The only business writing book you’ll ever need - Laura Brown, Rich Karlgaard 2019
Promoting your business and yourself
Types of business writing
Web Copy
Your company’s website is its public face and voice and one of its most powerful tools for sales, marketing, and public relations. Site visitors aren’t always aware when they’re reading good copy, but they recognize bad copy right away. It’s well worth the investment of time and energy to make sure your web copy represents your brand in the best possible way.
NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR PURPOSE
No matter what kind of business you have, your website is promoting your company, its products and services, its people, and its reputation. Even if you’re not explicitly selling on the site, remember that everything on there creates an impression, and put your best foot forward.
UNDERSTAND YOUR READERS
Of course, you won’t know exactly who’s visiting your website, but it’s worthwhile making the effort to understand the types of readers who will be reading your web copy. Who is your target customer or client?
Marketers often create “personas” of their target customers. A persona is a composite portrait of an individual with the characteristics—including sex, age, race, income, education level, family relationships, goals, desires, and other qualities—of the type of person who might be interested in your product or service. Marketers will typically create several personas to represent the target customers of a product or service. When you come up with your own range of personas, give them names.
Once you’ve constructed a persona, you can use what you know about that individual to write web copy that will appeal to them by addressing their needs, concerns, and interests. What will they be looking for when they visit your site? What will they expect to find? What questions will they have? Your site must address your readers’ needs and expectations. As you build the different sections of your site, keep these questions at the front of your mind.
PUT THE IMPORTANT STUFF UP FRONT
The beginnings of web pages are especially important. Research has shown that web users typically read no more than 20 percent of the copy on any given page.##
Take a minute to think about how you interact with web pages. Chances are that when you’re shopping for a product or service, you’ll visit several sites during your search. If you don’t see what you’re looking for at the top of a page, you’ll probably give up and move on to the next option. So when you’re writing copy for your own site, your most important content should go “above the fold”—that is, in the area of the design at the top of the page.
THINK VISUALLY
Think visually when you’re writing your web copy, and remember that less is often more. The eye tends to “bounce” off big blocks of text. So to help ensure that your copy will be read, use short sentences, chunk them into short paragraphs, and consider using bullet points to make the content easier to scan. Your copy should accommodate plenty of open space on the page. The copy should work harmoniously with the other graphic elements to create a pleasant user experience.
GET YOUR CONTENT RIGHT
People tend to include too much information on websites, especially people creating sites for small businesses. It’s tempting to describe all the features and benefits of your product or service in great detail, but that might be too much for your reader. Your litmus test for content should be “Does it matter to my customer?” That’s the content you want to include. Resist the temptation to add more content, even if it’s something you’re proud of or excited about personally. Don’t drown your visitors in excess copy on the page. Every section of your website should be organized around how you can help your customers.
Consider including a call to action on some or all of your pages, encouraging site visitors to contact you or place an order and making it easy for them to do so.
While we’re talking about content, we also need to explore how you can use copy to drive visitors to your site. The web is evolving quickly, and you should stay up-to-date on the latest ways search engines locate the terms people search for and direct users to sites. Learn about key words and SEO (search engine optimization). If you’re building a site on WordPress or a similar platform, there might be built-in tools you can use to make your site more attractive to searchers; learn about those and take full advantage of them.
ASK TESTERS TO REVIEW YOUR COPY BEFORE YOU FINALIZE IT
In most circumstances, it’s pretty easy to change web copy once it’s live, so it’s not the end of the world if you go live with content that isn’t perfect. But web copy is the kind of thing you tend to forget about—and, honestly, you want to be able to forget about it. You want to be confident in the copy you have on your site so you can move on to more important things. So be sure to review the copy once it’s on the site, to give yourself a better idea of the experience your users will have.
It’s also a good idea to ask a few colleagues or friends to review the site; then you can use their feedback to make improvements. Make sure you let them know specifically what you want feedback on. If you’re looking for their reactions to the copy, tell them that. If you vaguely ask them, “What do you think?,” you’re likely to get random feedback on fonts, colors, images, and so forth. Direct their attention so they can be as helpful as possible.
Blogs
Whether you’re running a small business or working for a big one, your business blog can help you maintain contact with current customers and attract new ones. Regular blogging can increase traffic to your web site, and integrating your blog with social media can help you build an online community around your business and your area of expertise.
