Fering Communications Blog: effective writing

Showing posts with label effective writing. Show all posts

Thursday, 14 March 2013

Don't Let Your Sales & Marketing Look Like This Oatmeal

Inspiration for what to blog about can come from the most unlikely places. One such example came last week from a Hampton Inn in northern Wisconsin: One morning, as I wandered down to the hotel breakfast area in search of some nourishment, the burger that I had for dinner the previous evening sat like a rock in my stomach. I wanted something healthier and hoped that the breakfast offering included oatmeal.

Happily, the breakfast bar did include oatmeal. Unhappily, this is what it looked like:

In an instant, my taste for oatmeal vanished and I decided to see what else was available.

OK, I get it, it’s a hotel, not a restaurant. I don’t expect a gourmet menu. But is it possible to make oatmeal look any less desirable? Upon sharing this picture with my wife, she compared it to the compost bin we keep in the kitchen for fruit and vegetable peelings and leftover scraps. Not exactly the comparison the folks at Hampton Inn were shooting for, I’m sure.

Let’s see if we can’t draw some food for thought (pardon the pun) from this most unfortunate food presentation.

The Importance of the First Few Seconds

In his book “Blink”, renowned author Malcolm Gladwell describes that our rapid recognition subconsciously make a series of conclusions about something within the first few seconds of seeing it. It’s why we dress nicely for a job interview, why we shave and comb our hair on a first date, and why we make eye contact and smile when we meet a prospect for the first time. All because we want the person we’re engaging to like us and give us what we want, whether it’s a job, a relationship or their business.

Sales & Marketing Materials

Here’s the reason the look of your sales & marketing materials (brochures, case studies, whitepapers, etc.) is so important: It’s often the first impression prospects and customers will have of your company and you want them to subconsciously conclude that you’re a professional and reputable company and make them comfortable with the prospect of doing business with you.

Website & Blog

Thanks to Google and other search engines, your website is very likely the first impression prospects will have of you and accordingly it should have a clean format so visitors are able to quickly determine what you do. Graphics should be clear and relevant, headers should logically break up your pages so the viewer can quickly scan and decide if you can provide what they’re looking for.

Your blog should have the same characteristics: an appealing look that makes the reader want to explore and read deeper. Relevant graphics and images make your blog posts more readable, and headers break up the body of the post, make it more reader-friendly and allow the reader to identify the highlights and decide if they want to read more.

Sales Proposals & Quotations

Sales proposals and quotations are notoriously poorly formatted. Many companies simply list quantities and prices for what they will provide, expecting that to be enough to convince the reader that they can solve the problem at hand. Images and headers are important here, too, and if your document exceeds ten pages you might want to think about adding a table of contents so readers can quickly locate what they’re looking for.

A professional title page clearly showing the title of the proposal, who the document was written for and by, and the date would all help create a positive first impression.

Conclusion

A bag of oatmeal doesn’t provide the most appealing first impression for someone with an appetite for a healthy breakfast. Your sales & marketing materials shouldn’t make this same mistake: your website, blog, sales proposals and quotations and other materials should have a clean, concise and professional look, lest your prospects and customers take a pass on dealing with you or your company and consider some other options.

Thursday, 28 February 2013

How To Write an Effective Professional Bio

I’ve found myself writing a fair number of professional bio’s recently, so I decided to take a few minutes to put fingers to keyboard to whip up a quick how-to on writing an effective biography. Bio’s can be used in a number of places including your company website, sales literature, or a program at a conference you’re speaking or presenting at and provide a summary overview of one in all of their glory.

What Is a Bio?

While it’s a pretty straightforward question, it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider. Of course, bio is short for biography which is a written account of a series of events that make up a person’s life. However, bio’s come in different shapes and sizes. Twitter provides the shortest bio opportunity, limiting you to 140 characters. The “Summary” section of your LinkedIn profile is a bio and is usually a few paragraphs long. If you have a blog, your bio is probably a few paragraphs there, too. Many companies include bio’s for their ownership and management team members on their ‘About’ or ‘Company Profile’ pages on their website. Famous people often have biographies that are published books and can span several hundred pages.

What Does a Bio Include?

A bio is a summary of you as a person and what it includes depends on where it will appear. Professional bio’s are the most common type—the sort that appears on sales literature, websites, and on other business related channels. Typically, a professional bio highlights your related professional experience, your academic background, and career achievements. Awards, published articles and high profile customers or projects are all fair game for a professional bio.

