Originally published January 2, 2022

Writing is an important component of doing business. Whether you’re preparing financial reports for your partners, sales proposals for your customers, or shooting the shit over Slack, pretty much every job requires writing.

The thing with writing is you can’t take it back. Whatever you write is there forever, whether in a report, email, blog post, or Slack message.

That’s why it’s important to know what writing mistakes to avoid.

Writing isn’t a perfect art; however, there are several mistakes I commonly see people make in business communication.

Top 5 Communication Mistakes Business Owners Make

As a business owner, try to avoid these five common mistakes in business writing.

1. Not getting to the point

Academics love to take three pages to get to their thesis statement (ask me how I know).

In the real world, people are busy! If your point is sitting at the bottom of a four-paragraph email, you’ve just lost one reader (and potentially a client).

Introductions are great openers to set the right tone but keep them short and friendly. Be consistent with your message throughout the rest of your writing. You’ll earn your readers’ interest if your communication is simple, clear, and direct.

2. Making grammar errors, typos, punctuation mistakes

Contrary to popular belief, we PhDs aren’t necessarily grammar geniuses. I rely heavily on tools to help me catch grammatical errors and writing mistakes, and I am a firm believer in ending sentences with a preposition if it keeps a paragraph flowing.

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The problem is that poor grammar, typos, and punctuation mistakes don’t just make you look uninformed. They can lead to misunderstandings and sometimes even botched contracts or lawsuits.

So, it’s always a good idea to have a second set of eyes look over any important written communication you send.

3. Overusing jargon

The only time to use jargon is when you are addressing a highly targeted audience who understands the technical writing you’re using. For example, a physician might use jargon to explain a concept to other physicians.

When your audience gets broader, jargon gets more pointless.

It’s better to communicate with clear, everyday language that everybody understands when implementing your content marketing strategy.

Many examples of misused business jargon come from the startup world.

Founders like to use words that sound smart and trendy on the surface, but they are often vague.

To be more clear, you may want to say:

• “Come up with original ideas” instead of “think outside the box”

• “Cooperate” instead of “synergize”

• “Hardworking” instead of “results-oriented”

• “Significant change” instead of “paradigm shift”

• "Use” instead of “utilize”

• “Person with exceptional skills” instead of “rock star”

• “Now” instead of “at this point in time”

• “First” instead of “first and foremost”

• “Finally” or “lastly” instead of “last but not least”

4. Too much text

This one’s challenging. As we have noted, longer blog posts tend to get higher organic search traffic than shorter ones. But more content does not always mean better content. 

There’s an art to creating long-form articles. Too much text turns off readers, largely because of how that text is presented. Long words, complex sentences, and too many blocks of paragraphs add to the confusion. Presentation of written content plays a large role in content marketing.

Business owners, employees, colleagues, and customers don’t have time to pour over big chunks of text.

Adding white space to your writing makes it more readable and more relaxing to the eye. Break up long sentences and paragraphs to ease complexity. Appropriate use of bold text, bullets, numbered lists, and visuals can also catch the interest of your readers.

5. Disorganized ideas

Good business writing starts with good planning on both substance and form. Loading too many ideas into one long paragraph muddles content and confuses your audience.

Consider making an outline of the things you want to include. Discuss one idea in one paragraph at a time and organize your ideas in their order of importance. Next, format your writing in a logical order from the title to the conclusion so it’s all clean and neat when your readers scan it.

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Effective business writing establishes credibility and authority. You want to make sure you come across as a professional to earn the trust of your colleagues, clients, suppliers, and customers.

Depending on what type of writing you need, you might find that you’re too busy to handle it all on your own. If you’d rather have someone else do the writing for you, let’s talk.

People First Content can write blog posts, eBooks, and white papers based on your expertise. Contact us today to get started!

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