Think about it. To sell, you must not only demonstrate the value of your product, but you must also understand the need of the potential customer, therefore convincing them that your product can provide the solution.

To do all this, various communication skills come in to play:

The Ability to Actively Listen

Listening is a much-overlooked ability, especially in sales. In fact, poor salespeople – those who don’t last five minutes in the role – simply fail to listen to what their prospective audience is telling them: that is, what they need and why they need it. What is the problem that you must solve? Without listening to what your base has to say, you can never hope to sell to them.

In fact, listening is not enough. Or at least, passive listening is really not enough. ‘Active listening’, on the other hand, is the ability to truly process what is being said to you, and then adapting your answer accordingly. A few key elements to active listening are:

• Taking the time to listen.
• Making notes and giving ample time to process what you have heard. 
• Asking follow-up questions to show your interest and to help in your deeper understanding.
• Adapting your sales line in response to what you have heard.

Develop Your Ability to Emphasise

It is easy to show superficial empathy – “I can totally see where you are coming from”. But prospective clients – at least the savvy ones – can separate the platitudes from real empathy.

Empathy means putting yourself in the shoes of the prospective client – understanding the problem or issue they face from their side. Only then can you truly understand what is needed from the product that will solve their problem or issue. If your product can do that, then you need to be able to connect to that. The core principles here are:

• Taking the time, and performing the necessary research, to see the problem from the opposite side of the table.
• Adapting your sales tactic to sell from that perspective. Don’t give the prospective client the benefits of the product that you think are great, focus on the solutions they need.

Make Sure You Can Write Well

This entry may come as a surprise to some people, while others will see the value here right away. Even if most of your selling is performed face-to-face, there comes a time in sales transactions where the written word plays a critical role. This could be as early as in the marketing literature, or in the correspondence that goes back and forward at various stages of the sales funnel.

Some have estimated that poor writing at work costs American businesses up to $400 billion every year. A significant proportion of that loss will be sustained through losing sales. How so? Because, quite simply, prospective customers do not trust either the salesperson personally or the product they represent if the written word is poor. 

As just a simple example, poor quality written content on a website doubles bounce rate. That’s an incredible fact to start with. So, just by proofreading the language displayed on your company external-facing website will lead to more potential customers entering your sales funnel. The key considerations here are:

• Writing error-free text across business processes that make the right impression on prospective clients.
• Providing consistency in your business message.
• Using language that can prospective clients can identify with and can be persuaded by.

You may look at this as a significant investment, but it certainly need not be. For example, Linguix Business is a smart tool which provides an AI-powered grammar and spell-checking service but can also be set to provide consistency in the style and message of all the writing performed by your employees. Enjoy insightful statistics and data analysis to support your business in this mission, and even an array of expertly crafted templates to ensure great quality written communication from the very start. All available for as little as $10 per month per employee.

Be Concise and Efficient in Your Communication

Whether it is the value of your written or spoken word, the last thing a prospective customer wants to hear or see is streams upon streams of information that doesn’t tell them what they need in the most concise and efficient means possible.

Less is very often more, as they say. So, these key points here are:

• Provide the answer that is needed as succinctly as possible.
• Be personable and reasonable, but also be direct in your sales approach.

Being a good communicator is something that many people think they are. But are they really? Consider these four key communication elements, and see how you can achieve sales success with the correct approach to communication.

The post The Key Communication Skills for Sales Success appeared first on Linguix Blog.

When that business is content marketing, then the need for accurate and error-free written communication is essential. In fact, error-free text is not enough, it’s also about written work that communicates in the right way, meaning the right style and tone for the relevant audience.

Smile Bright Media, based in Miami Beach, Florida, is a business that puts tremendous value on the clarity and professionalism of its message. After all, Smile Bright is a content marketing business that helps build clients’ campaigns, as well as focussing on PR and branding.

Making mistakes with content, or failing to select the right tone and style in that content, would be a potentially expensive mistake for Smile Bright Media. After all, clarity and perfection in message is the business of this particular company.

How has Linguix helped Smile Bright Media?

First of all, it’s important to understand that not everyone can write perfect English every moment of the day. And that is true whatever the language background of the individual, or indeed the frequency that he or she actually writes content. No one is immune to mistakes.

