Practice Top to Bottom Communication

July 10, 2007 · Comments

Not a Closer Effective communication requires structure. Be it in print or spoken formats, if you can’t communicate well, you won’t receive the desired results of your efforts, even if all you want is to be understood. And to that point, please allow me to offer some thoughts on communication.

Lead clearly and with your best stuff

If it’s email, make your subject line crisp and clear. If it’s a blog, same thing. In a conversation, start with the point, and then go from there. ALWAYS make the first thing the “identifier” of what’s to follow. Mystery only works nicely in fiction.

From the subject line or title or first sentence (let’s stick with a blog post analogy to save my sanity), make the first paragraph a good strong lead with the MOST IMPORTANT information up front. Why? Because people might be skimming. They might be deciding if the information is worthy of their time. They have too much to do, just like you.

Break things up. Keep it chunked and conversational

I don’t care WHAT you were taught when writing essays in college or learning formal business letter writing, or learning how to write fiction. Big long, flowy sentences SUCK as a way to keep someone’s attention. Make a plan today: go get the book THE SHIPPING NEWS by E. Annie Proulx. Look at a professional at sparse text. Learn a little minimalism.

Keep paragraphs as short as possible. Remember to start new paragraphs for each new theme (that’s how they’re broken up, by the way- by the first sentence being the lead of the paragraph’s theme).

If you have bulleted lists and the like, use them sparingly, and not as big fat streams of poorly formatted text.

Finish with a strong close

The end of your piece might be just a conclusion, but more often than not, communication (in blogs, email, or conversations) involves some kind of a close, maybe with what’s often termed a “call to action.” In those cases, it’s a matter of making sure the person understands what you want them to do.

In my blog posts, I almost always end with something asking you what YOU’D do. Why? Because I don’t write this for myself. I write for you. I write with the hope that you will come out with even better stuff in comments than I made up in the post. But that’s a call-to-action.

In other cases, a close means asking someone to do something. Compelling them to take an action. In sales, this is a purchase. In business, this is making a deal happen. Closing means ensuring that you’ve ended your communication in such a way that a little fine tuning might come next, but that everything is lined up so that the next actions are obvious.

(personal note: I’m a crappy closer. That’s why I’m a community guy. I like the interaction more than the goal).

From top to bottom

Lead with a strong, crisp, understandable subject line. Follow with your best stuff first. Support it. And then close it. It’s just like that, no matter the medium. If the point is a conversation, the same elements should be there, just with other people supplying the middles and with the close being somewhat flexible.

What’s your take? Does this resonate? Can you see this in your own communication?

Finally, if you come to the site directly, please consider subscribing, either by email:

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

or by news reader by going here and selecting your personal reader. It would mean a lot to me.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Tagged as:

ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress

Thesis WordPress theme

Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.

With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like ChrisBrogan.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.

  • Clearly, Goldie hit on something here. Everyone seems to identify with that point.

    I also want to highlight that Dave's point of LEADING with the call to action is clever. I have a colleague who does this, and it *always* saves her the frustration of hitting me with follow-up emails. When I read her mail, I know what she wants me to do.

    Great thoughts, guys.
  • Great discussion here.

    1. To underscore Goldie's point, I find it best to literally enumerate multiple points if I want them noticed. Bullets don't work. When people see numbers, I guess it makes them aware that there are several points that I'd like them to consider.

    2. If I'm sending an email where I need the recipient to do something or send me something, I lead with the call to action. People are busy and have far too many e-mails to read, so I like to spare them time and get right to the point. Then I include all the detail explaining why.

    3. If I'm sending an e-mail with information a person needs, and I need something back from them as well, I lead with my question or request. I know that the recipient will read my request in order to get to the information they need.

    4. If someone requests information from me, I try to be thorough and unambiguous. I also try to look beyond the question to figure out what the person is trying to accomplish. Sometimes it's clear the person isn't asking the right question, or their question tells me they're not seeing the whole picture.
  • bgavin
    Good post, Chris. Exactly what we learned in Journalism class. And all too easy to forget!

    Also it is good to be reminded by Goldie that one topic (I like to say one *decision*) per email is almost always best.
  • Another good one Chris. I have learned so much from your blog posts. Your method of making me re-evaluate how I approach situations is such an eye opener I find myself looking for profound questions of my own. This particular post relates to what I have been thinking about this past few week and that is COMMUNICATING with people and searching for the vibe of like minded individuals. The conclusion I have reached is to just go for it and when I feel as if I don't fit in or if I look foolish...so what. My intentions were in the right place and maybe that particular situation was not the right place for me. But it is MY responsibility that the one listening, watching, or reading has a complete understanding as to what I want to give them. No one can excuse that if you want to be apart of a growing network of networkers. Keep it up Chris, you truly live up to being a Community Developer and especially a communicator.
  • I have found that what you are suggesting is essential in today's world. Even though I can run on quite a bit with long words and ornate sentences that really shouldn't be quite so long like this one, (breathe), if I try to put more than one thought in an email I find that 98% of email recipients will not see it.

    I have found it is better to send two (somewhat spaced) emails if I actually need to communicate two ideas. Short, to the point and then what you want them to do.

    Depending on who it is you may not want a "what you want them to do but an "If I don't hear from you by (some reasonable deadline) then ..." This shouldn't be a threat, but some people seem to need deadlines or some just don't reply if they agree (maybe they thought they replied in their mind I don't know.)

    So now that I've gone on much too long to follow the above rules - Short and sweet and to the point gets the results and gets action done.
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post:

Next post: