How to Write Right for Better Business Communication and Effective Emails - Improving Your E-Communication Skills

First, good leaders walk the talk, but they also “write right”. They know how to say in a few words what needs to be said in crisp, clear language. The road to bad communication is paved with good intentions but poor construction. Readers know when subjects and verbs don’t agree, when punctuation misses the point, when words don’t fit, and content is confusing. In this session, learn how a few basic rules on grammar, punctuation, and usage can improve business written communications with clearer, more succinct content. Business writing is best when it is spare and clear, precise and concise. This session is designed to give practical and useful advice and tips on how to tighten up language and organize the content into a logical, convincing read. Attendees don’t have to be English majors or literature students. The aim is to improve the readability of your written words.

Second, Emails are a core business communication tool. The speed and volume of email have dramatically changed the business communication. The not-so-old standards for professional correspondence have changed and will continue to do so. Employees need to know the best strategies to communicate effectively. An effective business email is easily understood, but it is not so easily written. We have all received poorly written emails. These emails are unclear, ambiguous and often get ignored. They can cause confusion. They can also be detrimental to business if projects are impeded or if clients misinterpret information. Fortunately, this communication skill can be Improved with training, and the payoff is that these clearer emails improve business communication and productivity. 

This course will teach you how to write clearer emails to receive better responses. Well-written emails save time because they allow the recipient to clearly understand the task at hand and respond appropriately and promptly. Effective emails reduce confusion and improve productivity, and they are much faster to write than snail mail. This course will teach you the basics of effective email communication.

Good writing takes practice, and many schools have reduced the time spent on formal writing, especially practical grammar, proficient spelling, appropriate punctuation, logical development, etc. This course can’t fill that kind of educational vacuum, but it can help participants improve on the skills they do have.

• In this course you will learn:
  o How to write more focused, professional communications and emails
  o How to improve response rates to proposals and requests
  o How to write more concisely and succinctly in any medium
  
  

Email has emerged as a primary medium for internal as well as external contact with associates and clients, respectively, so the email guidance is especially valuable if you work on a team that uses email as a major communication tool, you are managing a group or division that communicates via email, your staff sends emails that are too vague, too dense, or too many, or you have a difficult time getting prompt responses to the emails you send.

Finally, this is a webinar useful to many areas of your organization—not just lenders and credit approvers, not just credit analysts and loan reviewers, but also auditors, loan administrators, marketing, retail, operations—anyone who has to explain or convince others that what they are saying makes sense.

Participants will learn how to:

• Eliminate puffy and ambiguous words and phrases and replace them with sharper, clearer alternatives
• Understand how to tighten writing into a more readable and understandable documentation by eliminating unnecessary, redundant, and superfluous words and phrases
• Build stronger, easy-to-understand explanations and recommendations with more focus on sequential, logical constructions—less is usually more
• Support these objectives with appropriate before-and-after examples
• Write consistent, professional, well formatted emails
• Increase email response rates with clearer, more focused email that improve productivity

• Techniques for writing clearly and concisely
• Clear writing
  o Specific words vs. generalities
  o Active vs. passive voice
• Unnecessary words & phrases
  o Doublets & redundancies
  o Wordy habit phrases
  o Wordy dependent clauses
  o Unneeded connecting words
  o Wordy “due to” explanations
• Techniques for writing well-organized, logical arguments
  o Introductions & summaries to integrated argument
  o Avoiding elevator analysis
  o Bringing order to facts, interpretations & evaluations
  o Making words count right
  o Some extra readability writing tips—rounding numbers, acronyms, “of” and parenthesis eradication
• Guidance on how to use key aspects of email to improve clarity and response rates
  o Addressing
  o Subject line
  o Message text
  o Signature line
  o Attachments
  o Style
  o Confidentiality and security
  o Managing e-mail volume
• When and when not to use email
• At the end of the session, participants will be able to:
  o Write consistent, professional, well formatted emails
  o Increase response rates with clearer, more focused email
  o Use email clarity to improve productivity

Anyone who writes internal memos, reports, analyses, etc. or communicates with individuals and entities external to the organization, e.g., clients, customers, vendors, regulators, etc.

• Credit Analysts, Credit Managers
• Loan review officers, Work-out officers
• Commercial lenders, Credit Risk Managers
• Chief Credit Officers, Senior Lenders
• Senior Lending Officer
• Bank Director, Chief Executive Officer
• President, Board Chairman
• Support functions in the organization
• Human resources
• Marketing, Branch staffs
• Accounting and finance
• Administrative staff members
• Call center employees