Business Writing Made Clear

Overview

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
Ernest Hemingway, American author

Good writing skills are an important part of any communication. Nearly all professions require some form of written communication as part of the job. Creating a good first impression through your written work is just as important as creating a good first impression in person.

There are all sorts of occasions when you might need to write something in business, whether it’s to write a letter to a client, send a challenging email, persuade your colleagues of your new idea, give a project update, etc.

Yet, there are few things less inspiring than a dull report, and poor writing skills can prevent your message getting across. Given the right training and tools though, you can bring any topic to life as a skilled writer – communicating, influencing, persuading and engaging people to get your point across.

Common concerns we hear from people who attend this course include:

• How do I influence others in an email or a report?
• How do I deliver a clear and concise message?
• How do I structure reports and emails to maximum effect?
• Where do I start?
• How can I make sure that my grammar, spelling and punctuation is accurate?

In this comprehensive Form-level course, you’ll learn a variety of methods to help you write clear, concise and well-structured communications that’ll help you put across your key messages and get it right first time. The workshop goes into greater depth and covers more ground than our one-day ‘Business Writing Essentials’ course (MPDBWE). There’s more opportunity to practise, with every delegate writing two business documents, including a short report. You’ll also get lots of feedback from the trainer and your fellow delegates, as well as having examples of best practice to take away.

All of our trainers are experts in their field and have many years’ experience in writing business documents and training people in how to be effective business writers.

Even the greatest authors had to learn their craft – your journey begins here!

Target Audience

Business Writing Made Clear is part of our Business Writing ‘Progressive Portfolio’, structured to support your initial learning and ongoing development.

This comprehensive Form-level course is aimed at anyone who would like to develop their business writing skills or understand how to write more concisely and/or with greater impact, for example when writing:

• Short reports
• Business letters
• Emails
• Other business documents
• Social media posts

If you’re looking for just the key tools to improve your business writing, then you might want to consider our one-day course – Business Writing Essentials (MPDBWE).

If you already have experience of business writing, you may be interested in our Develop-level courses:

• Writing Persuasive Reports (MPDWPR)
• Writing Winning Bids and Proposals (MPDWWB)

Objectives

You’ll learn how to:

• Identify different types of business writing
• Apply our unique ‘GAMPER’ model of business writing
• Match your writing style to the needs of the business/reader
• Identify the correct grammar, spelling and punctuation when writing for business
• Use plain English to put across a clear and concise message
• Present your documents so they have maximum impact
• Persuade and influence through impactful writing
• Write effective emails and one-page reports
• Adopt best practice when writing for social media

Outline

Day 1:

1. Types of business writing
2. Evaluating written materials
3. The GAMPER model of business writing
4. Writing it right – the importance of grammar, spelling and punctuation
5. Writing concisely – avoiding jargon and clichés
6. Writing a short business document, with feedback

Day 2:

7. Presenting information
8. Structuring information
9. Writing messages that persuade and influence
10. Writing emails and for social media
11. Producing a business report
12. Proof-reading, editing and formatting
13. Writing an influential one-page report, with feedback

Prerequisites

You’ll be asked to bring along hard copies of at least two examples of business writing that you’ve recently produced. These might be a short report, letter, action points from a meeting, a long email, or any other relevant business document. You’ll be asked to share these with other delegates on the course so please do not bring anything that is confidential to your business. You may also find it useful to bring along a laptop to work on documents during the course.