YOUR PURPOSE IS TO SERVE YOUR AUDIENCE
It’s important to pinpoint a purpose for your blog. The risk of not doing so is that your content will be unfocused and you’ll end up writing too much that provides too little of value to your readers. Understanding your readers is key to defining your purpose. Here’s a useful sentence to fill in as you think about the purpose of your blog: “My blog serves my readers by _________________.” The answer might be “supplying cutting-edge information about my field” or “providing tools and techniques clients can use.” If you keep the focus on serving customers or readers, you’re less likely to blather on about topics that are interesting to you but not to your customers.
Having a blog gives you the chance to show off your expertise. Make sure your content is valuable to your readers. People will read your blog as long as they find the content valuable. If they don’t, they will move on.
One way to keep readers engaged is to provide variety. It can be hard to find solid subject matter if you’re blogging every week. Keep your core focus, but consider writing some posts about complementary topics, for a change of pace. If you’re a real estate agent, you can offer tips on renovation or landscaping. If you’re a chiropractor, you can discuss nutrition. Consider inviting guest bloggers who are experts in adjacent fields to contribute a blog post now and then (and ask if you can reciprocate, thereby introducing your business and your expertise to their readers).
THE HOOK MATTERS
Think about the last time you read a blog post. Did you read through to the end? Chances are good that you didn’t, unless it was a particularly interesting article. Attention spans are short, so you need to ensure that your post starts with an engaging hook that grabs your readers’ interest. Once you have your readers’ attention, motivate them to read on by front-loading your most important content. Don’t save your most critical points for last, or your readers might miss them.
BE CONCISE
Readers sometimes give up on blog posts because there’s too much content or there’s too much low-quality content. Experts differ on how long the ideal blog post should be, and recommendations about length have changed over time. It’s worthwhile doing some research on what works best in terms of length, but it’s always a good practice to go through your early drafts and cut out anything that seems superfluous or less engaging than the rest of the content. Your blog post should be long enough to offer useful insights to your readers, but it shouldn’t go on longer than it needs to.
MAINTAINING YOUR BLOG
Blog regularly. You don’t have to blog every week—that can be a hard pace to maintain—but do pick a regular interval and stick to it. Readers will get discouraged if they come back to your blog and find nothing new.
Share your blog posts on social media. Promoting your blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn can draw new audiences. You might also want to include a sign-up form on your website so you can e-mail your list, announcing when a new blog post is up.
Consider whether you want to allow comments on your blog. This can be a good way to engage with readers, make connections, and provide even more content to your followers by answering questions. It also means that you’ll need to monitor the comments regularly, to get rid of spam posts and moderate any arguments that might flare up. You’ll need to assess whether you have the time and if it’s worth your energy.
Once you’ve launched your blog, don’t abandon it. A blog with only a few old posts looks dismal. If you find that you can’t maintain a regular blog, think about hiding it or archiving the old posts. You can always reactivate the page if you decide to start blogging again.
Social Media
Various forms of social media offer businesses of all sizes the opportunity to connect with customers and potential customers in an entertaining and enriching way. Learning to use social media gives you the chance to provide value to customers between transactions and can help ensure that your customers don’t forget you.
Creating Content for Your Website or Blog
Rieva Lesonsky
Content marketing is currently being buzzed about—and for good reason. It’s a fast-growing and proven component of marketing plans for small businesses. But since most small business owners didn’t major in English or journalism, they can find creating content challenging.
First, it’s important to know what makes content effective. Your three top goals should be:
1.Your content needs to be relevant to your market.
2.It should be designed to elicit a response from readers.
3.It should be engaging and interesting.
Next, you need to create a content marketing plan. Components of that plan include:
Defining your goals. Do you want to get leads? Increase brand awareness? Establish your expertise? Educate your market? Drive traffic to your site or store? Inspire your audience?
Understanding your audience. What do they want or need to know? To buy? What types of content do they want?
Picking a voice that will be consistent across your brand. That voice needs to be authentic—and targeted to your potential and current customers and clients.
Establishing some parameters: How often will you post? What’s your budget? Who’s responsible for the various tasks?