Having a writing assistant, not to mention one that is driven by a powerful AI tool, just makes sense. Anyone can take their eye of the ball, and mistakes in communication are perfectly possible. But those mistakes can be costly to your reputation, even if it is simply a slip in an email, a blog post or a social media post, let alone in the actual content you create for clients.

The Chrome extension available for Linguix first enabled Smile Bright Media employees to produce error-free and stylistically suitable content in any web-based writing activity, from social and business media, to blog post content for Smile Bright’s own site.

The look-up option available, allowing the reader to click on any word and get definitions and synonyms also allowed Smile Bright Media staff to consistently develop their linguistic outlook. After all, we cannot hope to be able to select the right word at the right time every time.

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The Premium Plan

Being a content marketing company, however, Smile Bright Media immediately saw the benefit in going with the Linguix Premium option, which among other things, provides:

·  Unlimited grammar checking capacity

·  2700 checks for punctuation, grammar, context, and sentence structure

·  2700 checks for punctuation, grammar, context, and sentence structure

·  Content templates

·  The capacity fix more than 9million common typos

And perhaps the biggest benefit – greater than all of these individually excellent improvements – was the ability to now set goals in the writing.

Setting goals in Linguix

When setting out to write your own content (or in Smile Bright Media’s case, the content for important paying clients), then it is imperative that you set goals in that content. Indeed, this is what Linguix enables you to do, and then tests against these objectives. The goals that can be set in Linguix include:

Readability score: This is numerical score, measured from 0 to 100, and is based on formulas known globally as the Flesch reading ease test, a universally accepted scale. With this you can quickly ascertain the complexity of your text, allowing you to tailor it for your audience as required.

Writing goals on Linguix: Always considering who your audience is, with Linguix you can select the knowledge base of your audience (elementary, etc.), the required register (informal, neutral and formal) and even personalize the purpose of the text (for business, for friends and family etc.). The text that you produce is analyzed with these targets in mind, and recommendations are made accordingly.

Linguix emotions: Ascertaining the tone that is required, for example to be entertaining, serious, friendly, funny or whatever that may be, is essential. Again, with Linguix, these goals can be selected, and the content is assessed by these metrics.

Quote:

“With these kinds of metrics now established, we could now focus on not only writing error-free text, but content that matches precisely the brief given to us by our clients. This was revolutionary in our approach to our business.”

– Serge Moiseev, Smile Bright Media Inc. co-founder

For Smile Bright Media, having Linguix not only enabled the company’s employees to consistently produce the level of professional content expected from a content marketing business, but enabled them to set content goals that were objectively assessed by a tool. Every step of the way too.

Quote:

“Having Linguix has taken the quality and suitability of my staff’s writing to another level. For our business, that was invaluable.”

• Serge Moiseev, Smile Bright Media Inc. co-founder

The post How Linguix Helps Smile Bright Media Communicate More Effectively appeared first on Linguix Blog.

So, whether you are a new, junior office worker, or the head of the business, here are some practical tips to follow for writing good emails:

Start with the right salutation

Always bear in mind who you are writing your email to, who is your audience? Generally speaking, there are formal emails, and informal or casual emails, so select the right way to begin based on the type of email you are sending.

In a more formal email, ‘Dear’ is the classic start, whereas in something more casual you may choose to begin with ‘Hi’. Either way, make sure you start with the right tone, and that also goes for whether you choose to use first names or surnames.

In the vast majority of English-speaking countries, using first names, even in business, is common practice, so if you do choose to begin with a Mr. or Mrs., really make sure that it is appropriate.

Start with a clear, friendly, and polite opening line

It would be very unusual, even in more formal business emails, to get straight down to business, so your opening line should be something a little more personable, just to break the ice, as they say.

‘I hope this email finds you well.’

This is a classic and trusted opening sentence. And once again, it follows the golden rule of simplicity.

The main body

Now you get to your point, but in doing so, remember that English is a very indirect language, so launching immediately into the problem – if there is one – may be interpreted as being a little dramatic and aggressive.

Explain the point clearly, being careful to avoid overlong sentences (which breaks the rule of simplicity). Include all necessary information, but do not over-egg the pudding as is said in English (you do not need to repeat the point several times: once is sufficient).

