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0 pointslsc12y ago0 comments

>I have no idea if that is accurate. But if one of your competitors was easier to understand, I would probably pick them because I don't have the extra time required to understand you and make sure you understand me over the course of our whole relationship.

That makes sense. The thing is, I always thought that my writing was an advantage, not a disadvantage. I mean, it's not perfect, or even very good by English-major standards, but compared to your average salesperson, well, I think highly of myself. You know how some people enjoy the sound of their own voice? I enjoy my own writing.

The problem is that I'm writing for myself, not for the audience. Which is bad communication, even when it is good prose.

>In contrast, your comment is verbose and uses a lot of non-standard punctuation. That makes it hard to understand you. So my first thought is "wow, I'm going to have to do a lot of extra work to make sure lsc understands what I need."

Huh. I have always thought of most sales and management folks as not very good at written communication. Even when trying to convey complex ideas, usually their emails are all of two sentences, and often grammar errors make those sentences nonsense without context.

This lines up with what you have said, though. If they are communicating in two-sentence messages, maybe my three-page essays are not appreciated. No matter what the reason, they /do/ communicate in soundbytes, and my insistence on essays is... counterproductive.

If you are writing to communicate, and not just to read your own prose, the whole point is being understood.

More to the point, it's irrational arrogance on my part to say that folks who are better than I am at sales, which is essentially communication, are worse communicators than I am.

You have... significantly changed my opinion of the consulting situation and the direction in which I need to move in order to improve my business communication. Thanks.

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12 comments · 5 top-level

phamilton12y ago· 5 in thread

A very simple change you could make to your writing would be to swap out commas for other punctuation. Parentheses, semicolons, and other less often used punctuation serve distinct purposes and add to readability.

I'm no expert. Here is a stab at fixing a sentence of yours. >I mean, it's not perfect (or even very good by English-major standards) but compared to your average salesperson, well, I think highly of myself

That drops the comma count from 5 to 3 and makes it a little more fluid.

Just my 2 cents.

lscOP12y ago

From a business writing standpoint? that whole sentence is superfluous. The whole thing is an insertion of humility, something that is important when speaking about yourself to other nerds, but is essentially social fluff.

My takeaway is primarily not that I did verbosity wrong, though certainly that comment wasn't right, but that the verbosity itself is the problem.

Take, for example one of the bits of writing I'm most proud of:

http://www.nostarch.com/download/xen_ch7.pdf

We had a real editor, and my co-author had significant writing skill, but even so: Look at the Scheduling for providers section; that was mostly me.

This is about what I had been aiming for in my business communications, and while I still think it's a reasonable bit of writing for a semi-technical audience, it is far too verbose for a business email.

If I was sending that same passage to a business person, I suspect the optimal format would be something like:

"We will allocate CPU based on how much ram the user purchases."

The rest is technical details and fluff. When dealing with a businessperson, the technical details are my job, not something they care about.

I think that my primary self-destructive impulse here is that I want to throw out technical details, in part to prove that I actually know something. I need to restrain that bit of ego, as worrying about the technical details is what I'm (hopefully) getting paid to do.

adambard12y ago

I usually write whatever I would say, then go over it after and take out any words or phrases that might be superfluous, or that can possibly be removed. Wholesale removal of extraneous stuff goes a long way towards making yourself clearer. I'll occasionally leave things in that I feel add to my "voice", but more often than not, if a word can be removed, it is removed.

--- becomes ---

I write whatever I would say, then go over it and take out anything superfluous. It makes things clearer.

1 more reply

btilly12y ago

Here is a simple improvement that should help a lot. Write everything in the active voice. This will make your language less "pretty", but more understandable. Doubly so when talking to people with a short attention span.

Let me rewrite your first paragraph to show the difference.

That whole sentence is superfluous from a business writing standpoint. It is an insertion of humility. Social fluff that would be important when speaking about yourself to other nerds.

1 more reply

lukeholder12y ago

For me that pdf chapter example was very hard to read.

1 more reply

mncolinlee12y ago

I disagree with the proposed fix. As an English major software engineer, I would treat that as a run-on sentence. First, you should clearly ask yourself if the sentence is necessary before looking for a fix. If you find that the sentence is useful then break it into two sentences, use active verbs, and make sure your logic is clear.

