Business Writing With Speed and Clarity
Write It Fast, Get It Right!
AVAILABLE IN HALF DAY OR FULL DAY SESSIONS
“Stick to the point and, whenever you can, cut.”
— W. Somerset Maugham
Let’s face it. You are what you write. Yet, many employees, wired to the adrenaline of instant communication, struggle in frustration with the basics of solid written communication. This one-day workshop brings it all home to put any business document into a forceful narrative with a tight structure—a beginning, middle and end. Topics covered include:
- Basic Training — The Do’s and Don’ts of grammar, punctuation and word usage
- Overcoming Writer’s Block In Business Documents
- The Art Of The First Draft — How to grab hold of the reader’s attention and get through the first phase of a document without stress
- The Seven Opening Sentences That Always Work
- Mastering The Modern Business Letter
- E-Mail Do’s and Don’ts
- The Middle — Keeping It All Going
- Basic Graphics — How To Use A Reader-Friendly Layout
- The Proposal — What Works, What Doesn’t
- The Closing — Your Big Finish
“The most valuable of all talents is never using two words when one will do.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“If I had time, I’d have written a shorter letter.”
— George S. Kaufman
The Power of e
E-Correspondence That Gets It Done!
AVAILABLE IN HALF DAY OR FULL DAY SESSIONS
In today’s business and professional climate, e-correspondence—memos, notes, pitches, reports, proposals—have to be concise, muscular and out the door now. The right correspondence makes the difference between communication and miscommunication, a problem solved or a crisis created. Yet, most employees are stuck in the timeworn framework of the “e-mail,” a personal document that has not kept pace with the demands of today’s marketplace. E-mails often do more harm than good.
In this one-day course, your employees will learn the shortcuts to quick and easy mastery of e-communication formats including:
- The fast way to turn thought into content
- How to eliminate time-consuming revisions
- The ten most powerful openings to claim your reader’s attention
- The five musts for ending the correspondence
- The seven clichés that turn readers off
- How to create readable, persuasive narrative
- How to proof your document and catch your own mistakes
“I used to dread writing business proposals. Thanks to this course, I now love it.”
— John Rockwell, Studio Manager, Cinema Sound Studios, New York, NY
Writing For Media Access
The Artful Composition Of Press Materials
AVAILABLE IN HALF DAY OR FULL DAY SESSIONS
“Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.”
— Pythagoras
Writing press materials comes down to one simple premise. Get it right and you get the coverage. Get it wrong and you won’t. Few writing formats are as maligned or misunderstood as the artful composition of press materials. In newsrooms, they often linger for weeks or get tossed before they’re even opened. E-releases are blocked as spam, deleted by robots, never to be read. But there is a strategy for getting your materials clearly written and noticed; where and how you send press materials is as important as the clarity of the writing. In our full and half day Media Access Writing Workshops, we’ll take you through all the steps including:
- The “inverted pyramid” style of news writing, a long established journalistic tradition that separates the amateurs from the pros
- The Five Elements of all Press Releases
- The Core Release — The center beam of all press kits
- The E-Release — Keep it short, keep it effective
- The Fact Sheet
- The Interviewee Bio
- The Full Press Kit — What stays, what goes for maximum impact
“Every word that you express will return to you.”
— Christian Larson
