that their readers, editors included, don’t know everything they know.
*If you are writing fiction, review your work for holes in the story. Have you skipped over scenes or backstory that serve a crucial role in the story?
*If you’re writing nonfiction, approach your work like an outsider. Does the work assume that the reader knows the people, places, and theories that are in the book? Is there any jargon that needs to be removed?
4. Guidelines matter. Publishing houses or periodicals create writer’s guidelines for a reason, and it usually has to do with two things: audience and money. The style guidelines are designed to help the writer reach the intended audience (remember #2: it’s not about you). If writers don’t stick to the style guidelines, it just adds more work for the editor—who has to edit the work to fit house style. The format guidelines, including word count, often have to do with money. The publishing company has budgeted for a certain number of pages. Your piece, once dropped into the template, must fit. When writers turn in work that is too long or too short, we have to fix it. (By the way, I rarely hire back writers who don’t follow guidelines. It’s too much work!)
5. Deadlines matter. Think of your writing deadline as just one domino in a long line of dominoes. When one deadline is missed, it affects every other deadline for the project. Yes, there is sometimes wiggle room, so if an emergency arises, please do talk to your editor about an extension. That said, I would not encourage any writer (no matter how good you are) to miss a deadline more than once.
Have you ever noticed how quickly professional development disappears when the recipient tries to apply it to their own situation? I realized in a big way last year after a brand presentation at an IABC/Iowa chapter meeting about branding and the power brand.
”We’re all about brand,” said one veteran communicator after the meeting. He worked for one of the large insurance companies in Des Moines so I asked him if he felt his company’s brand was different, inviting, relevant, and truthful, and if he and his co-workers knew how to live the brand daily. His eyes narrowed slightly when he realized the answer, and he told me, “your right. We aren’t about brand”. His chinned dropped and the smile left his face when, after discussing it a bit more, he discovered his insurance company employer was about brand identity, not brand management.
As he walked away discouraged, I realized that I didn’t help him. I didn’t encourage him. I didn’t arm him to become a brand warrior inside his company. I didn’t tell him to become subversive; that’s what it takes to move organizations down the road to being a great brand. Here’s what I should have told him:
- Be observant – Make sure you’re doing a lot of walking around your organization, listen to co-workers including executives and the front-line staff. If you’re a large corporation, travel to other offices, participate in different task forces and groups. Watch and listen how sales people engage customers on the trade show floor. Watch and listen to the production staff talk to each other. Review the mission/vision/values statements and annual reports. Begin to define your organization’s brand. If it’s already been articulated, learn it.
- Be connected – Start conversations with the executives, the front-line staff, the sales team and the production crew. Talk with the guy in the mailroom and the person at the front desk. Begin to refine your organization’s brand promise and build relationships with those who are in a position to easily communicate it.
- Be vocal – Try the brand promise out on co-workers, on managers, on customers. See if it’s comfortable with everybody, if they can live it. If you get push back, probe a little deeper. See if it’s because that employee can’t live up to the brand or if the company can’t live up to the brand. Only by using it in conversation will you determine if the brand fits, if it’s authentic and believable in the marketplace.
- Be courageous – Once you’ve determined that the brand that fits, start using it to drive your communications and to drive your behavior. Be a leader and get noticed. When others notice, share your story, your findings and encourage them to take it to heart. Hold others accountable when their actions conflict with the brand – even those above you on the organizational chart. This is how to build your personal brand. Let people know that you’re a brand warrior!
And be ready to bold if the brand is not embraced by others. If your organization doesn’t want you, others do.
By Mark True
I can talk for hours on the subject, but if asked for the most effective ways to get online readers to read what you write, I would offer these strategies as the most important, which are backed up by eye-track studies as being an effective way to get your message across to online readers:
- Write compelling but clear headlines: Don’t get cute. Online and in print, the headline is almost always the first thing readers look at. Make sure it is clear and gives a good idea of what the post is about, while still leaving the reader wanting more.
- Write in the active voice: Effective online writing is all about getting to the point, and on a line-by-line basis, the most effective way to do that is to use the active voice, which naturally lends a sense of urgency to your writing. The easiest way to do that is to start each sentence with the subject, immediately follow that with a strong, active verb, and then follow that with the direct object. Avoid adverbs: they’re a telling sign that you chose the wrong verb.