If your site already has content on it, it’s important to review, revise, and update it periodically. Many experts recommend that you add new content to your site at least twice a week. Don’t panic; here are some ideas about how you can generate content and still have time to run your business:
Feature a customer of the week or month. Create a template of five to ten questions and e-mail the list to your customers. Make sure you edit the respondents’ grammar before you post their comments.
Post lists, checklists, or tips. These shouldn’t be too long; people don’t have time to read through dozens of tips.
Advertise special offers or promotions.
Turn your FAQs into blog posts.
Use guest bloggers.
Publish product reviews.
Hire freelancers—if you have the budget.
Repurpose content: turn blogs into white papers, e-books, podcasts, and videos.
Run e-mail interviews with relevant people in your industry.
Educate customers with “how-to” articles.
Draw on your business’s expertise—for example, if you own a food-related business, spotlight recipes.
Two final tips:
1.Use photos, charts, and graphics. Blogs, articles, and social media posts with images get far more views than text-only posts.
2.Don’t forget to include a call to action. People need to be told what you want them to do.
And finally, if you’re wondering if all this is worth it—the answer is yes. According to TechClient.com, websites with a blog have 434 percent more indexed pages.*** That means higher rankings in the search engines.
Rieva Lesonsky is a cofounder and the CEO of GrowBiz Media, a custom content-creation company focusing on small businesses and entrepreneurship, and a co-owner of the blog SmallBizDaily.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT PLATFORM(S) FOR YOUR BRAND
There are lots of social media platforms, of course, and each one has a unique personality. Before you take the plunge, do some research to decide which platform or platforms are best for your brand. Consider things like your target demographic and the kind of content you want to share. As I write these words, Twitter has a better reach among young people and African-Americans and Latinos; Facebook has more market penetration with seniors and women. Twitter is better for viral trends, while Facebook is better for building deeper relationships.††† But things change fast, and it’s important for you to find the most up-to-date information. Not every business needs to be on every platform, and you should make your social media decisions based on the latest information. There will be more entrants to the social media space as time goes by, and some will probably die off, but as long as you do your research, you’ll be able to target your activity appropriately.
YOUR PURPOSE IS TO SERVE YOUR CUSTOMERS
Regardless of the platforms you participate in, your objective in using social media is to provide value for your customers and potential customers.
How can you serve them? What will keep them informed, entertained, and engaged? Concentrate on providing value for them rather than just selling to them. If readers see nothing but selling in your posts, they’ll stop following you fast. Focus on what you can give them rather than what you can sell them.
Be careful to keep the content of your social media posts relevant to your business. Posting about personal concerns or politics can alienate customers. An exception is posting about political issues that are directly connected to your business—for example, if you’re an accountant, it makes sense to share information about proposed changes to the tax code. Be careful, though, about asking your customers to sign petitions, write letters, and so on. Some might not appreciate being asked to advocate for a political position.
COMMIT TO IT
Launching and maintaining a successful social media presence requires a commitment. It goes without saying that there’s a lot of competition online. Nothing looks worse for a business than a halfhearted effort at social media engagement or an abandoned social media account. If you’re going to do it, you’ll need a strategy that identifies your objectives for social media, and you’ll need someone to do the work consistently. Post frequently. You can’t disappear.
Obviously, large companies have the resources to have employees dedicated to promoting and maintaining their social media presence. Smaller companies have some more difficult decisions to make. Who is going to post, how often will they post, what kind of content will they post? And what happens when customers or others react? Who handles the ongoing interactions? These are questions you should answer before you launch your social media presence.
Facebook is a place where people go to connect with friends and family, and it’s a great environment in which to build a community around your organization or brand.
Keep your updates brief, one to three sentences. People browse Facebook until they find things they want to explore more deeply. They don’t want to read a lot of text. Share photos and other images. Text-only updates have much lower engagement than updates with images.
Use a conversational, friendly tone. In keeping with Facebook’s community spirit, your updates should be warm and conversational.
Use a consistent voice across all your status updates, and express your brand personality.
Post questions that encourage people to interact. Ask people what they think; ask them to share stories.
Offer content that’s really useful to your customers, and do it frequently. For example, a gardening page could post seasonal tips. An accountant could offer general tax tips. A financial services firm could highlight information about preventing identity theft. If you do this regularly, readers will think of your Facebook page as a useful source of information.
