In this lesson you learn how to frame your recommendation or conclusion(s) so that your readers clearly understand what you're asking them to do or to believe.
A Recommendation section is used in documents in which you're asking your reader to agree to or approve your proposal. A Conclusions section is used in documents that summarize or analyze data, but do not seek specific agreement or approval to a course of action.
In memos asking for agreement to a proposal, the Recommendation section lays out the specifics of what you're seeking approval to. In summaries and analyses, the Conclusions section is where you'll provide your point of view regarding what the information means.
The recommendation of a memo immediately follows the background and tells your reader exactly what action you're asking her to agree to or approve. After reading the recommendation of your document, your reader should …
Understand the plan of action you're recommending and the parameters of the recommendation.
Understand specifically what you're asking her to do with regard to the recommendation.
Understand the benefits of the plan of action.
By providing the recommendation immediately after you've set up the background, you show respect for your reader's time. She can now respond accordingly:
If your reader agrees with your recommendation based on the background, she doesn't need to read further.
If she needs more information before making a decision, she now has the appropriate understanding with which to evaluate your rationale.
Tip
Try to make your recommendation as clear and simple to understand as possible. Since you're asking the reader to do something, it's especially important that the reader understand what you're asking for.
There are several key elements you should include in the recommendation:
The recommendation itself. Depending on the complexity of the plan you're recommending, you may or may not include the details of how to implement it. The key is to keep the "what" here at a summary level. For example, you may be recommending that your business implement a national marketing plan based on the test market plan you implemented. You wouldn't include the details of the national plan here, but you would include an overview of the important attributes. However, if the action plan is relatively simple, you may include it here.
The person or group you're asking approval or agreement from. For example, you may be asking for your manager's approval, or you may be asking for the executive committee's approval. Be specific.
The benefits of your recommendation. For example, the benefit may be increased market share, better shelf presence, shorter lead time, or reduced expenses. Don't go overboard with the benefits in the recommendation, though. You'll defend your recommendation in the next section (see Lesson 7, "Providing Rationale for Your Recommendations").
Suppose you're the marketing manager for a shampoo product that was successful in the test market and has received the general manager's final approval to launch nationally. At the time the general manager approved the expansion, she delayed final approval of the marketing plan until further business results and consumer usage and attitude data were available. Those results are now in, and you are writing a memo to gain final approval to the marketing plan for national launch.
Given the complexity of your recommended action plan, you will not want to weigh down the recommendation with detail. So your recommendation will be fairly straightforward. However, given the importance of the plan, you will need to provide specifics as to how the plan will be carried out later in the document, after you've made your case.
Before stating your recommendation, you've set the stage with the background, reminding your readers of the test market success, the approval for launch, and the decision to delay marketing plan approval pending new data. Your recommendation might look something like the following.
Recommendation: This seeks management agreement to national Brand X marketing plans. Specifically, we would expand the identical plans on the identical timing as in test market. The same marketing plans and timing are warranted given the significantly higher than objective business results and consumer adoption.
After this recommendation you would go on to support your recommendation in the rationale section (see Lesson 7), which would likely include in this case specifics on volume, share, usage, and other results based on the test marketing plan.
Conclusions are similar to a recommendation in that they are the "bottom line," or your ultimate reason, for writing in the first place. Conclusions typically outline your interpretation of information, one that you want the company to accept. The conclusions immediately follow the background of your document. After reading the conclusions, your reader should …
Understand your interpretation of specific information (business results, research results, and so on).
Understand why the information and your conclusions are meaningful.
Caution
Avoid conclusions that are merely summaries of the data. Conclusions should go further—they should explain what the data mean for your organization.
By providing the conclusions immediately after you've set up the situation through the background, you show respect for your reader's time. She can now respond accordingly:
If the reader understands the conclusions in the context of the background, and does not need the detailed information your conclusions are based on, she does not need to read further and can safely set the document aside.
If the detailed information in the document is something the reader doesn't need now, but may need at a later date, she may file the document for later retrieval.
Tip
Use summaries and data analyses to begin to lay the foundation for a future recommendation by presenting conclusions that will later be used to support your recommendation.
There are several key elements you should provide in the conclusions:
The conclusions themselves. For example, you might conclude from business analysis that coupon drops no longer lead to incremental stocking and merchandising in national accounts. Your conclusions should be directly tied to your analysis or research objectives. Unlike a recommendation, which should focus on a single topic, you may wish to make several conclusions based on the information you're summarizing or analyzing.
A sentence or two describing the data you used to reach each conclusion. Since you'll be providing the data in detail later in the document, you should only very briefly summarize it here.
Any caveats or mitigating information needed to ensure that your reader knows whether your conclusions may be based on less-than-complete information.
Suppose you're the financial analyst for your company, which sells standard lighting fixtures for commercial buildings and residences, and customized lighting for industrial settings. The customized light business is smaller than that of standard fixtures, but generates a much higher profit margin per unit. The Sales team is currently examining ways to increase sales of customized lighting, and you've been asked to analyze the financial implications of the various pricing and promotion plans the sales team has developed.
At this stage, you are not prepared to recommend one plan over any of the others. However, you are in position to report on your analysis of whether the plans may result in increased profitability for the company.
In the Background section, you're described each of the plans and estimated what each would cost in implement. With that background your conclusions might appear as follows:
The "Half-Price" Promotion plan would be the most expensive to implement, and unless it generated significantly more repeat business among new customers than we presently obtain from current customers, it would be unprofitable to implement. The promotion eliminates our profit marrgin on the initial sale, requiring two additional sales at full price to establish an acceptable profit margin.
The "New Distribution" Plan, while carrying the most risk, has the potential to be the most profitable. Hiring new salespeople to call on companies in industries we've never called on before will require significate up-front investment. However, if these new salespeople are as effective at selling our products in the new industries as our competitors are, we will dramatically increase customized lighting sales and overall profitability.
The "Sales Incentive" Plan carries the least risk, and may be effective in focusing sales force effort on customized light. If it does, as Sales Management believes it will, this plan will increase company profitability.
Although the test is not complete and you are not ready to recommend any specific plan, you want the brand and sales teams to understand initial results, initial results, including the plusses and minuses of each plan. In essence you're laying the foundation for a future recommendation.
After these conclusions you would go on to support them in the key finfings section, which would likely include in this case specifics on each test plan, results to date, and projected end-of-test results.
Recommendations tell yo9ur reader exactly what actions for which you're asking agreement or approval.
Recommendations should include include the specifics of the plan, who you're seeking approval from, and the benefits of accepting your recommendation.
Conclusions tell your reader your interpretation or analysis of information presented in the document.
Conclusions should include your analysis of the information, the data you used to reach your conclusions, and any caveats the reader needs to know about to effectively evaluate your conclusions.