Non-professional bio’s might relate to charitable work or community involvement and typically include more personal information such as how long you’ve been married, how many children you have and what your hobbies include.

It’s also not a bad idea to, where space allows, include some personal information in a professional bio: it will help put a human touch to your professional profile.

How To Write a Bio

Bio’s aren’t that difficult to write because of the law of supply and demand: most people generally have a lot to say about themselves but the amount of space or words they have to work with is typically limited. The challenge in writing a bio is cherry picking the important details and piecing them together in one continuous piece. If you’re writing a professional bio a good place to start is with a resume: reduce it to its essence by continually removing the least relevant information until you’re within whatever space constraints you’re working with. Then turn what’s left into a well written piece.

When you’re writing a bio, even if it’s your own, always write in the third person. Don’t write “I am the Managing Partner of Fering Communications Inc. I am married and have three children.”, instead write “Steve Hartley is the Managing Partner of Fering Communications Inc. He is married and has three children”.

Consider your tone carefully: let how the bio will be used dictate the formality of the tone. A professional bio should be written in a formal tone even if you’re a joke-a-minute kinda person—you never know how a reader might interpret some tongue-in-cheek humour.

Adding a picture is always a good idea as it literally puts a face with a name and that builds a stronger relationship with the reader. Again, let the purpose dictate the picture: a smiling but serious picture would be suitable for a professional bio, a picture of you with your family for more personally oriented purposes, and a picture of you with your beer league hockey buddies for something more fun.

Conclusion

Biographies are everywhere you look, and writing one can be a bit tricky. If you keep the purpose of the bio in mind and make sure what is included is relevant to the purpose, you’re on the right track. Letting the purpose of the bio dictate the tone and writing in the third person will also help make sure that the bio is appropriate. Adding a picture adds a personal touch that will connect with the reader.

Monday, 26 November 2012

Why Your Company Needs a Style Guide

A few years ago when I was working as a salesman for a different company I sat across the desk from a customer while he was engrossed by a report. I was immediately curious about what he was looking at and after he put the document down and we began chatting I tried to discreetly steal glances to find out what he had been reading. After we chatted for a while we were interrupted by one of his colleagues and he stepped out of his office to discuss an issue that had just occurred. Alone in his office, I finally got the chance to freely look at the report and I was surprised to find that it was a production report generated by the computer system that I had sold him a few months earlier. I was shocked that it took me so long to identify something created by the company that I worked for. Instead of using the logos, fonts and colours consistent with our sales materials our technical team had used the default attributes chosen by their programming tools.

It is so important to build your brand into your business and everything that is associated with it. Every piece of sales & marketing material should have the same look and feel that is central to your company’s image. This includes your website and blog, whitepapers and case studies and product specifications. The same look and feel should extend through your training manuals, installation guides, specification documents and other technical documentation. On a whole, every piece of written or visual material your customers will see should look and feel the same and a style guide plays a key role in delivering that.

A style guide is a document describing the fonts, colours, style, voice, tone, layout and other attributes of your brand—everything that the various people and departments will need to adhere to so your branding is consistent and uniform. You want your prospects and customers to know that they are looking at something produced by your company without having to search for whom it was written by. Written and visual communications that are not consistent can look unprofessional and leave your customers confused.

Below is an infographic covering the basics of what a style guide is, why it is important, who should use it and how to go about creating one if you don’t already have one:

Establishing a style guide can be difficult in the early going—especially if multiple people or departments are involved. Start the process by appointing someone to champion the process and engage key individuals to invite their input and win their support.

You should also keep in mind how your style guide affects resources outside of your organization like bloggers and content curators—the standards described by the style guide will need to extend through their work, too.

Conclusion

A style guide is a document that defines the appearance, voice, formatting and other aspects of a company’s written and visual materials. Having a well-defined and consistent look and feel will make your company look professional and customers will feel comfortable doing business with you. If you need help creating or updating your style guide give us a call, we’d be more than happy to help!

Monday, 15 October 2012

How to Write a Great Business Letter

Emails are by far the most common form of written business communication and are becoming shorter and more abrupt. Text-speak is slowly but surely making its way into the business lexicon (OMG! LOL … :). People are becoming accustomed to communicating in bursts of 140 characters or less.

