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What does your correspondence say about you? Does it say you are knowledgeable, professional and detail-oriented or does it imply you are mediocre, sloppy, and inattentive?

How you present yourself in written form says a lot about you.

I just received a shocking (and sad) marketing pitch letter from the CEO of a company with whom I regularly do business. It was shocking because it is full of typos and grammatical errors, including sentence fragments in random places and bold highlighting used to emphasize almost one-half the letter. It was sad because it was obviously a mass-blast snail mail letter, which means it not only went to all the CEO's colleagues and current clients but probably prospective clients as well. It is a very poor representation of the CEO's abilities and the company's capabilities.

If this were my first contact with the company, I would be unimpressed and toss it out. It was obviously thrown together in a hurry without much thought as to whether the points were coherent or the context made sense. If they are this careless with their own work, how careless might they be with mine? Now, I happen to know the team is extremely conscientious and they produce top quality work. But unfortunately, those prospective clients may never give them a chance.

Here are a few tips for making sure your correspondence accurately reflects your capability and that of your company:

1. Develop a theme and stick to it.
Determine your main point then stay focused on it. If you absolutely must include multiple points, separate them into different paragraphs. Order the paragraphs with the most important point first and provide good transitions between paragraphs so they flow smoothly.

2. When in doubt, check it out!
If you aren't sure how to spell a word, DON'T GUESS! If you don't have a dictionary close by, use an online version.

3. Don't rely on SpellCheck.
I once had a woman apply for a public relations position. Her use of SpellCheck had her applying for a position in a more nefarious field (remove the "l" in public and you get the idea). At least SpellCheck is consistent: her cover letter, resume, and application all had the same mistake. She didn't get the job.

4. Use emphasis sparingly.
If you want to capture your reader's attention, bold and italic formatting are certainly options, but use them judiciously. If you have multiple points you want to emphasize, consider putting them into a bulleted or numbered list. Highlight the point, then include your supporting or explanatory statement(s) as I have done in this list.

5. Use real words.
I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating: irregardless is not a word. And while we're on the subject, "nother" is not a word or a contraction either. "Whole 'nother" is an incorrect phrase. "Whole other" or "another" is correct when talking about something separate or additional.

6. Mix it up.
If you must use the same word more than once in your communication piece, consider synonyms. If you can't think of one, try an online thesaurus.

Additional online resources:

Purdue University's online writing lab has several basic primers, including one on business writing.

Oregon State University also offers Business Writing Help online.

Washington State University has a great list of common errors in English.

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Tracked on July 15, 2008 11:49 AM