Truth 4. Planning is the magic ingredient

Most people we know spend either no time at all planning what to write, or agonize endlessly about where to start, what to include, how to organize the message, and so on. If you’re in either category, we have a solution—really.

It’s a step-by-step system that works for just about everything. Here’s a quick overview:

1. Identify your goal. What’s the message? Desired outcome?

2. Think about your audience. Who is it? What do you know about the person or group?

3. Determine the right tone and format, based on answers 1 and 2.

4. Map the content based on your answers.

5. Organize in a way that works for your purpose.

6. Begin with a strong lead.

7. Write the middle, quickly.

8. Build your conclusion.

9. Read what you’ve written and evaluate, cut, fix, tighten, and sharpen.

When you add this approach to your new definition of good writing and the write-it-like-you’d-say-it idea, you are equipped for power business writing.

Why use this strategy?—Before we discuss these steps and demonstrate them in subsequent chapters, we want to answer a question you’re probably asking: “Do I really need to make a project out of something like a simple e-mail?”

The answer, in a word: Yes. Because everything you write reflects you. If you scribble a quickie e-mail in all lowercase letters and no punctuation and with no thought to what it sounds like, well—we hate to break it to you—that’s what people are going to think you’re like: sloppy, disorganized, and unthinking.

Even if you’re only scribbling fast notes to a colleague, you never know who’s going to see them. E-mails are often kicked upstairs, and as some politicians and business leaders have learned the hard way, e-mails are indelible. Have you noticed how many political and business leaders are losing big time because their thoughtless e-mails—memorializing an unethical or illegal practice, for example—were unearthed years later?

People got used to writing shortsighted, ill-considered letters, memos, and other records in the days when an original and a few file copies could be contained. But you can’t shred an e-mail or control its spread.

Even in the digital age, you need to plan—Does electronic delivery itself promote carelessness both in content and style? Yes, we think; the ease of composing and sending an e-mail or jotting a quick blog posting lulls us into assuming that a stream-of-consciousness approach works. And of course, we’ve replaced a lot of conversation with e-mail exchanges, adding to the delusion that unpremeditated writing is good.

The news is: Writing with e-media takes at least as much planning as with the old print systems. E-mailing and blogs look like spontaneous media, but they’re not. In fact, as our digital world advances, messages have to be shorter and tighter than ever. Think of e-mail versus typed and copied interoffice memos (if you were working that far back), or text messaging versus e-mail now. The less space you have to deliver your message, the better and clearer your thinking has to be.

If “the carrot” approach doesn’t motivate you to care about writing, consider “the stick”—the negative impact poor writing can have on your future. In the short run, you may lose job opportunities, assignments, references, credibility, effectiveness, or good relationships.

In the long run, who knows what you will achieve if you write to your advantage rather than disadvantage? Recent studies prove that writing skills get people hired in the most exciting fields…get them promoted…gain them leadership roles. We all know about people who’ve written great blogs that led to successful careers. Warren Buffett takes the trouble to write well, and so can you. Our strategies will give you everything you need.

Will our approach slow you down? You may or may not write faster right away. But definitely you’ll write a whole lot better and more confidently. You won’t agonize over stilted, old-fashioned ways of delivering your message. You won’t worry about how to start or how to make your point, because you’ll have a complete, simple-to-use, step-by-step guide to support you through every writing challenge that comes your way.