The call to action

Here is the part of your email that makes it abundantly clear what you want the receiver to do with this information.

‘Please can you check the order and get back to me as soon as possible.’

This example is a clear indication of what you want the other person to do. You could even include the call to action before the main body of the text in which you explain the reasons for doing this. At all times just make sure that the flow of the email is logical.

Closing line

Now you prepare the person receiving the email for your sign-off. Try to be polite, succinct, and relevant to what you have asked the person to do in the call to action.

‘Your assistance in this matter is most appreciated.’

This example is clear, appreciative, and polite. Once again, keeping it simple is the best practice here.

The ending salutation

In the opening salutation we considered the formality of the email, so make sure that your sign-off matches that formality. As always, the classic, traditional sign-offs are best, for example:

‘Kind regards’

‘Warm regards’

‘With thanks’

There is very little reason to deviate from these tried-and-tested endings, unless you are really looking to make a particular impact, or emphasize your individuality. That’s something to think about.

And last, of all, think carefully if you are going to include your surname. Generally speaking, if you are sending the email externally, it would be the right approach to include your first and surname, but without any unnecessary titles such as ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’.

Important checks to make before you send your email

Of course, an email littered with spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes is not going to leave a good impression, even if it follows the structure as already laid out. Here are some of the classic mistakes to avoid.

Don’t make your email too long, or too short

Don’t write an essay as an email. Certainly don’t include long paragraphs that people don’t want to read. Avoid repeating yourself, and create short, concise sentences that are polite in nature.

At the same time, being too short can seem a little needlessly impolite, so strike the right balance here. Consider the person who is opening the email: does the length and presentation of that email leave them wanting to read it?

Proofread your email before you send it

This is basic advice, but it is incredible how many people hit that ‘send’ button before giving their email a second readthrough. Basic spell-check software can only help you so much, so it is advisable to use something a little more sophisticated, such as Linguix’s AI-powered writing assistant, that can help you identify grammatical mistakes and stylistic errors.

But at the same time. Re-read it before you send it. If it is a particularly important email, ask a colleague to read it first too, as sometimes a clean pair of eyes can make a difference.

And that’s it. It’s not rocket science, but it does need a clear strategy, a clean structure, and accuracy. Linguix offers a number of useful templates that you can utilize for your email writing, so come find out what is on offer.

The post How to Write Good Emails appeared first on Linguix Blog.

Today we will talk about how you can improve your written communications, what advice to follow, and tools to use.

Practice continually

We are not talking about the so-called 10,000 hours rule. But the idea is pretty clear – writing is hard for those, who do not practice. Do you know why we think that the people of the past were much better writers? They were not, but many people practiced a lot, by keeping their diary for example.

For today you might not have that much time, writing a 1000-word essay requires a lot of dedication. But if you develop a habit of writing at least three sentences per day, after a while, you’ll see a boost in your skills. It might be a Facebook post, thoughtful comment on the article you liked, whatever.

The main idea behind this approach is to learn how to fight the writer’s block. As time goes, you will learn how to translate your thoughts into sentences that are readable enough for others to understand.

Also, when you face a need to write something bigger than your usual Facebook comment, say, an essay at school, or a blog post at work, there are also tools to help you. Refer to our Template Library available for Premium users, to get templates of dozens of texts – then you can just will the gaps and get a finished copy.

So, the main thing is practice. Write as much as you can, and soon you won’t need any help to create a killer piece and convey all your thoughts with style. This is the only way to improve your written communication.

Think about your reader

An important thing often overlooked by inexperienced writers. The basics of successful writing (whatever you consider a success in your case) is based on using words and notions suitable for the target audience of your text.

You will use formal language when sending an email with a quarterly report to your manager or working on a cover letter for your CV. And vice versa, when you are commenting on your friend’s Instagram post or sending a WhatsApp message, you won’t be too formal, as it will look weird.

Also, you should remember about complexity and readability. If you are writing light content you’d like even a kid could understand, you should avoid complex expressions and long sentences.

Run your text via specialized writing enhancement tool to find out its readability level, and fix it if needed.

Do not misuse words

One of the hardest things about writing is picking the right word. Often you might just mix the meaning of one word with another, or become confused by homophones (there are a lot of them in English), or forget the right meaning at all.