It seems like the ability to craft a well-written, well-formatted, convincing and persuasive business letter is a dying art. However, at some point in your business life you’re probably going to have to write an important business letter: to get a sales appointment with a prospective customer, to close a sales opportunity, to be considered for a promotion, or to engage someone in creating a strategic partnership.

Here are some points to keep in mind when you’re faced with the daunting task of writing a great business letter:

Understand the Purpose: Before you even open up your favourite word processor you must understand what the purpose of the letter is – if you don’t then the letter will lack focus and effectiveness and you could lose credibility with your reader.
Focus on One (and Only One!) Point: Your letter will be more effective if you only focus on one key point. Every word of the letter should support your key point. This could be difficult if you feel that you have several things that the reader will be interested in, but isolate the most important point and focus on it.

Make Your Letter About Them: It makes little difference to them if your company has over 1,000 employees worldwide, offices in nine countries and has been in business for over 50 years. None of this helps them at all. If you want them to read past the first few lines then you’ve got to quickly get to the point where it’s all about them.
Focus on Value: Quickly establish what value they could get by dealing with you. In the business world the value that most people are looking for is financial: they want to either increase their revenues or decrease their costs. Many people focus on features – like how their product is so much faster or smaller or newer than the competition’s – but if you don’t emphasize the value that translates into (… our machine works 20% faster and can reduce your labour costs by the same amount …) then your reader won’t be motivated to engage with you. There are other values that you could deliver, such as an emotional value, a social value or an environmental value but in the harsh world of business (and please excuse the pun) you’ll get more bang for your buck by focusing on the financial value.

Use a Professional Tone & Format: The only acceptable tone for a professional business letter is a formal one. Refrain from using abbreviations and use a professional format (click this link for an example and check out our blog post on writing tone). Typically you would print, sign and mail the letter but it’s becoming more common to send the letter electronically as a PDF or other non-editable document.
Tell the Reader What You Want Them To Do Next: In the final portion of the letter, set up what you want to happen next. This could be a call-to-action to get them to do something (“Call us now …” or “Visit our website …”) but it could also be something less actionable (“I will call you next week to discuss this further …”). Either way, the letter is only one part of a longer process and you should finish your letter with what the next steps in the process are.

Conclusion

If you’re in the business world you’re going to need to write a great business letter sooner or later. If you truly understand what your reason for writing the letter is before you start, use every word in the letter to support that key point, focus on the value that the reader will get by acting on the letter and finishing with a direct and definitive path for moving forward, then you’re on the right path to crafting a professional, engaging and persuasive letter that’s got a good chance of achieving your objectives.

Tuesday, 28 August 2012

What Tweeting Looked Like Before Twitter

I know, I know, boo @ the cheesy title! I thought I’d use this platform to share a neat story that happened to me as I left a client’s office last week. As I headed through the parking lot toward my car, I noticed what I originally thought was a large stone a few yards ahead. As I got closer, I saw that not only did the large stone have eyes but it was moving its head. The large stone was actually a bird sitting in the parking lot watching the world go by. As I got closer, I thought that this little guy might be injured so stooped down and gently put my hand on the ground beside him. He hopped onto my hand and I snapped the above picture while I pondered how one determines if a bird is injured or not. While I thought about this he flew away, making the conclusion a moot point.

So how can I tie this into professional writing and presentation services? Well, I’m not sure if I can directly. However, I can offer that one of the goals of your company blog might be to make you and your company human and likeable.
In the story above, I’m hoping that people see me as a kind, caring possibly-hurt-animal-loving kind of guy. And I’m also hoping that I hit a soft spot with some of the readers of this blog and maybe they’ll like me and my company just that little bit more. And if they like me that little bit more and have professional business writing and presentation needs, maybe they’ll decide to visit our Contact Us page and connect with us.

Conclusion

Your company blog can be used to achieve a great many goals: increasing traffic to your website, showcasing industry expertise and thought leadership, converting blog or website visitors into leads. But your blog can also provide softer benefits, including adding a personal touch to your business and letting your prospects and customers know that there are human beings behind your corporate machine, which may differentiate you from your competition and give you the winning edge.

Got something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we post a reply.