- Online writing is visual: Long, dense paragraphs turn off online readers. Create white space in your copy by keeping paragraphs short and using bulleted lists when appropriate. Use bold text to accent key information and use block or pull quotes to draw readers into the copy.
- One main idea per sentence: Keep sentences on point. Avoid multiple clauses and phrases, and lots of information stops and commas. Make sure each sentence has one idea, and not much more than that.
- No sentence without a fact: Every line you write needs to move the story forward. If a sentence doesn’t have a fact, cut it.
Words and phrases including “blog,” “wiki” and even “chat room” make some business leaders nervous. They’re not sure what to make of these new social media. The technology seems mysterious and a bit scary to people who are still trying to find their way around the Internet or figuring out how their BlackBerry works.
If the wild world of online media makes you hyperventilate, relax. Take a deep breath. Despite the hype around Skype, behind the stress caused by RSS, it all comes down to a fundamental process as old as humanity: communication.
What really matters is how well you communicate with employees, customers, shareholders, the community and other important people. The methods you use, while important, are secondary to the quality of communication.
A recent illustration of this principle involves computer maker Dell. Unhappy customers took their complaints about Dell’s products and service to the “blogosphere” – that online place where everyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can share their opinions with the world. Despite the outcry over problems with Dell, which quickly reached hundreds of thousands of people thanks to blogs with names like “Dell Hell,” the company resisted joining the virtual discussion.
Apparently, however, the pressure became too much. A few months ago, Dell created “Direct2Dell,” a blog intended to improve communication with customers about issues ranging from the company’s battery recall to new products. The company’s critics considered the action too little, too late and charged Dell with paying lip service to open communication with customers. On the surface, bloggers said, Dell seemed to be improving communication, but in reality “Direct2Dell” represented more of the company line.
Last week, Dell posted a new “Online Communication Policy” and held a news conference to announce it. The policy, aimed at Dell employees, recognizes the value of online communication tools, lays out expectations of employees who use them and states the company’s commitment to “transparent, ethical and accurate” communication. Translation: no more company PR disguised as real, direct dialogue.
Time will tell if Dell’s policy makes a difference, but for now the bloggers are skeptical. “Dell Hell” creator Jeff Jarvis wrote, “Isn’t it always a company’s policy, in any interaction – by blog, telephone, or letter – to be open and honest?” He wondered if Dell’s 500-word policy might have been boiled down to three words: “Tell the truth.”
What can your company learn from all of this? It doesn’t matter if you choose to communicate through blogs, chat rooms, e-mail or good ol’ face-to-face interaction. What matters is that you communicate honestly and as completely as possible. The latest technology won’t save you if your stakeholders feel you’re not being truthful with them.
It’s the quality of communication that ultimately matters.
If you’re the head of your company, you have to be able to define not just what your company does, but why it does it.
Having difficulty? That’s normal. You can blame it on the way your brain works. The part of the brain that contains decision-making and behavior doesn’t control language, so when you’re asked questions about why you do what you do, it’s natural to get tongue-tied.
That’s where great leadership comes in. Leaders are required to put in to words what a group does; they’re required to cross over between the decision-making and behavior sphere and the language sphere. Leaders are great because they’re good at putting feelings into words that we can act upon.
So it’s up to you, as company leader, to define your “why.” Here are four reasons you should, if you want to survive as a company.
1. Your company’s “why” generates loyalty.
Apple can sell phones not simply because they have the smarts to make phones; every single one of their competitors can make phones too. What gives Apple permission to sell products beyond computers is the fact that it doesn’t define themselves as a computer company; rather, it is a company that stands for something. It represents an ideal: Down with “the man”; attack the status quo; champion the individual.
As long as Apple’s products are consistent with its cause, the company has the freedom to do things other companies cannot. Those who identify with Apple’s cause, in turn, will say they “love” Apple–even if they think it’s because of the products.
2. Organizational success (or failure) often dates from inception.
Most great companies were founded by a person or small group of people who personally suffered a problem, went through an difficult experience, or had someone close to them face a tricky challenge–and then came up with a solution or alternative. That original solution to that original problem is what they formed their company around; it’s why they do what they do.
Organizations that just look to capture some market opportunity, or are born out of some market research, often fail (or else need endless pools of money to keep going). No one has passion for a problem revealed in market research. People have passion to solve their own problems or to help those they care about.
If you’re the head of your company, you have to be able to define not just what your company does, but why it does it.
