The pen is scarier than the sword

No matter how strong, how skilled, how successful, even the toughest manager or executive often crumbles at the idea of having to WRITE something.

Typically people over complicate the writing task and they allow fear to build until they are paralyzed into inaction. But the first year journalism student knows the trick to taking the panic out of writing.

Break your information down and make sure you can answer these questions

• Who is affected?
• How will they be affected?
• What is the issue?
• Where will this take place?
• When is it going to happen?
• Why is this happening?

With those essential elements in place, you know you'll have the bases covered.

The next step is to decide how to organize the information. The most important piece will be your first paragraph (known in the media as “the lede”). This is where you need to tell your reader the most important piece of information — why do i care about this.

If you can’t explain why I should care, then you either can’t make your case or you don’t have enough information. Either way, you are not going to be able to capture your readers’ attention long enough to convince him. So STOP and go back to the 5 Ws.

The most important thing that i think most business writers forget is their audience. Often, people write for themselves with the assumption that if they are interested, others will be too.

Definitely, not so. You need to know the audience. If you are an IT manager writing a proposal that is going to be read by financial executives, you need to tailor your writing specifically to what they are going to be interested in.

And I can pretty much guarantee you, your interests are far different.

More on that next time.