Share updates from other businesses that provide goods or services that might be interesting to your customers.
Follow up on readers’ comments on your updates. Answer questions that people ask and respond to comments. You’re the voice of this community, so engage.
Learn about Facebook’s metrics and keep up with policy changes. Facebook, like all social media outlets, is evolving. Educate yourself about the metrics Facebook uses to determine how much visibility status updates get, and keep up with any changes in these algorithms. A quick Google search can help you become better informed and ensure that more people see your posts.
Twitter is fast-paced and trend-driven. Tweets are typically short—and they fly by fast. Think of tweets like headlines: the point is to convey information quickly and, possibly, to motivate the reader to click on a link.
Read a lot of tweets. If you’re just beginning to tweet for your business, it can take a while to get the hang of writing an effective tweet. Read other companies’ tweets. Pay attention to their styles, and develop a distinctive voice for your own brand.
Tweet regularly. Tweeting only sporadically makes it hard to develop a presence and attract followers.
Share content that’s useful to your customers and potential customers. Retweet interesting content from other businesses. Think about what might interest your followers, and be creative.
Learn to use hashtags to make your content searchable. Check Twitter’s support center for more information about using hashtags effectively.
Respond to replies, and thank people for retweets. Twitter is all about active engagement.
LinkedIn is the platform for business leadership. Individuals use LinkedIn extensively for networking and job seeking, but organizations can also use LinkedIn to connect with potential customers and expand their influence.
Think about your goals for LinkedIn as you begin to develop your presence there. There’s a lot going on, and it’s easy to get distracted. Are you looking for new customers, promoting a product, seeking partners, searching for employees? Keep your goal in mind as you craft your LinkedIn presence.
LinkedIn has extensive support to help you achieve your goals, so explore the LinkedIn Help pages to be sure you’re making the most of the platform.
Create a company page on LinkedIn. It’s free, and you can customize it with your logo and a cover image.
Craft your company description carefully. You have limited space in the template, so focus on what’s really important to your customers and clients.
A complete company profile includes bios of company leaders, career pages where you advertise job openings and share information about company culture, and testimonials from your employees. LinkedIn offers useful articles to help you target these pages more effectively for your customer base.
As with all forms of social media, you must commit to using LinkedIn and assign someone to keep your LinkedIn presence current with regular updates. These can be company news, or you can share thought leadership articles from other sources, or you can have someone blog on LinkedIn.
Find followers. A good place to start is with your own people. Ask all your employees to add your company to their personal profiles, and request that they engage with your content by sharing and commenting so that others will see it.
Consider using sponsored content to extend your reach. Sponsored content allows you to pay to promote company updates to targeted audiences on LinkedIn.
Press Releases
Is your business launching a new product, service, or initiative? Branching out into a new area of business? Have you made an important new hire? You’ll want to write a press release to announce the news to the media.
WHAT (AND WHO) A PRESS RELEASE IS FOR
The purpose of a press release is to attract media coverage about news that’s important to your organization. Press releases are written to provide content for professional journalists, with the hope that they will choose to write a story about the news.
If you’re able to send your press release to a specific journalist, rather than just news organizations, you’ll have better luck placing your story. Try to find names of journalists who might be interested in your story.
THINK LIKE A JOURNALIST
Your readers are professional journalists, so you’ll need to think like a journalist to make your press release attractive to them. The easier you make it for your readers, the better your chances that they will pick up your news and help disseminate it into the world.
If your press release is successful, journalists may use it as a kind of first draft of their own stories. If you’ve ever seen multiple articles about the same thing that were written with much of the same language, it’s because those writers were all working from the same press release and relying on it as basis for their own stories. Sometimes journalists will even use the press release as the story, making very few changes. For this reason, you need to think like a journalist when you write your press release, and style it like a news story. Write the article you’d like to see in the news, with complete information. You can make it easier for journalists to pick up the story if you provide them with clean, clear copy, with short sentences and simple vocabulary. Unless you’re targeting the press for a specific industry, try to avoid technical jargon. If you must use technical vocabulary, be sure to provide straightforward definitions that the average reader can understand.