Having difficulty? That’s normal. You can blame it on the way your brain works. The part of the brain that contains decision-making and behavior doesn’t control language, so when you’re asked questions about why you do what you do, it’s natural to get tongue-tied.
That’s where great leadership comes in. Leaders are required to put in to words what a group does; they’re required to cross over between the decision-making and behavior sphere and the language sphere. Leaders are great because they’re good at putting feelings into words that we can act upon.
So it’s up to you, as company leader, to define your “why.” Here are four reasons you should, if you want to survive as a company.
1. Your company’s “why” generates loyalty.
Apple can sell phones not simply because they have the smarts to make phones; every single one of their competitors can make phones too. What gives Apple permission to sell products beyond computers is the fact that it doesn’t define themselves as a computer company; rather, it is a company that stands for something. It represents an ideal: Down with “the man”; attack the status quo; champion the individual.
As long as Apple’s products are consistent with its cause, the company has the freedom to do things other companies cannot. Those who identify with Apple’s cause, in turn, will say they “love” Apple–even if they think it’s because of the products.
2. Organizational success (or failure) often dates from inception.
Most great companies were founded by a person or small group of people who personally suffered a problem, went through an difficult experience, or had someone close to them face a tricky challenge–and then came up with a solution or alternative. That original solution to that original problem is what they formed their company around; it’s why they do what they do.
Organizations that just look to capture some market opportunity, or are born out of some market research, often fail (or else need endless pools of money to keep going). No one has passion for a problem revealed in market research. People have passion to solve their own problems or to help those they care about.
If you’re the head of your company, you have to be able to define not just what your company does, but why it does it.
Having difficulty? That’s normal. You can blame it on the way your brain works. The part of the brain that contains decision-making and behavior doesn’t control language, so when you’re asked questions about why you do what you do, it’s natural to get tongue-tied.
That’s where great leadership comes in. Leaders are required to put in to words what a group does; they’re required to cross over between the decision-making and behavior sphere and the language sphere. Leaders are great because they’re good at putting feelings into words that we can act upon.
So it’s up to you, as company leader, to define your “why.” Here are four reasons you should, if you want to survive as a company.
1. Your company’s “why” generates loyalty.
Apple can sell phones not simply because they have the smarts to make phones; every single one of their competitors can make phones too. What gives Apple permission to sell products beyond computers is the fact that it doesn’t define themselves as a computer company; rather, it is a company that stands for something. It represents an ideal: Down with “the man”; attack the status quo; champion the individual.
As long as Apple’s products are consistent with its cause, the company has the freedom to do things other companies cannot. Those who identify with Apple’s cause, in turn, will say they “love” Apple–even if they think it’s because of the products.
2. Organizational success (or failure) often dates from inception.
Most great companies were founded by a person or small group of people who personally suffered a problem, went through an difficult experience, or had someone close to them face a tricky challenge–and then came up with a solution or alternative. That original solution to that original problem is what they formed their company around; it’s why they do what they do.
Organizations that just look to capture some market opportunity, or are born out of some market research, often fail (or else need endless pools of money to keep going). No one has passion for a problem revealed in market research. People have passion to solve their own problems or to help those they care about.
By Jeffrey Hayzlett, from his book, The Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing?
“The 118 is my version of what some people still call “the elevator pitch” — an out-of-date name for the worthy idea that you need to see what your company offers (and you)_ in the span of an elevator ride.
The 118 comes from the 118 seconds you actually have to pitch: 8 seconds to hook me and up to 110 seconds to drive it home. The first eight seconds is the length of time the average human can concentrate on something and not lose some focus. It is also the length of time of one of the toughest rides in the world: a qualified ride in professional bull riding. In these first eight seconds, you must be compelling, strong, and focused to be successful. You must hold on as one of the meanest, toughest animals in the world tries to throw you off — just like any good prospect will. Make it those 8 seconds and I’ll give you 110 more to drive your message home with no bull. But if you have not sold me at the end of the 118, I will start to tune out. At that point, we are moving forward to a sale or not.
I speak at hundreds of meetings, conferences and events worldwide every year, and I am constantly amazed by the inability of entrepreneurs, business owners, their managers, or their sales and marketing representatives to deliver a great, relevant 118.