Steve Hartley, Managing Partner
Fering Communications Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: steve.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Sunday, 5 August 2012

The Importance of Tone in Business Writing

Writing is one of the most common tasks that you’ll find yourself doing during a regular workday. In 2011 the average corporate user sent and received an average of 112 emails every day. And that’s just email, it doesn’t include the sales proposals, technical documentation, business letters and other documents that you’ll work on.

Just as important as the content of business writing is the tone – the writer’s opinion and emotion toward the reader and subject matter. Just like your tone of voice in a spoken conversation, the tone of a written conversation is as – and sometimes more – important as the actual content.

When crafting a piece of business writing – a quick email before you dash off to a meeting or a hundred page sales proposal that you and your team slaved over for weeks – you certainly have to make sure that the content is appropriate but you have to make sure the tone is, too. You can’t take chances when you’re communicating through writing – you can’t read facial expressions or body language and you might not get a second chance if your content and tone miss the mark.

Not Good: Joe, get me the final specs quick or you’ll cause us to deliver late.

Better: Joe, we really need the final specifications before we can finalize delivery. Would you be able to send them over at your earliest convenience to avoid delays?

One of the most important considerations in establishing the tone of your writing is to be honest, authentic and sincere. Most readers will pick up if you’re not being true and you might lose your credibility. If the reader doesn’t trust you there isn’t much of a chance that they’ll be convinced by your writing.

Your state of mind plays a large role in your tone: if you’re in a bad mood, if you’re feeling playful, if you’re feeling happy – all of these emotions will come out in your writing. If you are in a bad mood or feeling stressed, you might want to stay away from your keyboard – those grumpy feelings will seep into your writing whether you like it or not.

At all times, you should maintain a professional tone, even if you are very comfortable or have a friendly relationship with the recipient. Talking about the baseball game you went to, how your kids are doing in school or your kitchen renovations might be appropriate for the person that you’re writing to directly but not for those that the recipient could forward it on to and you can’t count on them deleting the friendly chit chat before they do.

Finally, you should favour a concise and precise tone in business communication over a verbose and flowery one. The person reading your writing doesn’t have time to wade through ~~linguistic pyrotechnics~~ fancy words and filter out your message. Also, there’s a good chance that instead of coming off sounding eloquent you’ll end up sounding pretentious.

Not Good: We would like to inquire about your upcoming availability to arrange a mutually convenient brief conference call, if possible on next Wednesday morning, so we might gain some additional insight into your requirements for the upcoming project.

Better: Are you available for a short call next Wednesday at 10:00am? We have some questions about the project that we’d like to ask.

Conclusion

The tone of a piece of business writing is just as important as the content. If you’re in a positive frame of mind, are honest and sincere and keep your message concise then you’ll infuse a positive tone in your writing and generate a readable and convincing piece. And if you decide that you need help with any sales and marketing, technical or business writing projects that you’re working on, we’re only an email or phone call away.

Got something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we post a reply.

Amanda Hartley, Managing Partner
Fering Communications Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: amanda.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Saturday, 30 June 2012

Six Great Ways to Dissolve Your Writer’s Block

Have you ever found yourself staring at the blinking cursor on your blank computer screen as it ticks away the seconds toward your looming deadline, but still can’t think of anything to write? You’re not alone: Writers block affects almost everyone from time to time, whether you’re young or old, an inexperienced newbie or an old pro. Luckily, writer’s block has affected enough writers that people have come up with a number of different things that you can try to overcome it. Some might not be what you would expect but when you’ve got a deadline looming you’re probably willing to give anything a try. Here are some tips that we resort to when we just can’t seem to get things going.

