How to Write a Business Letter: Write for Your Reader, Not for Yourself

Too many business letters are written for the writer instead of the reader. You know what you want to say, so you assume the reader will too. But if the reader knew what was in your mind, why would you need to write? It's up to you to express your message so that the reader understands it.

Watch out for jargon

One of the main barriers to business communication is the inappropriate use of jargon. Is the reader a member of your company, your organization, your industry or profession? If so, a certain amount of jargon may be appropriate. After all, jargon comes into being simply because it is often the best means of communication among members of a particular group. The problem arises, however, when we forget that reader is outside that group, and may not understand our special language.

Jargon is a special type of "insider" language designed to communicate easily with other members of a particular group. So there's no reason why outsiders should know your jargon. It's important to realize that they will not necessarily tell you they don't understand because, ironically, they think they should know! So because of inappropriate language, the message is lost and communication breaks down. This is definitely not how you should write a business letter.

Use a pleasant tone

Many of the letters we send to one another in business are just not nice! We use words and phrases we would never use in conversation, and many of them create a tone we never intended.

Tone is something we relate to sound, such as the human voice. We know when someone is annoyed at us by the tone of voice they use in speaking to us. We know if they are being polite, or if they are being sarcastic. In writing, tone is just as important, but here we don't have the advantage of hearing the words spoken so they have to speak clearly on the printed page.

You must have heard the old expression, "You catch more bears with honey than you do with vinegar." But did you ever stop to think you may be dripping vinegar in your business writing, without ever realizing it?

Examples of what I call vinegar words are: blame fault careless failure inferior negligence penalty complaint.

Honey words include: please thank you appreciate understand agree excellent service value.

Think, for example, about the difference in tone between these two sentences

John did not attend the meeting.
John failed to attend the meeting.

The first one is simply a statement of fact, while the second one implies judgement. He should have been at the meeting, but he wasn't. Often we don't mean to inject that shade of meaning when we use the word fail, but we do.

Here is an illustration of how you can say the same thing, but with a vastly different result, by using honey words instead of vinegar.

The problem of vinegar-laden correspondence has become more noticeable now with the growth of e-mail, and the situation is even worse here because we have a tendency to press that send button without carefully considering what we have written. Many a cyber-fight has started because someone unthinkingly poured vinegar into their words, when they could just as easily have smoothed the way with honey.

When you're learning how to write a business letter, make sure you haven't inadvertently yelled at someone in writing. Be nice!