The 118, like the elevator pitch before it, sells much more than a business’s products or services and unique selling pro[position (USP). It is an essential piece in building your brand.“
Purchase replay: THE MIRROR TEST: A New Way To Look At Your Company’s Marketing and Sales Strategy. Presented by Jeffrey Hayzlett, bestselling author, celebrity CMO, digital thought leader and cowboy.
Other quotes from Jeffrey Hayzlett:
Your marketing will and should reflect the personality of your company, and if you are not genuine, you won’t last very long. Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to sell you something.
So it is with social media and will be again with the next “big thing” in marketing. Hard and fast, it too shall come again, startling us with its power and speed and forcing us to mistake it for something it can never be: the be all, end all.
You may not think customers are always right, but now they are always in charge.
Conversations are about talking and listening and then acting
The Holy Grail of Marketing is the one-to-one relationship.
Think “story” not “Placement.”
Scale is the new black. Leverage everything to make many out of one.
Make your business as transparent as possible.
Buzz is not sales.
- Ensure your niche is viable and stays that way. Are there are enough prospects who want your type of product or service? Do they value what you specifically offer vs. what your competitors offer? Are they willing to cough up what you charge? Will you to earn the level of profit you want? Which social, economic, political, or technology trends might influence your business – and how will you stay ahead of the curve?
- Listen carefully to existing customers. How happy are they with your product or service? Why do they buy from you? Are they recommending you to others? Why or why not?
- Increase “share of wallet” with existing customers rather than constantly trying to seduce new customers. What other wants do your customers have and how can you help them fulfill those desires (whether they’re mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual)? Can you offer new products or services? Can you build a strategic partnership with a company who can round out your offering to provide more benefit?
- Deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience. Are you communicating with your audience using the right vehicles or media? Is your message compelling and relevant for where they are in the sales cycle?
Comments |
RE: Can You Niche Yourself Out of Existence? |
Harp: Great list for any marketer who is tempted to do whateve sells. I particularly like number 3…that’s the key to keeping something going when you’re already in the middle of it. Too many people want more customers instead of sales from the same customer. They seem to forget how difficult it was to gain that customer in the first place, and are more than willing to abandon them to go after fresh prospects. Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. |
Writing good is a big deal these days. A bigger deal then math, according to my friends and I, but I’m not hear to represent there views. But, I thank it’s important to know the English language and all it’s rules.
Did you catch all the errors in that first paragraph? The spell-check on my laptop didn’t.
The College Board – those friendly scholars who bring us the SATs and other fun tests – recently released the results of a survey by its National Commission on Writing. The news is not good. A majority of U.S. employers say about one-third of workers do not meet the writing requirements of their positions. “Businesses are really crying out,” College Board President Gaston Caperton told the Associated Press. “They need to have people who write better.”
The employers who say people need to write better are in some surprising industries: mining; construction; manufacturing; transportation and utilities; services; and finance, insurance and real estate. It seems companies want everyone to be able to communicate effectively, not just the executives, lawyers and public relations people.
This might come as a surprise not only to people in the working world, but also to people who are preparing to enter it. Students who believe the informal shorthand of e-mail and instant messages is acceptable in corporate America might be in for a shock when they lose the jobs of their dreams because of misspelled words on their resumés. I recently read a self-promotion posted by a recent graduate on a job-seekers discussion board for the public relations industry. The misspelled words, poor sentence construction and grammatical errors were enough to make E.B. White turn over in his grave. It’s bad enough that the job seeker embarrassed herself in front of thousands of professional peers (she even proudly announced the college from which she graduated). I only hope no one committed the greater sin of actually hiring her.
I have a friend who recently left the practice of business communication so he could teach it to the next generation of professionals. In just a few weeks in the classroom he has experienced something akin to culture shock. “It is disturbing how little these students know about the English language and its proper usage,” he lamented recently.
A lot of people ask why it’s important to use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation in their jobs. I have two answers:
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Standards are necessary for society to function. Imagine if a construction company decided it was no longer important to follow standards of measurement. One foot might be 13 inches or 12 inches. Who cares? Just as chaos would reign in that scenario, the same would be true if we didn’t follow standards of language. Clear communication would be impossible.
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Credibility is at stake. I would not trust a computer programmer who doesn’t know code, a chef who doesn’t know how to measure ingredients, or a doctor who doesn’t know the human anatomy. Just as these people must know how to use the tools of their trade, so anyone who uses English to communicate must know how to use it correctly.
