by Sharon Ernst | Nov 25, 2024 | Business Writing Skills
Why are we so short on business writing skills anyway? Mark Twain supposedly said, “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” Obviously, he was being sarcastic because there’s a lot more to writing than crossing out the wrong words, right? But what? What are we missing? What do we not know? Well, it turns out there’s a lot we don’t know about writing…especially business writing. One study found 26.2% of employers think college graduates have deficient business writing skills—not weak but deficient. As for...
by Sharon Ernst | Nov 4, 2024 | Business Writing Skills
Let’s get to the point: Poor business writing skills are costing businesses billions of dollars. Businesses are paying this high price due to time wasted on many back-and-forth emails, brands damaged by careless content, poor communications that bog down projects, and more. Employees aren’t doing this on purpose! Employees want to be more effective and productive, but if they lack the skills, how can they? It’s in your best interests to help employees improve business writing skills. When you improve business writing skills The...
by Sharon Ernst | Sep 16, 2024 | Business Writing Skills
Writing with numbers, wait…what is this doing here??? This is a blog on business writing! Yes, it is a blog on business writing, but it is more so a blog on writing well, and that means being clear and concise so you can easily communicate your message when you’re writing with numbers. To be honest, it’s easy to get numbers wrong, and when that happens, our writing and therefore our message is affected. So let’s take a look at some rules for using numbers, plus some ways to make sure our writing is always clear, no matter how...
by Sharon Ernst | Sep 4, 2024 | Business Writing Skills
Originally published June 2020; updated February 2025 How does advice on how to write better paragraphs relate to COVID? Hang on. You’ll see. During the pandemic and people working from home, we all heard about the empty highways and lack of traffic. At my house, I probably heard more about it than most because my husband was commuting each day—and enjoying the easy drive. (He works in aircraft maintenance, so WFH was not an option.) As our stay-at-home order ended and people hit the road once more, my husband’s commute...
by Sharon Ernst | Jul 22, 2024 | Business Writing Skills
What’s the easiest writing tip ever? Don’t start with “we” or “I.” This makes me crazy in copywriting, because any time a marketing piece–be it an email, a web page, a print piece–starts with “we” or “I,” we’ve turned off the potential customer. Why? Because people only care about themselves, and that includes you and me, so I’m not dissin’ on anyone here. We are all only human. But, here’s the deal: This is also a turnoff in business...
by Sharon Ernst | Jun 20, 2024 | Business Writing Skills
Updated June 2024 Successful writing at work requires more than typing a lot of emails. It requires solid writing skills and a focus on clear and concise communications. And it’s harder than it sounds. In part, that’s because you might be lacking the three business writing skills no one taught you, as I’ve said before. But you’re also up against the culture of our time—a culture that worships busy-ness and task saturation. And you know what kind of work writing comes out of a culture like that? Sucky writing that wastes time and...