START STRONG
Part of writing like a journalist is constructing a strong opening, with your most important information in your first paragraph. Imagine that your readers will read only the first paragraph of the press release and no more—make sure they can get the main points of the story. Your first paragraph should answer the journalist’s questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
Writing like a journalist also means using an “inverted pyramid” structure: the broadest, most general information goes at the beginning of the press release, and the information becomes more specific and detailed as you go along. Put the most important information at the beginning, so that if readers stop reading they will not have missed anything critical.
MAKE SURE YOUR NEWS IS NEWSWORTHY (AND WRITE IT AS NEWS)
Why should anyone care about your news? If you work for a large organization, things like high-level hires, new products, and market entries will be of interest to the business press. If you run a small business, it can be more challenging to show that your business is newsworthy. As you plan your press release, think from the point of view of the end reader—someone in the community who would like to know about your new day-care business, accounting firm, or yoga studio, for example. What’s newsworthy or remarkable about it? Even if your business is just filling a gap in the community, it might be considered newsworthy.
You may be hoping that the press release will attract attention to your business, but your press release should be written as news, not as promotional copy. Focus on the facts, on telling the story. Don’t slip into selling, and don’t use emotional language or make claims that are not factual.
USE THE STANDARD FORMAT
A press release should follow a traditional, standard format. If you want journalists to take you seriously, make sure your press release appears in this format:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (or specify the release date)
Contact person and full contact information
Headline
City, state (or country), date
First paragraph: present the essence of the message, including the answers to who, what, when, where, why, and how?
Middle paragraphs: these should be brief and easy to scan.
Bottom of here (if the press release continues onto a second page): type -more- (the word “more” flanked by hyphens).
Top of the next page: abbreviated headline
Here: the remainder of the text
Restate your contact information after the last paragraph.
End of the press release: use the symbol # # # to indicate that the press release is finished.
FIX IT BEFORE YOU SEND IT
You’re wise to go through several drafts of a press release, especially if you are not experienced in writing them. Your first drafts will likely be too long and unfocused. As you revise, make sure you’re providing only the most essential information about the news item. Limit yourself to two pages: the longer you go on, the less of your readers’ attention you’ll have, so be sure your press release is tight and engaging. And always provide your contact information, so that readers can reach you if they want to receive additional information.
For sample press releases and a template you can use, visit me at www.howtowriteanything.com.
Speeches
By some accounts, roughly 25 percent of Americans fear public speaking. Luckily, good preparation can build your confidence and help make your speech a great experience for yourself and your audience. You can relieve a lot of the worry about giving a speech by taking an analytical approach to it.
LET YOUR PURPOSE GUIDE YOU
What’s the purpose for your speech? Do you want to inspire, educate, persuade, entertain, or some combination of these? Have the event organizers given you any guidance about what they want from your speech? Decide on an objective for your speech, and let that objective guide the way you develop it. If you get sidetracked as you write your speech, come back and ask yourself, “What’s my objective?”
UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS AND EXPECTS
Your audience for a speech is, obviously, composed of listeners rather than readers. That knowledge will guide the way you write your speech, but it won’t change the way you analyze your audience. How much do you know about them? You should feel free to consult the organizer if you’re not sure who you’ll be speaking to. What do they think and believe? What will they expect from you? What topic would most engage them? Try putting yourself in the shoes of your audience members and imagine listening to the speech you have planned. How can you best serve their needs?
It can help to imagine a model listener, a specific person in the audience. Who is she? What does she know about the topic? What does she care about? What can you share with her that will interest her? Imagining a single listener can be easier than writing a speech for a crowd.
START STRONG AND SPECIFIC
A speech needs a strong opening to grab the attention of the audience. Starting with a joke is a time-honored tradition. Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea. If you do decide to start with a joke, make sure it’s one that this particular audience will enjoy.
A joke works because it’s a kind of icebreaker. Other, more substantive, types of openings include anecdotes, quotations, and problem statements. The rest of your speech should follow naturally from your opening—showing how the anecdote is relevant, expanding on the message of the quotation, or exploring how to solve the problem. Your objective is to hook your audience and make them interested in listening to your speech.
CONTENT
It goes without saying that the topic of your speech should be something that will appeal to your listeners. If you have doubts, consider contacting the event organizer with a few different possible topics and asking for her opinion on which one would be best. Everyone involved in the event wants your speech to succeed, so you can count on getting good advice from the organizer.