Fixing the problem that the College Board survey exposes is not easy. Teachers will have to stop misspelling words on the communications they send home to parents. (Yes, I’m the parent who keeps sending those notes back with proofreading marks all over them.) Students will have to take Language Arts more seriously, like it’s a ticket to a decent job. Most difficult of all, employers will have to insist that the people who work for them – no matter what their jobs or salaries – begin using correct grammar, learn how to write well and spell words correctly. Annual bonuses should depend upon it.
By the way, my laptop’s spell check caught only one out of at least seven mistakes in the first paragraph. “It’s” should be “its.” (I believe the second sentence is a fragment, which would be an eighth error, although the laptop doesn’t think so.)
Refined Wisdom: Sometimes editors get bad design because they keep asking for something different, something “creative.” One designer told me, the editors bring it on themselves and should share the blame. But the fact remains, editors are too often intimidated by designers.
It must be a decade ago, and I don’t know where, but I was addressing a large group of writers and editors. Somewhere in the middle of my address, I said: “We editors must get control of our publications again.”
There was a roar from the crowd as if a winning, last-second touchdown had been scored. My, how they wanted to hear that.
No, I was not talking about getting more control from the publisher or corporation. No, I wasn’t talking about escaping pressure from advertising. I was talking about regaining control away from designers who use design for the sake of design, who obscure text by reversing it or printing red over black, and who do little if anything to enhance the message of the text.
I know that I should be talking about writing, but what is the point of writing if people insist on making the text illegible? There are really only two reasons to kill trees for print – legibility and portability. Most people still prefer reading words on paper over words on the screen. I’ve read that one can read print on paper 25 percent faster than words on the screen. And it’s certainly easier to carry paper around than a laptop.
Regardless of how many studies show that readers turn away from reversed type, many publications I see have pages and pages of it. Why? Black on white is easy to read, and so is black on yellow. But why put dark colors behind print? Or worse, why put images behind print?
When I get mean, I say that I once met a designer who could read. And – that I once met a designer who actually did read the copy. I once said that to a group of writers, editors and designers at the Meredith Corporation, and after I finished, the head of design there came up to me and said, “Here at Meredith, we insist that designers read the copy.” Well!
Perhaps the problem is the words “design” and “designer.” Jan White, the best there is in graphic presentation, told me that once a young woman came up to him and said, “Mr. White, I, too, am a designer.” “That’s OK,” Jan told her, “Some day you will grow up to be a journalist.”
I do not do design, nor do I do design workshops. But I know this: Whenever a design calls attention to itself rather than to the message of the text, it is bad design. A photography professor at Missouri said it nicely some years ago: “Suppose you had a lovely painting in your home. A guest looks and it and says, ‘Oh, what a nice frame.’” Would you be pleased?
I prefer the word “presentation.” Everyone — writers, editors, photographers and designers — (I confess, I don’t know what other word to use here), must be concerned with the presentation of the ideas. And by far the best time to begin doing that is before the article is written. If designers and photographers are brought into the editorial process from the beginning, there is much less change for bizarre and disintegrated pages.
I wish I could count the times that editors have told me that they try to tame the designers, but the designers tell them editors know nothing about design, and they should tend to what they know. Besides, designers win prizes – awarded to them by other designers. I think we should stop awarding prizes for design and instead award them for presentation.
Well, it doesn’t take a genius to look at a page to see whether all of the type is easily legible. It doesn’t take years of training to see when artwork on the page has nothing to do with the text except to distract the reader.
Sometimes editors get bad design because they keep asking for something different, something “creative.” One designer told me, the editors bring it on themselves and should share the blame. But the fact remains, editors are too often intimidated by designers.
Isn’t it time editors got control of their publications again?
(Everyone should read “Editing By Design,” by Jan V. White, New York: Allworth Press, 2003.)
True confession: I am a bit of word geek. My husband and I love a good game of Scrabble. I check the “Word of the Day” on http://www.merriam-webster.com more often than I check the weather. Really. A favorite from last week was “blurge” a verb used largely in Australia and New Zealand to mean slacking off. Genius! Second confession: I like to travel and New Zealand is one of my favorite places on earth.
Which means I am dying to use “blurge” as much as possible to prove what a worldly smarty pants I am. However, being a worldly smarty pants isn’t conducive to being an effective communicator.
