Do you need to improve your business writing?

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If you do any kind of marketing in your business you will know that how you write is important. Sure, how you speak and how you interact is just as important, but in today’s world the first impression of your business is often through the written word.

So how do you improve your writing in no time at all?

Take a look at the 30 day business writing challenge from Suzan St Maur.

I mention Suze a lot on this blog for her writing resource How to Write Better, and I’ve reviewed several of her business books before. The 30 Business Writing Challenge is aimed at those who didn’t do well at English in school, or those looking to improve their English as it’s not their native language. If you are already writing well, then Business Writing Made Easy may be a better option for you or, my personal favourite How to Write Winning Non Fiction.

In her own words the 30 day business writing challenge:

If you’ve ever wished you had paid more attention to English grammar, spelling etc. at school, this is your salvation. Forget school: this is business life, and this is the way you’ll perfect your basic writing to make sure all your written communications do exactly what you want them to.

Business writing breaks some of the rules we were taught at school. But before you can break those rules effectively for your job, you need to be reminded what the rules were in the first place.

The 30 Day Basic Business Writing Challenge shows you how to make the most of your business writing and how to break rules where appropriate … while avoiding the key pitfalls that can make you look like a dork. For example:

• Putting apostrophes in the wrong place … oh, so unprofessional!
• Using clichés … makes you look out of touch
• Jargon … some turns your readers right off
• Me or I? … which do you use, when?
• Overwriting … do you use a long word when a short one is better?
• Slang … is it wrong? If not, why not?
• Short sentences … will I be struck by lightning if I skip a verb?

In this Challenge we’ll have a good time working through the 30 days … I don’t like being serious for very long, so you’ll find it funny in places and I hope that helps you absorb the information more comfortably. (A few smiles certainly help me learn more easily.)

The 30 day writing challenge covers:

Day 1 – Acronyms
Day 2 – Active versus passive
Day 3 – Apostrophes
Day 4 – Bullet points and lists
Day 5 – Capital letters
Day 6 – Clichés
Day 7 – Commas, semi-colons and colons
Day 8 – EGs and IEs
Day 9 – Exclamation marks
Day 10 – Jargon
Day 11 – Layout of text
Day 12 – Long sentences
Day 13 – Me, myself and I
Day 14 – Metaphors and similes
Day 15 – Negative writing
Day 16 – Of or have and other common goofs
Day 17 – Overwriting
Day 18 – Paragraphs
Day 19 – Past tense and past participles
Day 20 – Salutations
Day 21 – Slang
Day 22 – Swear words
Day 23 – Tautology
Day 24 – The “royal we”
Day 25 – Their – there – they-re
Day 26 – Verbs and nouns arguing
Day 27 – Verbs or not in sentences
Day 28 – Writing concisely
Day 29 – You – you’re – yourself
Day 30 – ZZZZzzzzzz … does your writing wake you (and your readers) up? ……………

Suze has written the challenge in an easy going style that isn’t too taxing on the brain, and if you are not a confident writer then this guide is just for you. You can grab a copy on Kindle (Just download the Kindle app if you don’t have one) and sit back and enjoy.

Sarah

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Sarah Arrow

Director of Special Projects at Sark eMedia

Blogging an issue for you? Social media not quite working how it should be? I started out as a transport blogger for a same day courier company, and grew into a kick-ass blog coach as well as creator of Birds on the Blog (listed 3 times by Forbes as a top 100 website for women). You want your blog to make a difference, so subscribe here and stay in touch, my updates will help you connect the dots.

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