Business writing is writing that means business.

Profound, isn’t it?

Business writing is writing with a serious intent. Like business itself, business writing by definition is not frivolous, random or personal. Like business, it is efficient, logical and intelligent.

But that doesn’t mean it has to be boring.

The pitfall of much business communication is that serious comes to mean deadly. Non-personal comes to mean biz-speak. Neutral language comes to mean dead clichés.

One of the fundamental rules of persuasive copywriting (outlined in fascinating detail in my book Maximum Strength Copywriting) is: always choose living language over dead language.

Vague, flabby, imprecise, clichéd language: OUT.

Fresh, crisp, unexpected, energy-charged language: IN.

Choose vibrant, living language, and utilize it cleanly and efficiently. Don’t waste words. Don’t even waste syllables.

Once that is established, your writing should follow the hierarchy of communication, because it is ingrained in the human psyche itself.

As I say in the book, if you happen to be Brad Pitt or George Clooney, you can ignore what I’m about to say, but if you happen to be anyone else, remember: it doesn’t work to go up to a strange woman on the street and ask her to go home with you. Sorry. What works is a sequence of stages by which the human nervous system, conditioned over millions of years of survival, survives. A clean introduction that immediately establishes affinity and context. Then, a logical flow of ideas. One of the most common flaws in flawed business communication is sloppy and repetitive flow.

Finally, get to where you’re going. Business is a process of objectives, and the reader of an effective business communication must be led along a logical path toward an objective. Know what you want the reader or readers to feel when they are finished.

Every word counts. Remember what the real estate men in Glengarry Glen Ross said: Always be closing. It means every word, every syllable should be charged with the mission of the overall piece, and reflect a conscious tone and point of view.

People sometimes become boring and generic in the business world so they won’t stand out and risk disfavor. And business writing sometimes reflects that process of the bland leading the bland.

But if you ever heard Jamie Dimon speak (Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan and a titan of the financial world) you will notice he isn’t particularly flowery or intellectual, and he speaks pretty much with the same Queens New York accent he was born into. But you hang on his every word because of its strength, clarity and commitment.

I encourage you to take to heart these truths I have only touched on, or get the book if you are inspired to read further. And then write business communications that will surprise people, not with their wackiness or colorfulness, but with their power, crispness, commitment and efficient energy.

By: Paul Wolfe