Arrange an Impromptu Brainstorming Session: Gather a small handful of your colleagues and start throwing ideas around. They don’t have to be good ideas; the aim is to give you a shove in the right direction and the spontaneity of an impromptu group brainstorming session might just do the trick.
Just Start Writing: Write about anything - what you had for breakfast, a conversation you had with a colleague, a list of groceries that you need to pick up on the way home or a to-do list for the weekend. William Stafford, a poet, once wrote, “There is no such thing as writer’s block for writers whose standards are low enough.” This is not to suggest that you should aim to lower your standards but if drivel is what it takes to get you going then bring it on! A page of drivel can be shaped into something brilliant, but a blank sheet of paper will remain blank until you get over yourself and write something.
Stop Writing: OK, didn’t we just tell you to start writing? Now we’re suggesting you stop writing? Do you wish we’d make up our minds? At the other end of the spectrum is to not try and force the issue but to do something else that is totally unrelated to your writing assignment. This takes a bit of guts – you’ve got a pressing deadline and we’re suggesting that you ignore the task at hand. Actually, we’re confident in your subconscious’ ability to work on something while you’re focusing on something else. Have you ever tried so hard to remember the name of an actor in a movie but you just can’t, and then while you’re brushing your teeth that night it comes to you? That’s your subconscious at work. Your subconscious is very powerful and if you leave it to wrestle with your writing assignment while you’re concentrating on something else you might be surprised with what you come up with.
Look for Fresh Surroundings: Being stuck at the same desk in the same office looking at the same faces might not be the best way to stoke your creativity. So change things up a bit by packing up and heading somewhere different. Coffee shops are great places and many offer free Wi-Fi if you don’t want to totally be out of contact or if you need to look something up. This article describes a recent study that concluded that the moderate ambient noise of a coffee shop enhanced subjects’ performance on a creative task. Alternately, head to a park and watch the world go by - you just might find that your writer’s block starts to dissolve.
Jump Right Into the Middle: If you’ve got an idea of the overall flow of what you have to produce, start somewhere apart from the beginning and just get going. Chances are the pieces will start falling into place one at a time and once you’ve got some momentum revisiting that part that was stumping you won’t seem so helpless. When we’re writing sales proposals, for example, we often start with the pricing section, one of the last sections of the proposal, and then work backwards. Often the Executive Summary is one of the last pieces that we write even though it’s the first page of the document.
Get Moving: As goes the body so goes the mind. If you’re sitting at your computer screen and your brain is stalled, jump up and get active. Go for a walk around the block, do some stretching, or throw a foam stress ball around with a couple of colleagues. (Disclaimer: you didn’t get the idea here if you break something!) Moving your body, particularly in a repetitive way, often gets your mind in action as well.

Writer’s block affects us all at one time or another and the more you try and pressure yourself into powering past it the more strangling it can become. The points above will hopefully help motivate, energize and even distract you enough to make your writer’s block a thing of the past.

Got something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we post a reply.

Amanda Hartley, Managing Partner
Fering Communications Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: amanda.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Friday, 15 June 2012

Social Media and Content Marketing: In-house or Outsource?

There are lots of different opinions on whether you should use in-house resources to quarterback your social media and content marketing presence or whether it’s better to use an outside company. At Fering Communications, we humbly submit that using an external company gives you the best advantage. Here are five good reasons why:

You’ve Got Better Things to Do: Honestly, you do. If you’re like most people I know, you’ve got a million things to do and that’s when you’re not busy. Setting up and implementing a social media strategy is seldom going to make it to the top of your to-do list. Luckily, if you work with an external company they’ll give you a content calendar with 30, 60 or 90 days of content activity and all you have to do is make sure that they do as they say they will.

You’re So Close You Might Miss the Obvious: Sometimes, people are so passionate about their businesses that they suffer from tunnel vision and only focus on what is most near and dear to them. In the meantime, all sorts of good and marketable stuff can be going on that you might not notice or might neglect to recognize the significance of. By keeping in reasonably close contact with your social media and content marketing company they will pick up on things that should be spun into new content and broadcast across the social media spectrum.

Don't Overwork Yourself: One of the first things an outside company will establish is your content marketing and social media strategy and activity calendar. This will contain a schedule for when you can expect premium content pieces, blog posts, Facebook posts and tweets. But what happens if something unexpected happens in your company that should be shouted from the rooftops? If you’re managing your own content in-house you have to find time to incorporate this on top of everything else that you’re working on. If we’re doing it we can reorganize our resources and priorities to fit you in.

Benefit From A Fresh Perspective: We spend a considerable amount of my day talking about, thinking about and doing social media and content marketing. On any given day we can touch any number of people who have different ideas and perspectives and where appropriate we can bring apply these ideas and perspectives to work for you. Your internal resource is so tied to one strategy (yours) and is going to see the same set of faces (your team) day in and day out that the chances of fresh ideas or new perspectives creeping into the picture is smaller.