Once you’ve selected a topic, you need to decide on the scope. Remember that people will be listening rather than reading, so limiting the scope of your treatment and keeping your approach fairly simple is a good idea. Don’t feel you need to give a complete or comprehensive treatment of the topic. Rather than present an exhaustive account of something, choose a particularly interesting angle and explore it. Plan to talk about no more than three main points in your speech. In general, you can demand more in the way of attention from readers than you can from listeners.
You’re wise to write out your entire speech, even if you think you might be inclined to go off-script a little bit during the delivery. Writing it all out will force you to decide exactly what you want to say, in what degree of depth. It’s also a great way of calming your nerves. Standing up and winging it can be unnerving, especially if you’re not used to it, so having the whole text in front of you can boost your confidence. (Make sure you print it out or display it on your tablet in a larger font than normal; you don’t want to be squinting to make out what you’ve written.)
As you draft, keep in mind that the average speech proceeds at about 120 words per minute. Use this to gauge length. Expect to go through several drafts. It’s wise to ask a colleague or friend to read a draft of your speech or—even better—to listen to you practice and give you feedback on your presentation. As you rehearse, you’ll find areas you want to revise—for instance, language that looks fine on the page but doesn’t sound right spoken aloud or is difficult to articulate. You might find that the rhythm doesn’t feel right and that you want to vary the length of your sentences. You might also find missing content, or that your speech is too long. Don’t wait till the last minute to start this process of practicing and polishing—give yourself plenty of time.
The Art of the Anecdote
Rachel Christmas Derrick
I had been nodding off in my high school library when I finally turned to the book we had just been assigned on the Chinese Revolution of 1949. Annoyed at the length of this big fat volume, I reluctantly began to read. Suddenly, I was watching a woman gather her two children and whatever belongings she could snatch up as she raced from her home, pulling her stumbling toddlers with her, knowing she could never return. I was hearing the battling thoughts of a man as he alternated between hope for a better life and the terror of the unknown.
This thick book turned out to be one of the most captivating and memorable I ever read. By putting faces on specific events during that tumultuous historic period, the author enabled me to digest and more easily remember the extremely complex sociopolitical issues of the time.
Even in business writing, storytelling can mean the difference between engaging a reader and inducing yawns. The art of the anecdote—a brief, humanizing tale to illustrate or underscore a point—is worth mastering.
No matter what business you’re in, the ultimate goal is to have some kind of impact on human beings. First, consider your endgame: (1) Who is your audience? and (2) What, exactly, do you want them to do, think, or feel as a result of reading what you write? Then find a human-focused story (perhaps to start your piece with) that steers readers toward your objective by bringing your main point to life.
And by “human-focused,” I don’t mean that your anecdote has to be about people, necessarily. But whether it’s a tale of a dog that eats only your company’s gourmet treats or a derelict house that was finally renovated thanks to your firm’s investment advice, the story will be most powerful if it shows (instead of telling readers about) an impact on human lives, either direct or indirect.
Can’t think of a good real-life example? Poetic license allows you to make one up—drawing on legitimate experiences, of course. For instance, when I started reading that book on the Chinese Revolution, I was actually at home, not in my high school library. I was able to get to my point faster, however, by using fewer words; “high school library” worked more efficiently than saying that I was at my desk at home, then explaining that I was a high school student at the time. As long as you don’t claim it actually happened, you can even use a composite experience, such as a story about a woman in Nebraska who “looks out her window and sees . . .” instead of writing, “My neighbor looked out her window and saw. . . .” Bottom line: think of an anecdote that will engage your particular audience right away. Your readers will then be open to the rest of what you want to tell them.
Rachel Christmas Derrick is a freelance writer and the director of communication and fund-raising at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, an affordable-housing nonprofit.
As you write, clearly mark the transitions for your listeners. If a reader loses the train of your argument, he can go back and reread; a listener doesn’t have this luxury. Offer brief summaries as you go along, and clearly state when you’re shifting perspectives. If you’re talking about events in the past, make sure your listeners will understand where they are on your timeline. Let your readers know when you’re wrapping things up. It can be very jarring to hear a speech that ends in a way that feels abrupt. A little “hand-holding” for your listeners throughout the speech can improve their experience markedly.
