10 Tips to Improve Your Communications
Formal or informal, written or verbal, the ways in which you communicate set you apart from your competitors (or not). Regardless (NOT “irregardless”) of your exact profession, many of your competitors are leaving a space for you to really stand out because, well, they are so crummy at business letters, proposals, public speaking, PowerPoint presentation and more. Given that many of us are developing the majority of our own communications materials, it makes sense to do everything you can to improve this basic, but powerful, skill. Here are 10 tips and resources to help you brush up:
1. Be succinct. Review your post, letter, presentation and make sure you said what you needed to say in as few words as possible while still engaging your audience. Tell a story by getting to the point. We all have really short attention spans.
2. Edit and proofread. Write a first, second, or third draft, edit it for brevity and pass it off to someone else to review. Then proofread it again. It’s sort of like the carpenter’s mantra of “measure twice, cut once”, though you may have to cut more than that.
3. READ and WATCH others. Go to TED.com
and watch great speakers. Read literature and business books and magazines.
4. Watch out for common errors. It’s vs. its. Their and there. Have seen and saw. Ensure vs. insure., etc. If you need reminders, go here.
5. Who knew a tiny little podcast about grammar would become such a huge hit, lead to a book and cd
Night at the Museum psp and speaking engagements for Grammar Girl
(aka Mignon Fogarty). Her podcast is entertaining and educational.
6. Ugh. I’ve sat through some abysmal PowerPoint presentations. You know the ones? Fonts are all over the place, too small, the presenter reads to me, totally amateur. There are some easy cures for this. See Guy Kawasaki’s (very funny) 10-20-30 commandment about Power Point presentations. Or get a copy of Presentation Zen
.
7. Get a good style manual. You need a basic guide and there are several classics available that are regularly updated. The Elements of Style, On Writing Well, and Grammatically Correct are all good choices.
8. Get free online mentoring. There are so many amazing sites offering you free professional level training. My favorites include Copyblogger, Problogger
, and Remarkable Communication. Presentation Zen also has an informative site.
9. Join a writing group and/or Toastmasters. The power of many people is always helpful. Go to Meetup.com
and look for “writers” or “writing” in your area. Go to the Toastmaster’s site to find a group that will, gently, help you improve your public speaking skills.
10. Hire it out. Harder to do for public speaking (but impossible? who knows.) but you can find really good affordable copywriting fairly easily. If you need some referrals, let us know!
What parts of writing or public speaking do you really struggle with? Share your experiences below!
Tags: communication, copyblogger, elements of style, grammar, grammar girl, guy kawasaki, presentation zen, problogger, public speaking, punctuation, remarkable communication, sonia simone, writing