course | Business Writing for Leaders

Mastering Business Writing Techniques
 

• Introduction: Why do business leaders need to boost their business writing skills?
• The Art of Punctuation - the traffic signals of language: tells us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, or stop.
• Practical tips to avoid overused business words, replacing them with language that creates rich variety for our audiences.
• Developing Advanced Proficiency:
• 12 golden rules for successful writing that ensure people read what we write.
• Inspiring, Influencing & Persuading through Storytelling: how to narrate experiences with enough detail and feeling so our audiences are engaged.
• Newsworthy writing for external audiences that will grab interest and keep people reading to the end.
• Accurate proofreading that picks up errors, confusion, and potentially embarrassing mistakes.
   

E-mail Etiquette:
 

• E-mail Subject, Attachments, Signature, and addresses.
• Smart tips for presenting complex information in your e-mails.
• The most common mistakes that people make when writing an e-mail … and how to avoid them.
• Tips for writing shorter e-mails that still get your full message across.
• When is e-mailing inappropriate?

More Practical Applications
 

• How to master writing for an online audience?
• Impactful Presentations: presenting messages clearly so audiences participate positively and remember our key points.
• Writing speeches that grab attention: motivating and persuading audiences when developing and delivering both informal talks and more formal speeches.
• Gold standard letter writing for business: how to structure letters so our recipients read, understand, and act on what they read.
• Powerful Reports and Briefing papers.

Writing Powerfully and Persuasively for Any Situation
 

• Put yourself in your reader’s shoes.
• Guaranteed persuasion techniques.
• Use a critical eye to make sure you’re presenting your ideas logically.
• High-impact wording.
• Document presentation & flow.

Responding to complex situations through writing
 

• Building rapport with your audience.
• Managing expectations: responding to bad news.
• Effectively handling difficult individuals:
• Hostile: responding assertively
• Pessimist: sticking to facts
• Nagger: setting the rules
• Mr. Know-it-all: staying focused
• Egoist: getting descriptive
• Manipulator: taking the initiative

Master Editing Your Work:
 

• A top-down approach to improving text – edit like a reader.
• Effective transitions – holding the flow of thought.
• Tips to maximize impact.
• Polishing the words – poppycock and commonly-confused words.
• Polishing your grammar and punctuation – common mistakes and things that make some people go mad.
• Spelling – using the tools.
• Infinitives.
• Proofing your work – tricks to help you see what’s really there.