Some word pairs flummox even the most literate writers. We use a word to say one thing, but its opposite form seems not to exist. Or does it? In some pairs, apparent opposites have the same meaning. English is a mongrel language with a motley history, which means that our words don’t always make sense. …
“If you don’t think punctuation matters, try forgetting the comma in, I’m sorry, I love you.” A colleague recently bemoaned the tendency among some business writers to send emails without punctuating them. She had received an email that said, “order misdelivered sent to wrong branch but we fixed it” How hard would it have been, …
Studies indicate that corporations lose upwards of $400 billion annually because of poor writing. That’s over $1 billion daily. This staggering figure points to the losses in sales, productivity, staff, morale, and branding that are directly connected to unclear or careless writing.
As a business leader, you might think that coaching your team in writing skills is outside your core responsibilities. However, investing time and energy to develop this vital skill in your workforce will pay off in the long run.
Here’s what you can do to improve writing in your organization.
Someone recently wrote to me, “Your welcome to join us at the dinner reception.” While I appreciated the dinner invitation, the writer undermined herself by making the basic mistake of writing your instead of you’re. She meant to say, “You are welcome to join us,” but that’s not what she wrote.
Am I being a curmudgeon to mention this? Perhaps. But if I’m a grouch, I’m not alone. For millions of readers, these mistakes matter. When you are building your personal and business brand, can you afford to assume that your readers don’t care about precision in language?
You work hard to write the perfect email to a prospective customer. You hit the send button full of hope that you will get a positive response. Then, the waiting begins. A day goes by. Then another. Then another. Crickets. It is frustrating when our recipients do not respond to our emails.
First, the bad news: If your recipients do not want to respond, they won’t. They will probably ignore your email if they are uninterested in your offering. We cannot control other people’s behavior.
However, you can get a reply if you have strong credibility and a compelling subject line. If your subject line and content resonate with a recipient’s emotions, you can even overcome the resistance to entertaining a message from an unknown sender. So, there is hope.
If you want your recipient to respond to your email, three things have to happen.