An extensive vocabulary scores big points with language arts teachers and the folks who create the SAT. But in real-life, it can be off-putting and confounding. It can muddle your point and prevent you from actually communicating something.
Am I advocating that you dumb down your words? No. You should sound like you, but an understandable you. Treat the fancy words the way you’d treat chili peppers in a recipe. A little can go a long way, although there may be audiences that can handle a great deal of the hot stuff.
I’ve taught myself to tame my inner word geek when writing for and talking with clients and other real people, and let it loose when I am playing Scrabble or doing writing practice. And you better believe I’ll be blurging all over the place this Memorial Day Weekend!
Barbara Govednik launched 423 Communication in 2001 to helps its clients tell their stories through freelance writing services, coaching and editing services, and employee communication consulting and implementation. Read Barbara’s Being Well Said Blog.
Sorry, Emerson, being consistent is not the hobgoblin of small minds.
Of course, if I have it right, Emerson said, “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.”
Being consistent is one of my Seven C’s for good writing that I have lectured about for decades. Actually, I developed the Seven C’s for my editing class, and for years I tried to teach students that they need to have a reason to change a writer’s copy. Editors should not change copy out of some whim or because they like their words better than the author’s.
My first class in editing I always wrote in big letters on the board “Editor is God.” (My daughter made me a large and beautiful stained class window with those words in it that hangs here in my study.) I wanted to impress upon the students that they were the final arbiter, the final judge of how copy would appear forever. Writers are a dime a dozen, I would tell them; editors are rare. Writers win prizes; editors remain anonymous. Editors create writers, make them look good, save their butts regularly — and get none of the credit and lots of abuse.
Nevertheless, editors should be able to explain WHY they changed the copy. And that’s why I gave my students seven reasons to change it: To make copy correct, consistent, clear, concise, coherent, complete and creative.
I probably should start in the beginning, but I want to start with the need to be consistent. You need to be consistent for one simple reason: If you aren’t, you look incorrect. You need to be consistent as a writer (and if you aren’t, an editor must see to it that you are) on two levels.
The first level might be called technical. You must be consistent in:
*spelling. How obvious you say. But I regularly find editorial offices in which there are three or four different dictionaries lying around. That’s not a good idea. You should choose one, and that’s for the simple reason that dictionaries sometimes differ in their spelling of words — at least in the preferred spelling of words. And for the sake of being consistent, why not have your staff agree to choose the first spelling of a word. Webster’s III International is a solid final appeal, but a excellent dictionary for most to have is Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th edition, the official dictionary of the Associated Press. And by the way, most of us don’t even know what dictionary is in the spell-check in our computers, and I think it’s true that spell-checks allow more than one spelling. What good is that?
*grammar. Again, how obvious. It is surprising again how few editorial offices have standard books they can refer to for grammatical questions. An excellent, most practical choice is “Working With Words,” by Brooks, Pinson and Gaddy Wilson, published by Bedford/St. Martin’s.
*style. You must be consistent in what you capitalize, what you abbreviate, in how you use numbers, in how you punctuate, and in whole lot of other matters. To do this, you need a stylebook. Most newspapers, magazines and newsletters use the Associated Press style; some use the Chicago Manual of Style; others have their own stylebooks. I’m regularly told by staffs that they use several stylebooks. What nonsense! Having more than one stylebook defeats the purpose of having one. Choose one! That’s difficult enough. And make sure that everyone has a copy within arm’s length.
Of course, your publication may have its own particular set of rules in addition to the stylebook that you adopt. Additional rules, yes, but it’s probably foolish for you to attempt to compile an entire stylebook of your own. Leave that to large publications such as “The New York Times” and “The New Yorker.”
If you are a writer, you need to know the stylebook of the publication for which you are writing. Some formal journals do have some particular rules that they wish to have followed.
The second level of consistency concerns our writing style in a nontechnical sense. Now, please, I don’t want to throttle your creativity. You can do wonderfully bright writing with similes, metaphors, analogies, examples, change of pace, establishing a mood, using voice, etc., and still be consistent in some basic things.
For example, you must in the beginning decide on your approach to a piece. Will you write in the first person “I” or the second person “you” or in the third person? Don’t start writing in the third person, and then half way through or toward the end suddenly insert yourself or suddenly address the reader directly. There’s nothing wrong with a first-person piece — if you can’t easily stay out of the piece. I would avoid, however, the use of “we” because readers don’t know who that “we” is. Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said, “Save ‘we’ for God, kings and people with tape worms”?
