Write Better and Grow Sales

You have a great phone presence – in fact you feel that you have an advantage over many of your fellow sales reps when you speak directly to a potential buyer or referrer. The problem for you is that when you send a follow up email, or most any email correspondence, you have some challenges.

Writing is not your strong suit so you send less email than you should because of one or more of these things:

• You spend way too much time crafting buyer focused messages
• You have spelling and/or grammar errors (I do to sometimes and readers to the blog let me know that periodically)
• You don’t get to the point and make it hard for people to understand what to do next

Ways to Write better and Grow Sales

There are a few things you can do to improve. Regardless of what route you take, you must work on improving your writing skills to be more successful with the craft of professional selling. Writing your thoughts and conveying your company’s message to potential buyers is critical.

Don’t wait another day – start here:

Find blog posts and websites that help you improve spelling, grammar and that enlarge your vocabulary.  Here are a few sites I have recommended:

Twelve Tips for Better Business Writing

Forbes 10 Tips for Better Business Writing

HBR’s How to Improve Your Business Writing

Lifehack’s How to Improve Your Spelling Skills

Learn one new word each day. There are apps for that, or a daily email like the one I get from Dictionary.com.

Find a great writer within your organization and learn from them. In some sales teams I’ve seen a top business writer emerge who helps one or two coworkers with their spelling or word usage and in return those two help him or her with something else. It can work.

Use templates! Most tools you use have them available depending on what you use. I see sales teams use them in Outlook, Salesforce.com, and in their marketing tools. Create them if you don’t have them for an intro e-mail, follow up email and any of the top messages you send out. Make sure they are buyer focused, which we have talked a lot about in past posts.

Remember the goal in learning on the job is to make a 1% improvement each day. Of the tips offered, which one will you try?

Choose one direction first – better word usage, better spelling, or better grammar and focus there. Make improvements and then move to another area of focus. Share what you learn with your peers.

Lori Richardson is recognized on Forbes as one of the "Top 30 Social Sales Influencers" worldwide and is a Top 25 Innovative Sales Blogger. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside sales teams in mid-sized companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog for sales strategies, tactics, and tips.
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