One of the Most Important Tips to Consider When Writing for Business

When we write a document to meet business objective, we could be forgiven for thinking we should use a different mindset to that required craft great fiction. Nevertheless sometimes, popular approaches and ideas that are used to create modern, bestselling novels, can also be applied to help develop surprisingly unusual and effective communications in business. This article explores how.

That idea may be fine, yet, whether you choose a direct style of presentation or a more seductive approach, here is one guideline suggestion that when applied to a business-related document, communication or presentation, can substantially improve the end results you get:

• Strive to keep your sentence structure simple.

We've also identified two basic styles of writing that you can apply to your business publications or presentations: (1) seductive and (2) direct. Let's briefly explore these two contrasting styles of communication now.

(1) Applying a Seductive, Novel Writing Style To Your Business Publications

When writing novels for today's readers, often, the best writers use a "tight" writing technique: simple, direct, instantly understandable, yet intriguing, seductive and full of suspense and expectancy. Mystery authors often drip-feed snippets of crucial information or clues at key stages to keep the reader entranced and engaged with the plot. Yet here's a surprise: you can use similar techniques to those used to write exciting novels, to create an attractive and compelling style with which to apply to your business documents, articles, publications, web site pages and presentations.

You may find that when you tease and tantalize your target business reader, listener or website visitor to some sort of result, slowly building up to a "high point" or conclusion, instead of taking the more traditional "direct" route, your results improve - sometimes dramatically! Some projects certainly have been shown to fair better when you take your reader by the virtual hand and guide her on an interesting journey of discovery.

Key tip: often, the tricky part is judging the ideal length of presentation and when to make your big statement. Take too long and the problem of short attention span can ruin your goal.

(2) The Direct Approach

For some business presentations, you'll want to get straight to your key point(s) usually by communicating benefits and features quickly, simply, directly and up-front. Marketing materials especially traditionally call for a more considered, persuasive, direct approach based on the maxim of: benefits first, features second.

Traditional advertising today is nowhere near as effective as it once was. Because we're deluged with massive amounts of advertising on television, newspapers, magazines and on the Internet, we buyers copy by learning how to detect a sales pitch early on and simply tune out many traditional types of presentation.

Key tip: one possible drawback with using a direct approach style is that however careful you are with your wording, sometimes, your presentation or document can come across as too "salesy", and so may simply not perform today as well as you may prefer. If yes, perhaps that's a good time to test out a writing or presentation style that weaves in some drama, suspense and which has a "story-like" presentation.

Whichever Style You Choose, Never Forget Your First Goal

No matter what the type of document you're writing, your first objective above all others is to:

• Get your core message across to your target reader, listener or website visitor. For that, your recipient has to be sufficiently motivated by what you have to say to at least read, scan, listen or view the core points you're making. That's why, learning how to become an effective communicator, in all its forms available today, can be one of the most important, financially rewarding skill-sets you'll ever develop.

So just how do you achieve the goal? I recommend that whichever method or style you choose for the type of document or presentation you're creating, when working with publications for business, remember to keep your writing structure simple - this tip alone can go a long way to helping you get the kinds of results you want. Even when you're creating a convoluting, roundabout way of communicating, using drama, tension or a feeling of expectancy, you can still use simple, short sentence structures. When writing slick novels, this technique is often referred to as "tight" writing.

Strive to understand and learn the differences between these two kinds of communication styles while appreciating the needs of your audience. Then choose the most appropriate, simple sentence structure for the document you're producing.