By the way, I like leads, even news leads, that have the word “you” in it. Using “you” forces the writer to get to the WIIFM
(What’s In It For Me?) quickly. Once you begin with “you,” you can stay with it. You’d be surprised how much easier it is to avoid the passive voice of the verb when you do that.
You should be consistent in the use of your verbs. Especially watch the tense of the verb, and, of course, keep those verbs in the active voice. Make your verbs do things to things. Make them transitive; avoid the verb “to be” as much as you can.
Try to establish a tone, a mood, a flavor, and then try to maintain it. Often a piece starts out with a flash and then just peters out. Some happy stories have a somber mood, and worse, some sad stores seem to have a snappy, happy pace and tone. If you are friendly and personal in your opening, stay that way.
So — if you’re a writer, try to be consistent. If you’re an editor, your job is to make the copy consistent both inside the piece itself and with the publication in which it will appear. And more than that, if you are an editor of a publication, you probably want the whole publication to have a consistent look and feel and tone about it. I rather like the word “attitude.” Establish an attitude, and for the most part, stick with it.
Here are some thoughts on creating content in today’s always-on world. Rather than a how-to guide, these are simply some observations on what impacts the process.
It’s entirely too easy to feel the lure of social networks. The immediacy of Twitter, the connectedness we feel with friends on Facebook, the endless boards of pinned images on Pinterest and the hipster art on Instagram – these are all false idols when it comes to creating content. We’re more likely to be consuming content on those sites. As such, they qualify as distractions.
But just as the martial artist knows how to absorb energy from an enemy’s attack, we too can learn to pivot with these tools. Asking a question on Twitter as I did was a diversion rather than a distraction. While my question focused on the challenge I was having, it allowed me to focus on the conversations instead.
Over on Facebook, you’re probably likely to have surrounded yourself with people who share your hobbies, beliefs, geography, etc., and therefore you may not be inspired by a diversity of thought. Seek out people you might not have interacted with in a while. Change your feed settings from Top Stories to Most Recent. This will mix up your content a bit. You can also create Interest Lists and visit these customized feeds with a specific purpose in mind. These small actions could provide a little variety to what you’re seeing and from whom.
Understand who you’re trying to reach
Kind of a no-brainer, but when you’re tasked with creating content that needs to live somewhere, it’s a good idea to know a little bit about that somewhere and the people who frequent it. It could be your corporate website, a Facebook page, recipients of a white paper or email, viewers of a video, etc. If you don’t understand a little bit about them, you may miss the opportunity to connect with them. Based on previous interactions, what kind of content do they like? Have they indicated other brands or interests that matter to them? What have their comments told you? All of this should help fuel the content you’re making.
Look to industry leaders
There are others who are doing this well. Let them inspire you. About a year and a half ago, Mashable took a look at a handful of leaders in content marketing (How 3 Companies Took Content Marketing to the Next Level), highlighting Mint.com, HubSpot and American Express. And just this week, Forbes ran a piece titled 5 Big Brands Confirm That Content Marketing Is The Key To Your Consumer. Their list was made up of Virgin Mobile, American Express, Marriott, L’Oreal and Vanguard. All respectable brands. But one stood out to me.
Read full article via Scott Monty’s Social Media Marketing Blog
The basic idea behind “brand alignment” is pretty simple – When it comes to delivering on your marketing promises, make sure everyone in your organization knows what’s going on and they’re able to walk the talk. Living up to that ideal, though, isn’t simple at all. It takes a concerted effort to get everyone tuned in and turned on to the principles and practices that align the “do” with the “say.”
Promise Broken
One revealing way to test if an organization is living the brand is to observe how they deal with customer complaints. I recently had an experience with a new service I subscribed to online that told me a lot in a hurry about what they believe and how they operate.
Within an hour after subscribing, I got a notice that the first program would be broadcast that same evening. They described the event and what the participants would learn during the one-hour session. I didn’t want to miss it, but I already had another meeting scheduled. Reluctantly, I contacted that person and asked if we could reschedule for the following evening. She agreed, so I was set to take part in the new program
About halfway through it, they still hadn’t talked about the topic that was advertised. I was getting suspicious that I had been sold a bill of goods – that this was yet another company that promised one thing and delivered something else. By the end of the program, they still hadn’t discussed the topic they had promoted, and I was fuming. It had been a long day … I was tired … I had wasted an hour … and I had put off another meeting.
