Mish Slade - May I Have Your Attention, Please? Your Guide to Business Writing That Charms, Captivates and Converts

Copyright Mish Slade 2016

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

BUSINESS WRITING BOOTCAMP JOIN FOR FREE!

Sign up here: yourattentionplease.co/bootcamp

Business Writing Bootcamp is a six-part email series that helps you put everything in this book into action. It contains activities, exercises and tips galore and itll help you write captivating, enticing and profit-generating text in double-quick time!

What youll get:

• Six detailed, example-filled emails from me over the course of a few weeks.
• Five downloadable activity sheets and templates, to help you practice (each one containing heaps of advice and ideas).
• Deconstructions of excellent business writing to see what works.
• Quick tips, tricks and hacks that I use when writing for businesses.
• Personal help from me along the way.

Sign up for my FREE Business Writing Bootcamp here: yourattentionplease.co/bootcamp

Something strange happens when people put finger to keyboard: they panic, give their personality the night off, then start to use words theyd never use in real life. By the time theyve finished typing, it often looks like their sentences have been computed by a faulty robot.

This isnt too much of a big deal when its just your dad emailing from vacation (The weather is nice and we are having a nice time and I like utilizing the sun loungers. It is now dinner), because you know your dad, and you can imagine what hed actually be saying if you were face to face. But what about when its not your dads emails youre trying to reinterpret or reimagine what about when its the website text or brochure of a company youre thinking of using?

Or scary-thought alert: what if its YOUR website or brochure text that lacks personality, imagination, or any semblance of humanness?

Your readers wont (I hope) all be friends and family who know how great you are and how valuable your service is. Your readers will be your prospective customers people who dont know you and have no reason to stay on your page unless you make it compelling, entertaining and useful.

Most businesses get this horrendously wrong because they dont consider what readers want to get out of the experience. Instead, they focus on trying to sound professional, experienced or knowledgeable and it almost always backfires. They leverage this, synergize that, and offer integrated, innovative solutions for just about everything else. They use words that no one ever says out loud, come across as stiff and wooden in the process, and have a remarkable knack for saying nothing of interest about anything least of all what they can do for their customers.

And thats a shame, because those businesses often have fantastic stuff to sell.

Why do they get it so wrong? There are many reasons (and I touch on them throughout this book), but the most damaging of all is that they forget theyre selling to people. Whether those people are individual consumers or buying on behalf of their company, it doesnt matter: their emotions and feelings will always play a part in their decision making. Your job as a business owner is to make the buying decision easy for them.

Its about communicating what you do, what you stand for, and why youre the only choice for them. It wont be easy, but itll be worth it: your text can become your very best salesperson, working 24/7 to convince readers to become your next customers.

Once youve crafted the sort of copy that makes people reflexively reach for their credit cards, everything becomes easier. For one thing, you get to charge higher prices. A big reason so many businesses compete on price is because they cant prove what value they offer, so theyre stuck with the one selling point thats a breeze to communicate: cheapness. If you pride yourself on the quality of your service or product, its no damn fun to run a business where people only buy from you because youre less expensive than your competitors.

This book will give you the means to charge those higher prices. Youll learn how to write in a way thats lively and full of personality. How to cut the crap and stand out from the competition. How to make your readers recognize your brilliance and trust you implicitly. And how to have an unlikely amount of fun with words.

Ready to get started? All you need is an understanding of what your business is about, a willingness to do things a bit differently, and a teensy bit of patience (to help get you through a couple of my frustrated outbursts I promise they dont last long). You dont need to be a writer, and I dont expect you to have any detailed knowledge of English grammar.

Here goes!

Mish (mish@mortifiedcow.com)

p.s. Sign up to my FREE Business Writing Bootcamp, and put everything from this book into practice: yourattentionplease.co/bootcamp

SHOW WHAT YOU STAND FOR

People dont buy what you do; they buy why you do it. Simon Sinek

The reason I own a Mac isnt because I think its better than a PC (although it is, but thats a debate for another day). My preference for Warby Parker glasses isnt because theyre higher quality than other brands and theyre definitely not the cheapest. My Tom Bihn backpack is one of the best-designed, most durable items Ive ever bought but it cost a fortune and Im sure there are plenty of less expensive alternatives that are just as good.

I didnt just choose those products because I think theyre great I chose them (even if only on a subconscious level) because of what I think they say about me and how I want to be perceived by others. I chose them because each of those brands stands for more than just the product they create.

We all do it, and not just for personal items: in all areas of life, we like to buy and use products and services that extend our self-identity. In choosing one company over another, were choosing to say something about ourselves and what we stand for and thats because were buying into what the company says aboutitselfand whatitstands for.

If you want to appeal to potential customers, your product or service has to be excellent, of course. But it needs a lot more than that: it needs to stand for something that your potential customers can get behind and believe in.

Your company will stand for something, even if you dont know what it is yet. Think back to why you started it in the first place, and look through customer emails and testimonials to discover what they love about you.

If you make cupcakes, do you believe that cupcakes ought to be eaten by adults, at night, with a glass of wine? If youre an accountant for small businesses, are you struck by how other accountants make things seem far more complicated than they need to? If youre a dentist, do you think that strong, healthy teeth are more important than straight, white ones? If youre a New York-based wedding photographer, do you believe that NYC deserves to be the bridesmaid of every shot? If youre a technology company, do you believe that the crazy ones and the misfits are the ones wholl change the world with the help of your products? If youre a website designer, do you think its your job to be stubborn and insistent with your clients for their own good? (Those last three have already been taken see the examples on the following pages.)