This Writing Thing Isn't As Easy As It Looks: Sure, we all learned how to write when we were young, but I learned to swing a hammer when I was little and as my wonderful wife can attest, being able to swing a hammer doesn't mean I know how to finish a basement. You rock at what you do and that’s why your customers buy from you but unless you’re into social media and content marketing (and I’m puzzled by why you would hire us if you are) then we’re probably better. When I want a computer I buy a Dell laptop running Windows 7 because those are the best tools available for my needs. When we’re hungry we head out to the local Pita Pit and grab a pita. You could probably do a decent job yourself, but who shoots for decent when great is just a phone call away?

Social media and content marketing is a low-cost-high-return way to market your business. Like anything else, doing it poorly can do more damage than good and can be worse than doing nothing at all. Involving an outside company to create a consistent stream of content and social media activity will help establish you as an expert in your field, engage your customers and keep them coming back for more, and boost your lead generation. Fering Communications provides social media and content marketing services so if you are convinced that an outside company might be right for you give us a call, we’d love to talk to you.

Steve Hartley, Managing Partner

Fering Communications Inc.

Website: www.feringcommunications.com

Email: steve.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Starting Your Follow Up Strategy with a Handwritten Thank You Note

You’ve just had a great meeting with a prospective customer and now what? Should you go and sit at your desk and wait for them to call or email you? Should you stand by the fax machine and wait for them to fax a purchase order across? Clearly I’m being facetious but the reality of the situation is that you need to have a great follow up strategy if you want to keep the momentum going. I read recently that 80% of new sales are made after the fifth contact so regardless of how good your first meeting is you need a solid follow up strategy.

Many professions don’t bother to follow up at all. Maybe they assume that prospects will call them if they have any questions or are interested in making a purchase. The problem is that most people that you’ll encounter in life are extremely busy and don’t have time to remember who you are, find your contact information and track you down. Most business people will forget about you if you don’t give them a reason not to. If you have a world class product or service then maybe you don’t have to worry because prospects will go out of their way to find you, but most business professionals are more likely to deal with people who show up in front of their faces on a regular basis and whose information is easily accessible.

There aren’t many better ways to lead off your follow up strategy than with a professional looking and well written thank you note. There are many places you can get both cards and notes but you’ll probably want to keep them clean, elegant and simple. Including your company logo is a great way to add a customized touch. You can also use this as an opportunity to distinguish yourself from your competition even more by using a good quality thick paper stock or even eco-friendly plantable seed paper.

Don’t use the note as an opportunity to continue selling. Your prospect might get turned off by the idea that you’re going to stuff your product down their throat every chance you get. Be sincere and thank them for the time that they spent meeting with you, maybe even mention that you appreciate that they have a busy calendar and you realize that it isn’t trivial that they made time to meet with you. Offer your availability should they have any questions, comments or concerns and promise to touch base again a short time later. If you can coordinate your next follow up a few days after they would receive your note then they’ll still remember the positive feelings from receiving your card.

Make sure that you follow up as you promised in your note. There’s nothing worse than dropping the ball on a promised follow up – if you’re not true to your word when you’re trying to win their business, what are the chances that you’ll stay interested once you’ve won their business? A phone call is a good next step as it continues the personal touch and allows a chance to continue building the relationship. It will also give you a chance to ask if the prospect is ready to move forward after they’ve had time to think about the outcome of your initial meeting. If they mention the thank you note then you know you’re on the right track!

As you continue to engage the prospect you can use less personal and less invasive methods of communication. Maybe after the phone call you should follow up with an email to see if things are moving along or if there is anything else that they need from you. If you’ve successfully built a good relationship then you don’t need to be in their face all the time but you do want to stay fresh in their minds.

On a final note, while the personal touch of a hand written note is a good thing, your prospect needs to be able to read it. If your hand writing looks like the work of a doctor writing a prescription it’s OK to get someone with a neater hand to write the note for you.

Steve Hartley, Managing Partner

Fering Communications Inc.

Website: www.feringcommunications.com

Email: steve.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Reach Thousands of Prospects for Free

A great way to reach thousands of prospects is to write and submit an article to a trade publication or industry magazine. They are often hungry for content and will accept articles and other related submissions from suppliers, consultants and organizations that specialize in their particular industry or niche. Just contact the magazine editor to find out the submission guidelines such as the length of the article, relevant content to compliment upcoming issues, details about the submission, revision and approval process and relevant timelines.

These publications won’t let you turn the article into an advertisement for your company or product – they likely won’t even let you mention them by name. They will, however, list you and your company in the article byline, which generally appears below the headline, or in an author bio at the conclusion of the article. Either way, if you can create a well-written, engaging and compelling article then it makes sense for readers to start with a known and trustworthy provider – the author of the article – if they are interested in exploring the related products and services.

