YOUR IMAGE IN WRITING

YOUR IMAGE IN WRITING

What’s the big deal about perfection in your written communications?  Some business owners have obviously decided it doesn’t add much value to their business.  But they’re wrong, and whether they realize it or not, it’s costing them.

Customers and potential business associates use your writing as an indicator of several other traits that are important to your image.  First, as an indicator of how well educated you are.  How much do you know?  If your website or your letter shows that you don’t know the difference between “their” and “there,” your reader will begin to wonder what else you don’t know.  Education isn’t the same thing as intelligence, but outward evidence of a lack of education in one basic skill calls your intelligence – and your competence – into question.  Unless English isn’t your native language, you’ve been speaking and writing it all your life.  So why can’t you do it flawlessly?

Second, your writing is an indicator of how careful (using proper attention to detail) or careless (uncaring) you are.  If you don’t take the trouble to write without glaring errors, what else don’t you care enough to do well?

These judgments may not be fair.  Natural ability with language varies as greatly as natural ability with math.  Some people have much more, and some people have much less.  But like other indicators of professionalism, whether your customers have it or not, they recognize it when they see it.  Your ability with words reflects on you and your message just as much as your personal appearance.  If your message isn’t written well, it’s as though you were talking to someone with a big stain on your shirt.  You may have a great message, but all your listener can think about is how sloppy you look.

Perfection in writing is one more way to raise your audience’s comfort with you and confidence in your ability to deliver what you promise.  It’s just one element in lowering resistance to your message and making people receptive to what you have to say, but it’s an important element.  If it’s not a skill you have, or if using other skills is a better use of your time, there are people like me who not only write well, but enjoy the job.  Don’t neglect this part of your image.  There’s no reason not to look – and sound – your best.