Here’s another installment in my continuing my series on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Communicators.

HABIT 2: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
Know what you want to say and what point you’re trying to make before you communicate it. Begin with the End in Mind means to make a conscious effort to visualize what you’re trying to communicate and how you’d like it to be received. It means spending time collecting your thoughts before communicating and envisioning the gist of your message.

How to incorporate it:
One of the best ways to do this is to create what I call “one sentence to clarity.” It means stepping back, either literally or figuratively, from the words to create a single-topic sentence that quickly, clearly and succinctly explains what you’re trying to communicate. Create a headline, if you will, that will help you keep your message and thoughts on track and, consequently, make it easier for your listener or reader to understand. For example, my one sentence to clarity for this blog post might be: “Give my readers practical steps for better communication based on Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits book.”

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Are you guilty or innocent of complicating your message and thereby making it less clear? Let’s find out.

Do you favor big words over small ones? If you say “utilize” instead of “use,” you’re guilty.

Have you created your own language by turning a noun into a verb? Really now, if you say “bulletize,” give yourself another guilty.

You’re guilty again if you craft sentences that rival those of Charles Dickens. Learn to self-edit (delete words and condense phrases) and to chop sentences into two or more thoughts.

Are you driven by your organization’s lexicon, throwing buzzwords and acronyms into every (or even a single) sentence? Guilty again. Save the jargon for emails to your boss. Instead, talk to your customers about what matters most to them in a way they (or even your own grandmother) can understand.

Post your worst sentences here and I’ll give a few of them a before-and-after makeover.

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This post inspired today’s topic.

So let’s get to it … What kind of writer are you?

Procrastinator: You do everything BUT write. Delay tactics are your specialty and writing is a chore and a bore. Solution? Chunk your writing time into smaller, more manageable segments; use a voice recorder to capture your thoughts instead of facing a blank document; and hire it out.

Perfectionist: You spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to find “just the right word.” You’ve never met a deadline (at least not without tearing your hair out) and you’re highly critical of yours and everyone else’s writing. Solution? Keep your high standards but temper them with realism; limit your rewrites to three; and ask an objective party to review your copy.

Free spirit: You love the written word and enjoy crafting amazing sentences. Trouble is you sometimes don’t get to the core message quick enough. Solution? Write a synopsis of the main message and keep it in front of you; read your copy through the lens of “How does this relate to the main message”; and start a personal blog as an outlet for all that creativity.

Rule follower: You pride yourself on knowing the correct placement of every dot and tiddle. End a sentence with a preposition? Never! Problem is your writing is difficult to read and perhaps too formal for your audience. Solution? Make a list of which rules you’ll never break and which rules you’ll agree to bend; videotape yourself in conversation and note how often the rules don’t apply; and become the go-to grammar guy or gal in the office (people will love you for worrying about such things on their behalf).

Bottom line? Your writing style is a lot like your natural hair texture: Stop fighting against it and start working with it. You don’t have to force a drastic change but you can learn how to mold and shape your writing style so that it’s less angst-ridden for you and more pleasing to your reader.

Other writing types? Share them here.

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So it’s Friday the 13th.

Now, I am not, in any way, superstitious, but I thought it might be fun to use this “holiday,” as it were, to address some copywriting superstitions.

According to Merriam-Webster.com, the word superstition means, “a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.”

Hmm. Great lead in because I always teach my coaching clients that great copywriting is not magic — but it is magical.

What I mean by that is that great copywriting doesn’t happen by accident. It does, however, differ from mediocre or bad copywriting in that it stirs something in the reader. Maybe that “something” is buying your product or maybe it’s thinking of your company in a new way or maybe it’s appreciating the value your services bring to the world. Whatever it is, great copywriting has an impact and that’s what makes it magical.

Now let’s get onto the superstitions. Okay, confession time. These aren’t really superstitions, they’re old, passé writing rules that you can let go of right now no matter what Mrs. English Teacher said or says. At least in the real world, when you’re not writing for a letter grade. Books have been written about new grammar rules and there are similar lists posted on dozens of other writing sites. I’m calling attention to the ones that I let go of a long time ago. And you’ll see evidence of it in my writing on client sites like the North Market and on my blog.

1. Never start a sentence with “and” or “but.”
2. Never end a sentence with a preposition like “to.”
3. Never use contractions.
4. Always write complete sentences and paragraphs.
5. Always put two spaces after a period.

The point of letting go of these antiquated rules is to get you to loosen up and write conversationally. All that formality is not only unnecessary; it clutters the core idea or message. And that, after all, is what your readers want to read.

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