Writing articles for magazines involves a fine balancing act: You want to promote the features, advantages and benefits of your product and services without it coming off as an advertisement. It might require a lot of restraint to resist telling the world why your product or service is the best, but instead write from a higher level in more generic terms: focus on what your product or service is, how a typical customer uses it, how long it has been used in the industry and list some of the customers that are benefitting from what you provide. Dropping names is a great way to validate your product, especially if you can include some big names - if your products or services are good enough for the big guys then they must be good enough for everyone else.

Magazines post their circulation numbers, usually on their websites, so you can gauge the potential impact of being featured in an issue. More and more magazines are publishing their content online, giving you an even wider audience. Either way, it’s an excellent way to get some great exposure with the only cost being a few hours of your time.

If you decide that trying your hand at magazine writing is the way to go, our professional team at Fering Communications would love the chance to help you put together a great piece that will resonate with your readers.

Got something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we post a reply.

Amanda Hartley, Managing Partner
Fering Communications Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: amanda.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Monday, 23 April 2012

Does Your Resume Pass the 15 Second Test?

For any small to medium business owner, hiring new employees sucks. The time to post a position, sift through the tidal wave of resumes, shortlist the best applicants, and whittle this down to a single hire can add up to tens of hours spread across several weeks.

I recently had to go through such an exercise and once again I was shocked by how poor some of the applications were. Out of 113 resumes, 80 ended up filed under “60 Seconds of My Life I’ll Never Get Back”, 23 were filed under “Not Totally Unreasonable” and seven ended up in the “Worth A Look” category.

In these harsh economic times there are lots of people competing for every job that’s posted. Luckily for me I can be ruthlessly barbaric when I’m filtering through resumes. When I open your application, you’ve got less than 15 seconds to get my attention otherwise I’m closing it forever. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when you’re writing a cover letter and resume from a guy on the other side of the desk:

Personalize each application: If you get some of the basic details about my posting wrong, I’m immediately disinterested. If I posted the position on Monster, don’t write that you’re responding to the position I posted on my company website. Take a few minutes to specifically address some of the requirements listed in the position or mention something specific that you saw on my website. Throw me a bone that you care enough to go beyond putting my company name at the top of your cover letter and emailing it to me.

Don’t Dare Make a Spelling Mistake: Just don’t do it, it’s that simple. If you can’t be bothered to push the F7 key to launch your spell checker, I don’t want you working for me. End of thought.

Formatting Makes a Difference: If I spend one minute to open an email, open the attachment, decide how I want to file it and move onto the next one, and I do that 113 times, I’m spending at least two hours straight staring at my computer screen. And chances are, my eyes are going to get tired about half way through. If you’re considerate enough on my poor eyes to consider the font and font size (11pt. Calibri with 1.2 line spacing is a nice combination), spacing (white space is a good thing) and your application is presented cleanly, I’ll like you. And if I like you, I’m probably going to be more lenient when I’m deciding which category you end up in.

Keep It Brief: Whoever decided that resumes should be shorter than two pages is a genius. If you can’t convince me to set up an interview with you in less than two pages you won’t be able to do it in a hundred pages and I’ll think that you’re trying to substitute quantity for quality. To the guy who listed in significant detail (and I’m not even exaggerating here) the 31 projects he worked on at a previous company: my eyes will never forgive you.

Don’t Suck Up (Too Much): I’m not Microsoft, Apple, Dell, General Electric, Samsung or any of the other mega-corporations out there. I’m a wee little company trying to make the world better one project at a time. If you use the words prestigious, distinguished, illustrious, glorious, wonderful or anything else that strong, I think that you’re sucking up and I don’t trust anything else you’ve written. On the other hand, if you say that you’ve done your homework on me and my company and in your eyes we’re alright, I’m cautiously appreciative of your kind remark and (unless you’ve blundered some other way) you’re likely headed towards my “Worth A Look” pile.

On a serious and sincere note, I don’t intend to make light of people looking for work, especially those in the unfortunate position of being unemployed. My point is that given the current economic climate competition is stiff for every position that’s available. Rather than sending out 10 generic applications, spend the time to focus on one or two well written, good looking and carefully tailored ones. In my experience, it’s not really that hard to stand out from the crowd and any edge you can get over the next guy or gal is worth spending time on.

