If you can’t write clearly, then you’re missing a trick.
And the people you write for – your clients and their clients, too – are missing out, as well.
Unclear writing wastes money, wastes time, creates a bad impression, and impresses no one. Maybe some of your old schoolteachers or uni lecturers thought it was clever to produce long, complex, convoluted sentences. But the people who have to read them don’t – because they don’t have the time for that sort of nonsense. It’s a pain.
When you’re reading the small print on your insurance policy, the booking conditions for your holiday hotel, or the guidance notes for your tax form, what do you want?
To find the information you need as fast as possible and to understand it as fast as possible – without scratching your head, furrowing your brow, or having to call a ‘help’line – so that you can get back to doing something more interesting.
Similarly, when you’re on a plane, and the ground crew are doing some last-minute maintenance, you hope that they can interpret their manual correctly. And when a potential client in a hurry is reading your website, you want them to see your unique selling point right away, without being forced to plough through reams of dull verbiage or run the gauntlet of unwanted double entendres. (Because, if you make it hard work for them, they’ll go and find someone else who makes it easier.)
There is decades’ worth of evidence that clear writing provides heaps of benefits. When you master that skill, you take a big step towards standing out from the crowd.
So wouldn’t it be great if there were a light but serious 3-webinar course that explained 17 practical techniques and presented 5 software tools to help you write more clearly, a course that sold out last time around and earned blushingly good feedback for its Chartered Linguist helmsman?
Well, brace yourself: Clear Writing, Clear Benefits returns on Monday June 15th with the good folks at eCPD, and the last couple of places are still up for grabs.
Book now, and I’ll see you there.