Speaking of conclusions: put some extra effort into finishing with a punch. Provide a conclusion that the audience will remember—sum up your points, end with a compelling story, or do something else to tie a nice bow on your speech. Leave the audience nodding in agreement or smiling.
Finally, make sure that the length of the final (and rehearsed) speech falls within the time guidelines you’ve been given. Don’t exceed your time limit—plan to come in slightly under it. Don’t cheat and try to sneak in a few more points. You’re better off leaving your audience wishing for more, not wishing you’d go away.
Bios
A business bio tells, briefly, the story of your career. It’s not meant to be comprehensive. Rather, it highlights the most important events of your career and explains a bit about how you got where you are and what value you offer. Bios are used for different purposes—on company websites and pitch documents, to introduce you as a speaker or presenter, and for other business-related events.
If you’re having trouble getting started, consider if there’s someone you can ask for a few samples to use as models. Bios on company websites often follow a standard format. LinkedIn is also a good source of bios you can use for inspiration.
CONSIDER YOUR PURPOSE
The objective of a bio is to tell your story, not to provide an exhaustive account of all your activities. Depending on the purpose of the bio, the story you tell might be one of the following:
“I have a lot of experience doing the kind of thing you need done. You can feel confident about recruiting or hiring me.”
“I’m an expert on this topic; you’ll enjoy hearing what I have to say or getting my advice.”
“My accomplishments are impressive. I’ll be an asset to any company that hires or retains me.”
Many businesspeople keep several different versions of their bio available, tailored for different uses.
GET YOUR CONTENT RIGHT
The purpose of the bio will guide the content you include. Think about who will be reading the bio, what they might be expecting to see, and what will make an impression on them. Bios for company websites and pitch decks should highlight your experience solving the kinds of problems your customers want solved. Bios for speaking engagements and charity events can range more widely and can include your philanthropic activities. Your profile summary on LinkedIn should be personally engaging and position you for your next role. You should mention key positions at companies where you’ve worked. You can also highlight particular projects you’ve worked on and the results you’ve achieved on those projects.
Think about the arc of your career as you brainstorm for your bio. What were the major turning points in your career? What values and interests drove some of the decisions you made? How do all the parts add up to the current whole? Remember that a bio is not a résumé in prose format. It’s a synthesis of the experiences and achievements that make you unique.
Don’t rely on impressive-sounding client lists to take the place of an in-depth bio. Remember, your bio is meant to tell your story, so use the opportunity not just to list facts and figures but also to show what makes you a particularly valuable individual.
Honor any obligations to confidentiality you may have as you write your bio. You might not be at liberty to talk about certain deals or particular customers or clients. However, you might be able to discuss the experience if you keep the focus on your role and your achievements.
It’s conventional to write your bio in the third person, as though you were writing about someone else. Use an objective tone, and stick to the facts. Some bios can be written in the first person—for example, for an entrepreneur’s website or for a LinkedIn profile summary.
POLISH BEFORE YOU FINALIZE
Your first draft will probably be too long. It can take a few drafts for you to streamline the story of your career. Keep your bio brief—one page or less. The more senior you become, the more challenging it will be to restrict yourself to this length. Always ask yourself what’s really important about the arc of your career and the development of your interests, and avoid getting bogged down in details.
KEEP IT UPDATED
The world changes fast, and your bio should keep up. It’s a good idea to have an updated bio and résumé on hand in case an opportunity pops up unexpectedly. Whenever you change jobs, get a promotion, or achieve a notable goal at work, you should update your résumé, bio, and LinkedIn profile.
SAMPLE BIO
Below is a sample bio, the sort a businessperson might post on the company website.
Maxwell Senna leads Selpat’s Rotary Division in China and has a deep passion for serving clients in the industrial sectors in Asia and Australia.
He has worked with some of Asia’s leading manufacturers in operational transformations and has been an adviser to many governmental commissions on manufacturing efficiency and standards. Outside his client work, Maxwell is a founder of Forum for Innovation, a platform that combines business, academia, and government to drive dialogue and develop concrete proposals for sustainable and eco-friendly manufacturing processes. He also serves on the board of ETICA, a nonprofit that encourages girls to explore careers in engineering, and on the board of one of Shanghai’s leading independent schools.
Maxwell joined Selpat in 2004. Prior to joining Selpat, he worked at DBH Industries as a senior engineer in South America and China.