Got something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we post a reply.

Steve Hartley, Managing Partner
Fering Communications Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: steve.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Monday, 16 April 2012

Do Your Sales Quotations Leave a Positive and Lasting Impression?

I recently purchased a new car and found it mind-boggling how many different makes, models and options there are. Keeping everything organized was something of a Herculean task.

What struck me through the process was the huge discrepancy between the quality and style of the sales quotations I received. I received everything from a computer generated report listing the year, make, model, features and multiple payment options to literally a year, model and price written with a Sharpie on the back of a folded up piece of paper. In the latter experience I asked for a price on an earlier model year and had to write it down myself. It wasn’t all bad - the sales rep did let me use his marker. (I’m not even going to mention the sales rep who wouldn’t even write prices down – I had to do it myself but he too did let me use his pen.)

Crafting a well-written and eye-catching quotation or proposal is a vitally important part of the sales process. Here are some points on why your sales proposal or quotation is so important and why it needs to look perfect and read flawlessly:

It may be your first impression. While you have hopefully built a good rapport with some of the decision making team, there might be others involved who you have never met. Your proposal will be the first and only impression that your organization makes and will need to engage and convince them on it’s own.
Convince your prospect that you understand their needs and that you are fully capable of meeting them. This is not the same as describing how great your product is – sure, you have a great product but your proposal should be all about your prospects need and how you can satisfy that need. If you don’t someone else will and you’ll be left on the outside looking in.
Make your proposal about your prospect. Too many times companies want to talk about themselves. They describe their long and illustrious history, describe the plethora of awards they have received, name-drop some of their prominent clients. Before you know it, they’re pushing onto page 7 without even a mention of the prospects need and how they can meet it. Good proposals immediately address how thoroughly the vendor understands the prospects problem and how their products or services can address that need. All of that other stuff might have a place near the end of the document as an appendix. Better yet, keep the document concise and precise by holding this type of information on your corporate website where the whole world can see it and include links in your proposal.
Think benefits, not features. Proposals that are framed from a benefit viewpoint are far more impactful than those that list product or service features. Your prospect might be interested in your feature list but they’re definitely going to be more interested in how you can help grow their revenue, reduce their expenses, or benefit their business in some other way. Always keep the commercial value as a central theme in your proposal.
Make sure it looks great. As vain as it sounds, appearance makes a huge difference. In his best selling book “Blink”, Malcolm Gladwell argues that a person’s mind makes a series of conclusions within two seconds of them seeing something. If your proposal doesn’t look appealing, or worse looks unapplealing, then there’s a good chance that’s how it’s going to be perceived even if it describes the best product or service that the prospect is looking for. Adding colour, using a clear system of headings and subheadings, including pictures, flowcharts and other graphics and making sure the document contains a balance of white space are some ways to ensure that your proposal is going to read well and look great.
It may be your last impression. Chances are your sales team has impressed your prospect – they’ve shook the appropriate hands, smiled at the appropriate people, made a great pitch and feel great that they’ve won the prospect over. But every bidder has probably done the same and unless you are really, really good all of this feel-good will fade as the prospect gets closer to making a decision. You want to make sure that your proposal is well written and formatted beautifully so it stands out on its own.

Conclusion

Sales quotations and proposals are the centerpiece of your entire sales process and you should go to any lengths necessary to make sure that your quotations and proposals stand out from the pack. Fering Communications has crafted hundreds of well written and eye catching proposals. Visit our website, fill out our a contact form or email me directly to find out how we can help you. We offer a no-obigation review of your existing material and we’d be happy to offer some points for consideration or other helpful feedback.

Steve Hartley, Managing Partner
Fering Communications Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: steve.hartley@feringcommunications.com

Thursday, 14 March 2013

The Importance of the First Few Seconds

Sales & Marketing Materials

Website & Blog

Sales Proposals & Quotations

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Thursday, 28 February 2013

What Is a Bio?

What Does a Bio Include?

How To Write a Bio

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Monday, 26 November 2012

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Monday, 15 October 2012

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Tuesday, 28 August 2012

Conclusion

Sunday, 5 August 2012

Conclusion

Saturday, 30 June 2012

Friday, 15 June 2012

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Monday, 23 April 2012

Monday, 16 April 2012