In business, writing is one of the most important skills you can have.
You may not think of it this way but writing in business depends on persuading other people to take an interest in what you have to offer and asking people to say yes.
Of course, face-to-face or person-to-person communication trumps all other forms of communication but this usually takes place in the middle of a business transaction:
- Your initial approach will be through mediated communication such as a cell phone call or writing an email.
- Then you would have a face-to-face meeting. Remember that many of the face-to-face meetings are now taking place online and will occur so for a long time.
- After the meeting, need to follow up and this would be through written communication.
But really, is business writing that important?
Just think about it, your purpose in writing anything in business is probably to inform, agreement obtain agreement, a decision, request something and even to apologize. But with greater scarcity of resources corporate politics is sure to escalate (because of a lack of resources) and writing in toxic corporate politicized business environments has become more critical.
You also need to realize that many of the transactions that are now taking place online involve written communication for negotiation. While you may not always recognize it, it’s becoming more and more important to understand email and other online negotiations. I cover this in my course on email and online negotiations – a specialised course for those who want to get ahead in business.
The consequences of poor business writing include not getting to yes, not obtaining resources for your project or department, being overlooked and even looking for a way out of the business environment that you are in. Sponsored individuals in organisations don’t have to worry about this until they lose favour with their sponsors.
Mistakes in spelling and punctuation is one thing that you probably can get away with but when you write with inaccurate or incorrect information, the stakes will suddenly become very high with you perhaps losing your job. In my book, Guide to Better Business Writing, you will find detailed examples of companies who lost Millions because of inaccurate and incorrect business writing.
I am presently developing A Better Business writing online Pilot Course which will be available soon. Go click on https://ideaaccelerator.co.za/business-writing-academy/
