The Power Of Words (in a Pandemic)
By Becks Ryall
Writer, Pitch Coach, Proposal Whiz
Becks is one of our writers here at We Are All Marketing.
She has over 15 years’ experience as a professional writer and pitch coach and has worked for some of the largest companies in the world.
Becks can help you to write engaging copy, compelling proposals and help you to prepare for client pitches, virtually or remotely.
“I’m not going to lie, I really debated whether I should add the last three words to that heading.
Words have always been important, right?
You use them every day to communicate with your friends and family; your colleagues and your clients.
Most of us email, text, DM or tweet every day. But working together in this weird, remote world that we find ourselves in, has placed an even bigger importance on the written word.
Yes. We need to adapt.
Yes. We need to communicate. But I don’t think that we need to radically change how we write or what we write forever. So I popped those three little words into parentheses and decided to write some practical guidelines for writing; both for now, and for when we get through to the other side.
Writing to your teams
There are three simple rules.
Be clear
Give yourself a moment to really think about it.
What are you writing?
Why are you writing it?
What do you want your team or colleague to think, or do, once they have read it?
Then, once this is clear in your own mind, open with that message. If you have something important to say, then do it up front. If you need someone to do something, then ask them. Nicely, of course (there is nothing wrong with a please and a thank you, society has not crumbled).
In times like this, when people on your teams are reading far more emails than normal and juggling big, demanding (potentially stressful) commitments outside of work they will thank you for just getting to the bloody point.
Once you have got your messaging straight, it’s time to make sure that your tone is clear too.
The tone of a written communication represents your attitude, or your emotion, towards the reader.
And us humans can pick up on a negative tone very quickly.
The tone of a message can affect the reader just as much as the content and you won’t be able to rely on hand gestures or vocal intonation to adjust what you are saying. It can really pay off during times of heightened emotion to pay extra attention to how your reader will feel once they have read your written communication.
Be accurate
Now, I appreciate that this is not brand new information.
But give everything a read over before you press send.
Fact-check your content, run a quick spelling and grammar check. You don’t want to waste anyone’s time by sending out the wrong information or open up a stream of questions because your timeline doesn’t add up.
Think too about who you are writing to.
Have you accidentally hit reply all?
Do you need to copy someone in from another team?
Be accurate about your audience too.
Be human
Try and write like you would speak, especially if you are using different ways to communicate.
Don’t be afraid to use contractions. idioms, exclamation marks, etc.
Mix up your language in the same way that you normally would - when we chat to our friends we don’t use perfect grammar, we use a combination of long and short sentences and we ‘umm’ and ‘arr’.
Look at your timelines, expectations and requests and ask yourself do they seem sensible?
Are they achievable? If your team is working adjusted hours to accommodate child care or dropping food off to an elderly relative do you really need them to get back to you by 5 o'clock?
And if you’ve sat down and thought about what you are writing and why and decided that your clear message is just to make a colleague laugh, then that’s ok.
There has never been a better time to add a little positivity into your written communications.
Writing to your clients
Unsurprisingly, the same rules apply.
Be clear
Written communications to your client are, often, a more formal form of writing.
And while we are all working more remotely, written communications need to become even more focussed, targeted and clear.
Why should your client listen to you now?
How can you help them during the pandemic? Put the time in to both your messaging and your tone.
If you are in the process of making a sale or agreeing a deal with your client, then make sure your sales messages are clear too.
Can you offer a creative way to offer the same solution or product despite the pandemic?
In my next blog post, I am going to be writing specific guidelines for writing proposals and making pitches but if you have any pressing questions right now then get in touch.
Be accurate
This is even more important in the current working landscape. Written communications are going to represent you and your business in a much more real way and you don’t want to appear unprofessional by including typos or bad grammar.
Look at the accuracy of your audience here too.
Yes, you might have spent hours writing that creative, targeted communication but have you spelt the client’s name correctly?
Be human
We are all living in weird times.
Your clients are feeling just as freaked out as you and your team.
Can you speak to them with a more human voice?
Even if it means relaxing your brand guidelines or your house style of writing a little.
Honesty and positivity will go a long way in building human relationships through your written communications.
A final point from me about business speak.
I know it gets a lot of bad press. But if you work in a technical, super niche or highly regulated industry then business speak can really serve a purpose.
Don’t beat yourself up for using an acronym or spend hours trying to distill technical messaging into more simple language if it isn’t necessary.
The only important thing is that you and your client understand each other. And business speak can form a shared language, promote a sense of belonging; and I think we all need a bit of that right now.”
Are you looking for more information on how to write a killer proposal?
Or how to deliver the perfect virtual pitch?
Well, watch this space.
We have some practical advice for selling coming up in the coming weeks.