Customer Disappointed
I decided to share one of my Inside Out lessons with them in the form of a “strongly worded” e-letter to what I thought was some nebulous person in the ether-world. To my amazement, I got a reply the next morning from a sales manager named James, expressing regret for my problem and promising to look into it. Later that day I had my next pleasant surprise. I got a real live phone call from James explaining how I had been connected to the wrong program. He also thanked me for informing them because they were able to contact other people who experienced the same problem. Then he said I would be set up in the near future to participate in the program that had been advertised.
Relationship Renewed
That would’ve been good enough, but then I got a call from David, their head of marketing. He had received my e-letter, too, and he also wanted to apologize for what happened. Then he really floored me – he said he wanted to give me a FREE lifetime subscription to their service. The only thing he asked in return was for me to give him occasional feedback on how I felt the service was meeting their customers’ needs.
I told him I thought his offer was very generous but I probably over-reacted a bit in my note, and his compensation was way more than I expected. To his credit, he would have nothing of my attempt to downplay my initial disappointment, and he apologized again for “wasting my time” and failing to give me what I was promised.
Execs in some companies might say he was crazy to give away so much. But I’m betting they don’t get many complaints like mine, and when they do, few people raise a fuss because the service is probably impeccable most of the time. Since it’s an online program, it’s not really “costing” them anything to give it to me free, but it still speaks volumes about their commitment to delivering on their promises – and living their brand.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
My second job was in a large corporate environment, and I had been given the responsibility to produce the employee magazine. I was writing a typical article about a committee’s planning efforts so that everyone in the organization had a feel for what was happening. I asked what the team was doing, who was on the team and when they expected to finish the work, and I got a blank stare from the manager who was my source. She said she didn’t want to put a date out there because the team might be held accountable to that date.
That’s when I first learned the truth about truth: it’s a moving target. And it’s why so many brands are so bland. When there’s no truth – no authenticity – there’s no focus, there’s no goal, there’s no accountability to the brand.
It’s happened time and time again since that day…a client, for example, will boldly make a claim that is different and relevant, only to back down when it’s put in writing for all to see. “I’m not comfortable with that” is the common response (usually during the second or third round of the approval process, just before the piece goes to print) because they realize they can’t guarantee the claim operationally.
As communicators – as brand warriors – we have only one choice: speak up, loudly and often, and demand our co-workers or clients be true to the brand. It’s the T in a D.I.R.T.Y. brand. And it’s what will help us move out of the tactical conversations and be part of the strategy conversations in our organizations.
A few years ago, I was facilitating a brand discernment process with a group of employees at a small bank client, when the receptionist asked if she’s supposed to hold the vice-president accountable to the brand. I said “absolutely” and the whole room went quiet. A smile slowly crept over the face of the vice-president, a quiet man who completely bought into the premise, and he said “yes, you should.”
It’s difficult to demand authenticity across an organization. If the brand is understood by everyone, positive brand management examples are shared with everyone, and there’s buy-in at the top of the organizational chart, however, it’s easy to be a brand warrior.
And there’s nobody more empowered to be the brand warrior than the communications professional. You can use your skills to:
• thoroughly explain the brand,
• demonstrate how others are living the brand,
• help the leadership craft a brand story and
• take it to the market.
And keep telling the story so others know how to tell the story, too.
By Mark True
One of the most debated questions in all of journalism is how to handle direct quotations. Journalists “claim” (what a nasty way to attribute something) that they put inside quotations marks only what a person says. That’s what I urge in a chapter on quotations and attribution in the Missouri Group’s “News Reporting and Writing” (Bedford/St. Martin’s Press). But I could prove on any given day in any given newspaper that that rule is broken as much as it is followed.
Nevertheless, it’s a whole different story in corporate communications and news releases. I have been amused in seminars to corporate communicators how shocked they are when I tell them to change direct quotations however so slightly. For example, people use “very” very often in their everyday speech. I’d knock it out in direct quotations. Shocking. These same people often have little trouble making up whole quotations. Often the direct quotes are long, wooden and pretentious. I often ask, “Does he really talk like that?” Sometimes the answer is , “Yes, you betcha.” If he does, should you let him in print?
Do you have a policy on direct quotations? What is it? Join the discussion.