by Jody Bruner
Each of the words below is either negative or overly formal. They’re easy to eliminate, and doing so will give your final document a warmer, more upbeat tone.
by Jody Bruner
Have you ever had a colleague eagerly ask for feedback on a document only to have her face fall as you point out all the ways she could improve it? Why, you wonder, did she ask for help in the first place if she doesn’t really want it? Read more →
by Jody Bruner
Sustain your focus on your customer throughout your writing by expressing the details of your message from the reader’s point of view. Try using the pronoun ‘you’ as much as you can. Don’t avoid ‘I’ or ‘we.’ Just remember to include ‘you’ as much as you can. Read more →
by Jody Bruner
It’s easy to fall into the trap of talking about the features of what you’re pitching. But readers don’t care about features; they only care about benefits. Speaking the language of benefits means you show the reader explicitly how their life will be better with your solution. Read more →
by Jody Bruner
I recently received an email with this alarming subject line from my health club:
IMPORTANT MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENT
It jumped out from my inbox and I opened it immediately. I felt myself tighten as I read the first few words: Read more →
by Jody Bruner
Readers are bombarded with documents today. Most of those documents never get read, let alone acted on, because they ramble and are poorly organized. If you worry that your own writing isn’t getting results, here are seven techniques to help you get to the point and organize your content so readers can quickly find what they’re looking for. Use them and I promise your messages will be easy to understand and remember, difficult to ignore! Read more →
by Linda Dunlop
Hitting the glass ceiling, climbing the corporate ladder, addressing the elephant in the room. I never thought much about idioms until I started teaching Business English to international students. Read more →
by Linda Dunlop
Can introverts ace presentations? You bet we can! Case in point: Susan Cain, author of the runaway bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. As a studious introvert, Cain spent seven years in her element, quietly working on her book. Then came the hard part—selling her ideas to audiences. Read more →
by Linda Dunlop
You’ve just spent the day in back-to-back virtual meetings troubleshooting next steps on an important project. It’s all in a day’s work, right? But by evening, you find yourself stretched out horizontally on the couch, drained of all energy. Sound familiar? Read more →
by Jody Bruner
For many of us, working from home means more email than ever. I find the more emails I write and send, the more opportunities to get myself in trouble by being impatient and overly hasty. These two hacks help me slow myself down, so I’m not sending emails too quickly or at inappropriate times. Read more →