Business Writing training

'How to identify and fix common writing mistakes that make you look unprofessional'

Do your senior managers waste time vetting the writing of junior staff before it goes out to clients?

Research shows customers distrust companies whose staff commit spelling or grammatical mistakes.  Poor writing diminishes your organisation's credibility.

 

Brainpower Training works inside companies and organisations with groups of their staff, usually in a Facilitator-led workshop of around 10-16 people at a time, to develop their ability to communicate in writing clearly and concisely.

Here are some of the things your team will learn in the Brainpower Business Writing or Report Writing workshop:

Program content

• Themes - purpose, content, style, tone
• Goals - economy, clarity, empathy
• Readability index - calculate 'Fog Index' of own writing sample to find out how 'foggy' it is
• Refinement - editing tips - makeover of own writing sample
• Economy - brevity tricks, omit needless words, avoid qualifiers, active voice
• Make every word count - avoid repetition and redundancy
• Plain English - write the way you speak
• Clarity - be positive, avoid nominalisation, use bullets
• Empathy - tone and courtesy
• Standard Register - style, compare with formal and informal registers
• Tone - write with your reader in mind, 'You' vs. 'I', saving face, WIIFM
• Grammar - common grammar and punctuation mistakes, new usage rules
• Punctuation - commas, apostrophe, contractions
• Getting started - avoid writer's block using memory mapping, freewriting
• E-mail - formatting for readability, style and 'netiquette'
• Respect - vocabulary or gender, race and disability
• Readability - best fonts and layout for online and paper-based material
• Editing - Revise after time
• Where to from here? - style guides, Thesaurus
• Review - key concepts summary
  

Business Writing Outcomes

On completion of the program participants will be able to:

• Using our makeover checklist, proof read and edit their writing to improve readability
• Recognise and delete unnecessary words
• Eliminate repetition in writing
• Use Active Voice instead of Passive Voice
  
• Express themselves clearly using fewer words
• Write in Plain English with crystal clear clarity
• Increase rapport by writing with the reader in mind, using 'You' vs. 'I'
• Identify and correct common grammatical errors
  

Contact us now.

Now you can learn to write with greater economy, clarity and empathy with the Brainpower Business Writing course. You'll master the 20% of writing techniques and 'best practices' that improve your writing by 80%.

Using the techniques you'll learn about in this course, you and your team will be able to write...

• Letters that convey professionalism and warmth
• Proposals that persuade your reader to agree or buy
• Memos that convey your ideas with brevity and clarity
• Reports that present facts and opinions clearly and concisely.
• e-mails that communicate your ideas efficiently.

 The Brainpower Business Writing course covers the core techniques and skills your staff need to produce an immediate impact to the quality and clarity of their writing. Topics include:

• How readable is your writing? Find out using the Fog Index formula.
• How to refine and edit your writing, using your own writing sample
• Useful brevity tricks: using active voice, eliminating unnecessary words and avoiding qualifiers
• How to make every word count: avoiding repetition and redundancy
• Standard register: when to use formal and informal registers
• Plain English: avoiding complex language and reducing sentence length
• Style: How to improve your writing style using strong verbs and simple direct sentences. Write the way you speak.
• Clarity: Be positive; be specific; bullets; avoid idea gaps and blind spots.
• Tone: write with the reader in mind; 'I' vs. 'You'; saving face; WIIFM - What's In It For Me?
• Grammar: common grammar mistakes.
• Punctuation: How to use commas, apostrophes and contractions correctly.
• How to combat writer's block using freewriting, memory mapping and conversation
• E-mail: how to format your e-mails for readability, style and 'netiquette'
• Respect: vocabulary for gender, race and disability
• Readability: best fonts and layouts for online and paper-based material
• Further resources: style guide and thesaurus
• Makeover checklist: summary page to use from now on
  
  

By understanding and mastering each of these areas, your people will be able to compose more effective business documents in a variety of business situations. Click here to contact us.

 Find out more about our training approach

For a pdf of our company brochure, click here.

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Understand our quality process for customising

Brainpower training has a unique way of tailoring our programs to your people and the situations they face.




1. Diagnostic Conversation TM


We can have a structured conversation over the phone about your training needs,
asking you some questions that are usually easy to answer.

There's no obligation, but if you do decide to go ahead, we can forward this info to our Facilitator as your 'brief', describing your specific learning and business-related outcomes.

This process is useful to do even before you decide which training provider tomove forward with. During this discussion you can judge if our course content matches what you are looking for and whether we are the right cultural fit for your organisation.

2.  Writing samples
Once your course is confirmed, we send you our 'For Attendees' e-mail for you to forward to your people requesting them to e-mail prior to the workshop a one-page sample of their writing (and as well bring printed copies to the workshop for an instant makeover.) 

3. Pre-call
In addition, our experienced and qualified Facilitator will contact you by phone prior to the workshop to confirm logistics and what you'd like emphasised or focused on.

4. Video-based post-course coaching with bite-size, one or two-minute, quick web video. (Business Writing has 5 video tips.)


What do people say about our Business Writing workshop?


‘Often training sessions use theoretical concepts which may be interesting, but are rarely used in practice. In contrast I found the practical tools you demonstrated very relevant and I have used them in many report and business writing contexts, since your tools and ideas are simple and effective. Best of all, the workshop you ran was a lot of fun!’

 

Emma Whitehead, Program Coordinator, General Practice Queensland