Are people not reading your emails? It might be time to turn them upside down. Here’s how you do that. At school we were taught to write with a nice introduction, then slowly build up to a big climax. That’s all very well, but as the old internet meme says, “Ain’t nobody got time for
Read more >

Look, I know you like to ensure your key messaging is going out exactly the way you crafted it, but if it’s annoying your clients, that’s counter-productive. Remember that communication isn’t just about what you say – it’s about what the receiver on the other end of the communication hears too. Scripting responses – whether
Read more >

No doubt you’ve heard of corporate storytelling, but what does that really mean? Well, it means to use story techniques in an organisation to deliver business outcomes – and it’s something that can transform your reports, emails, presentations and even more strategic documents. Why story techniques? Well, because stories are an ancient form of communication
Read more >

In the olden days, when I was in formal employment, starting at a new job was fairly simple. Someone showed you where to find your desk and computer, you filled in a form with your details for the personnel department, someone else showed you where to get stationery if you needed it, and you began
Read more >

Internal communication is often treated like Cinderella – banished below stairs to do the grunt work while external communication gets to go to the ball. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of people in companies, with the focus turning to the “human” in “human resources”, and with that comes a vital piece: how you communicate
Read more >

I spend a fair amount of time giving feedback on documents like company profiles and brochures, and the commonest mistake I see is a complete disregard for the hapless person who’s likely to receive it. Don’t get me wrong, they all look beautiful – big pictures, flashy headings, infographics, and stellar descriptions of the team,
Read more >

So, you’ve hired a writer straight from advertising school. They have all the right credentials, they show great promise, and you think you’ll start them off on the company blog. You set reasonable deadlines, you think – a blog a week – you give them some topic ideas and breif them, and send them off
Read more >

A lot of press releases come to me for review with this opening sentence: “Large Corporation X today announced that …” And here’s the thing: an announcement is not news. Companies announce things all the time. The thing you’re announcing? That’s the news. Take the announcement out of it. You save on words, and gain
Read more >

Do you want to hear my three top tips for shortening sentences? Oh, well, here they are anyway. 😉 1. Cut out irrelevant words and information. Be brutal. You don’t need those filler phrases, and you should only be communicating the most important information. 2. Break up long sentences into smaller parts. Learn to love
Read more >

I was recently asked to review a complex business proposal that contained – supposedly – an elevator pitch. It came with a plea for help – the writer was struggling to cut it down from a page and a half, to a page, and I had to explain, as kindly as possible, that there was
Read more >