As a result, your writing may seem strange, irrelevant and unprofessional. To avoid such problems, use automated tools likes Vocabulary.com. This website has a pretty impressive approach to conveying a word’s meaning. It is not only written like in a dictionary, but there is a complete break up of different meanings the word can have in multiple situations. All explained as if you were at school and talking with your teacher.

Be clear

Though experts are still arguing about shrinking/not shrinking attention span of the nowadays readers, they agree on the fact, and it does not exceed 10-15 seconds. So, to achieve a goal of your writing, you need to get straight to the point ASAP, or the reader will switch to something else.

The information overload is a huge problem, and people always have multiple options of content consuming: they can watch YouTube videos, scroll social networking feeds, read articles posted by media outlets. If your message is too long, or hard to read, chances of people wasting their time to understand, what you were about to say, equal to zero.

Don’t try to impress people with bright metaphors, complex phrases, and surprising facts if these things are not 100% relevant to what you want to express. Otherwise, cut all these unnecessary decorations.

Use the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach:

• if there is a big report, include a summary of key points in the beginning;
• use bullets to separate points;
• avoid industry-specific jargon;
• do not overuse abbreviations.

Structure your texts

Some life hacks could skyrocket your writing readability. One of the most effective is structuring. Here is how it works:

• Begin each paragraph with a so-called topic sentence. This is the main idea of the whole section. If you want to improve your writing communication, it is the best approach you can follow, as you’ll grab the reader’s attention right away.
• Follow with the body sentences to dive into the topic. Once you’ve told what you will write about, add more details and describe the matter of your topic. Here you insert quotations, images, links to the external data, etc.
• Add a conclusion sentence. Your idea should have the beginning and the end, as well. So don’t just jump to the next idea, until you’ve not finished the previous one. Wrap up the narration, outline main idea, consequences, etc., and only then move forward.

Mark Quadros, expert writer from Dhe Real Mark emphasizes further, “When writing content pieces, I avoid beating about the bush and get right to the point. The last thing you want is to burn your reader’s energy by making them read big text blocks.”

Find a human editor

The best way to improve your written communication is to have someone who will tell you when you could do a better job. There are websites like Fluent Express where you can order human editing services. However, there you can’t discuss the piece in the real-time.

Finding a person who knows your writing style and standard style errors, and is available for discussion is much more effective. But how to get such an editor? It is super easy. Just use websites like Upwork to hire an experienced freelance editor.

There are lots of such specialists, and you can easily find people who are native UK, US, Australia, New Zealand speakers. The good thing is you can negotiate the price for the proofreading, and build a long-term relationship.

future discounts, explain your idea behind any part of the text – shortly speaking; you definitely need Upwork for professional content creation.

Double check everything

Another important thing which people often overlook is proofreading. And even if you’d score yourself a human proofreader via Upwork, he or she still be human and can skip some mistakes.

However, nowadays there are professional writing enhancement tools like Linguix.com which finds much more mistakes than a regular spell checker. So, when you think you’re finished, and BEFORE sending your text to a human editor (or a friend for a second look) run your text through the tool.

It will eliminate typos, find punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. That way, you’ll be sure that your writing is clear as a whistle. Then, send it to your human editor, and, when he or she returns the text, run an additional check via Linguix.com. This will help in fixing potential new typos arrived after the editing, and new mistakes the editor might make.

The good thing is that the tool works as a super convenient Chrome extension. This means, you can edit texts right on WordPress or Medium, Gmail or Facebook, and it is super comfortable that the extension checks everything on the fly. No need to Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V and paste anything.

Final advice: don’t try to save time on writing

Delivering clear written communication takes time. Nothing good will happen if you’ll try to save time on writing. Chances are you’ll end up with typos, errors, and unclear message.  It is absolutely normal to spend several hours crafting an email, and several days for polishing the blog post or essay.

All steps of improving the written communications including evaluating the readability, checking there are no misused words, running a grammar check, and human editing, will require some time. Do not try to skip any of these steps as they are crucial for getting a clear message.

The post How To Improve Written Communication: Practical Tips And Useful Tools appeared first on Linguix Blog.