The original sentence begins with the premise: my writing is not perfect. It ends with: I think highly of myself. Self-esteem and writing quality may be unrelated.

"My writing is hardly perfect. However, I write better than a typical salesperson."

I love the epiphany by the author of the comment. Communications is a HUGE factor in sales. Clear, effective writing will amplify your business overnight.

gridspy12y ago· 2 in thread

Just to push you further in the right direction - you need to decide what you want the email to accomplish. It should do that and no more.

Often you want them to arrange a consultation with you. So they just need a taster of your solution that will leave them curious for more in person where you can still adapt it to their requirements.

Once they are sold, stop selling and go for the close. Otherwise you might talk them out of it.

Respect their time and keep communications short. That way they'll read every word.

jpelker12y ago

Well put.

wsinks12y ago

Yay!

joshyeager12y ago

Glad to help. :-)

I agree that a lot of sales and management types are sloppy and overly terse. That's just as bad. A good balance makes communication much easier and more effective.

Best of all is if you can do all that and still show a unique personality. That's what I'm working on, because I feel like my writing is pretty bland.

mcdougle12y ago

Like you implied, when you're trying to get a business deal, you're communicating for the audience. It's really all just sales. A lot of really successful salespeople probably don't have good spelling and grammar, but they're great communicators.

Dunno if you've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but Kiyosaki says in it, "I'm not a best-writing author, I'm a best-selling author."

That said, I probably have the same problem sometimes, haha.

fouc12y ago

The other issue is that prose is horribly inefficient for transmitting concepts direct to a person's brain. It's a representation of verbalization, and verbalization is based on our limitations around hearing & generating sounds. We end up doing a 2-step process with reading & writing in prose.

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0 comments

12 comments · 5 top-level

phamilton12y ago· 5 in thread

That drops the comma count from 5 to 3 and makes it a little more fluid.

Just my 2 cents.

lscOP12y ago

My takeaway is primarily not that I did verbosity wrong, though certainly that comment wasn't right, but that the verbosity itself is the problem.

Take, for example one of the bits of writing I'm most proud of:

http://www.nostarch.com/download/xen_ch7.pdf

We had a real editor, and my co-author had significant writing skill, but even so: Look at the Scheduling for providers section; that was mostly me.

If I was sending that same passage to a business person, I suspect the optimal format would be something like:

"We will allocate CPU based on how much ram the user purchases."

The rest is technical details and fluff. When dealing with a businessperson, the technical details are my job, not something they care about.

adambard12y ago

--- becomes ---

I write whatever I would say, then go over it and take out anything superfluous. It makes things clearer.

1 more reply

btilly12y ago

Let me rewrite your first paragraph to show the difference.

That whole sentence is superfluous from a business writing standpoint. It is an insertion of humility. Social fluff that would be important when speaking about yourself to other nerds.

1 more reply

lukeholder12y ago

For me that pdf chapter example was very hard to read.

1 more reply

mncolinlee12y ago

The original sentence begins with the premise: my writing is not perfect. It ends with: I think highly of myself. Self-esteem and writing quality may be unrelated.

"My writing is hardly perfect. However, I write better than a typical salesperson."

I love the epiphany by the author of the comment. Communications is a HUGE factor in sales. Clear, effective writing will amplify your business overnight.

gridspy12y ago· 2 in thread

Just to push you further in the right direction - you need to decide what you want the email to accomplish. It should do that and no more.

Often you want them to arrange a consultation with you. So they just need a taster of your solution that will leave them curious for more in person where you can still adapt it to their requirements.

Once they are sold, stop selling and go for the close. Otherwise you might talk them out of it.

Respect their time and keep communications short. That way they'll read every word.

jpelker12y ago

Well put.

wsinks12y ago

Yay!

joshyeager12y ago

Glad to help. :-)

I agree that a lot of sales and management types are sloppy and overly terse. That's just as bad. A good balance makes communication much easier and more effective.

Best of all is if you can do all that and still show a unique personality. That's what I'm working on, because I feel like my writing is pretty bland.

mcdougle12y ago

Dunno if you've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but Kiyosaki says in it, "I'm not a best-writing author, I'm a best-selling author."

That said, I probably have the same problem sometimes, haha.

fouc12y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse