Are you giving off the wrong impression to coworkers and clients? It’s our firm belief that business writing training can help every business writer, no matter where you are in your career.

One thing that’s hard to deny is that business writing etiquette has gone down the toilet over the years. Nothing shouts out unprofessionalism quite like seeing “lol” (short for “laugh out loud”) in a business email. Or how about this scenario: have you ever read an email that downright exhausted you with its inability to get to the point? We can’t even count how many corporate memos cost companies hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars in lost productivity from poorly worded instructions. We also come across business writers who are sending out direct mailers and want to learn the skillful art of captivation and persuasion. No matter what the case may be, business writing training will help you in all of these areas.

In our business writing training course, you’ll get two full classroom days, individual coaching, plus six months of residual training. You’ll learn persuasive strategies, tone techniques, secrets of sentence clarity, and methods of wiping-out wordiness. We’ve even got the scoop on effective templates that work (while saving time) and formatting that helps readers navigate your messages with ease. It’s time to become the best writer you can be, regardless of what others are doing, because business writing training is rapidly becoming the new standard.

There are 84,900 Google results for the search term “business writing training,” with many of those being business writing training consultants such as ourselves. It can be confusing to sort through all the different package offerings, especially when so many consultants present themselves similarly. You’ll find words like “customization,” “hands-on training,” “professional” and “coaching” on countless websites. So how can you find the best business writing training for your enterprise?

We feel what sets us apart from the pack is our experience. We’ve been leaders in the business since 1985 (doing the math, that’s 25 years and counting). Our business writing training staff comes from strong academic tradition, but they have also worked hands-on as leaders in the business world at home and internationally. To date, our business writing training workshops have been hosted by prestigious clients like Ronald Reagan’s White House staff, NASA, Census Bureau, Coca-Cola, Missile Defense Agency, US Army Audit Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, Montgomery County School System and Federal Executive Institute – to name a few.

Writing Training

When you’re choosing the right business writing training for your enterprise, you want a team that has worked with the best agencies and companies. You want someone whose golden standards are widely accepted across multiple industries. There are many start-ups and consultants arising from the ashes of the recession, but it all boils down to: Who has the experience to deliver results?

There are countless errors uncovered during business writing training. Often employees look at us, bewildered by what might be wrong with a particular piece of business communication. We don’t just look at grammatical sentence structure, spelling and punctuation. We look at how the message is crafted and assembled to send a particular message. Here are some common errors:

1. Different information is mixed together in the same paragraph.

Remember the old rule, “One idea per paragraph?” This is especially true of business communication. You want to keep your paragraphs short, snappy and simple. You don’t want to muddle a bunch of directions into one jumbled mess. Our business writing training shows you several techniques to get around this.

2. The communication does not make use of helpful conventions.

Headings and bulleted lists are some of our favorite conventions to clean up drawn-out pages of text. Sometimes pictures, illustrations, tables or graphs can best summarize the information you’ve spent more than 100 words explaining. Refer to our business writing training manual each time you begin a piece to decide which conventions would work best for your situation.

3. The main message or call-to-action isn’t readily apparent until the end.

Why bury the whole point of your communications? This information needs to be at the beginning and also at the end. Your readers need to know what action is expected of them right away. Business writing training grooms employees on how to clearly and effectively sell your point and prompt immediate action.

Learn motivational techniques with business writing training. Perhaps you’ve just needed a few cups of coffee, loud music and a brainstorming exercise to help you along during those afternoons where you feel you’ve wasted hours of corporate time. You’ll come to learn that reading often is critical to your success – even if it’s just a fiction novel. The more exposure you have to excellent writing, the better equipped you’ll be to do your own.

Learn how to write to your audience with business writing training. Figure out the proper length to captivate your readers’ attention. Identify what their wants and needs are. Incorporate elements from English, Humanities and Sociology to get in touch with the inner humans, rather than bombarding audiences with calloused sales pitches.

Writing Training

Learn how to edit with business writing training. Make it a habit to triple-check all facts and figures in your reports for accuracy. Keep a checklist of frequent errors by your side to double-check before you submit. Hone your writer’s intuition, but also receive tools to consult when the going gets tough. Identify and correct bloated sentences for better clarity and conciseness. Rewrite with punctuation, grammar and spelling in mind, but develop your own personal style by understanding how tone, sentence structure and pacing come into play.

Convoluted English fills our inboxes. It elicits eye rolls from staff members who should be more respectful but can’t quite help themselves. It costs huge misunderstandings and even costlier mistakes. It wastes more time than a flag on a football field. Poor business writing has long been the scourge of existence, whether you work for a Fortune 500 company, a government agency, or a nonprofit. Business writing training emerged in the eighties to begin reversing the inevitable dumbing-down of our offices that only got worse once computer-speak began infiltrating the workplace.

“For whatever reason, we are finding the business writing skill-set to be missing,” Southern Methodist University business professor Paula Hill-Strasser tells MSNBC. She said even the brightest students struggle through business writing training more than they used to. She blames electronic distractions like text messages and IMs, in part, as students seem to have greater challenges with multi-tasking.

Business writing

However, most business writing training consultants feel the problem is more with lack of knowledge in formal business conventions and, in some cases, sheer laziness. A good formal business writing training program aims to tackle both of these areas by instructing staff on common mistakes, practical practices, and effective writing techniques, while also motivating staff to develop an avid interest in crafting creative messages.

Business writing training helps staff members save time during the brainstorming process, use persuasion tactics to reach their audience, maintain focus throughout the document, and use a tone that establishes rapport. The best writing is active and what we like to call “meaty.” We can show you common pitfalls, analyze your business’s writing samples, and customize a mentoring program to keep everyone onboard. Participants of business writing training will take with them an 80-page book, before and after business writing models, and six months of email follow-up.

Effective Business Writing

The benefits of business writing training are endless. Not only do skills improve every time, but the company ends up saving money from wasted time editing mistakes, internal misunderstandings, and ineffective advertising copy caused by poor writing. Furthermore, participants in business writing training will enjoy learning new on-the-job skills they can use. The more individuals feel they are growing, the more likely they are to stay with an employer.

One of our past clients was NASA’s middle and senior leaders, including the center director. They signed up for a one-day business writing training workshop to hone the wording of their awards program. “That isn’t easy if you’ve grown up on technical writing, which emphasizes description over persuasion,” explains our President, Dr. Thomas Murawski, “But nominations must sell, not just tell.” We helped NASA focus their writing on the significance and payoff of the awards, rather than bogging audiences down with endless copy about the recipient’s achievements.