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How compelling is your writing? Writing is a critical business skill. When you think about it, writing impacts every part of your business from marketing and advertising to client service, employee communications and contract negotiations. If your writing isn’t getting the message across in the right way you are either wasting your time, your money, your reputation or all three.

Even the most educated people tend to have lower reading levels. so unless you’re writing for an audience of English literature PhD.s a good rule of thumb is to write for an 8th grade reader. This doesn’t mean you should “dumb it down”; what it does mean is to keep your writing real; especially your marketing material.

Compelling content is generally written in the active voice. Compare these sentences:

“You will create an action strategy for success.”

to

“An action strategy for success will be created.”

Which sentence has the energy? Which has the action?

Compelling content is also short and concise and generally written for about an 8th grade reading level. Winston Churchill was known for his inspiring and compelling speeches, right? It is said that his speeches rated at a 5th or 6th grade level. Compare these sentences:

“War is hell.” - Winston Churchill

to

“Numerous horrific situations rage on in the combat overseas.” -I made this up.

You “get it” in Churchill’s 3-word sentence; concise, compelling. The second sentence sounds like it came from someone more interested in impressing the reader with their words that they are in communicating a message.

So, now for the cool thing: Microsoft Word has a readability tool that can help you improve the readability of your copy. In Word go to Tools - Options – Spelling & Grammar; Select “Check Grammar with Spelling box and check “Show Readability Statistics”. Now every time you run spell check a grammar box will come up with statistics. At the bottom of the box you’ll see the percentage of passive sentences and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level. For most marketing material the lower the percentage of passive sentences the better and a grade level, on average, somewhere between a 7 and 9.

Ways to improve your marketing is just one success topic we cover in our Ocular Forum groups. If you’re a small business owner and are tired of going it alone, get support on your road to success. We business owners don’t have the luxury of taking the summer off so the next Ocular Forum begins July 17th. For more information on the Ocular Forum or Bold Vision’s other programs go to www.ocularforum.com or call me at 207-221-3492. There are many Ocular Forum participants who would love to tell you their success stories!

Compel and be Be BOLD!

FYI – this article has 12% passive sentences and a grade level of 7.6.

Check out a past issue of the BOLD Bulletin, a free e-journal for business owners and professionals.

I found a Time Survey for students to help them manage their schedules to allow for enough study time.

Time management and the lack thereof, is a universal challenge. The REAL challenge is that before you can improve the use of your time you should get a more accurate estimate of how you are actually using it. Who has time for THAT?

Well, with just a bit of editing I'm sharing this survey with you here. If you make it a priority - for just a few days - this will help you estimate how much time you currently spend in typical activities.

Try keeping track of how you spend your time for a week. This will help you get a clear understanding of where you spend most of your time. It will also help you identify your time wasters.

When taking the survey, write the amount of time spent on each activity. If you haven’t tracked your time yet, make an estimate.

Once completed, multiply estimates in items #1 – 7 by seven. This will give you the total time spent on the activity in one week. After each item's weekly time has been calculated, add all these times for your grand total - #11. Subtract this (#11) from 168, the total possible hours per week. Here You Go:

1. ________ X 7 = _______Number of hours of sleep each night
2. ________ X 7 = _______Number of grooming hours per day
3. ________ X 7 = _______Number of hours for meals/snacks per day - include preparation time
4. ________ X 5 = _______Total travel time weekdays and weekends
5. ________ Number of hours per week spent getting the kids ready for school, sports, homework, bed, etc.
6. ________ Number of hours per week for regularly scheduled functions (clubs, church, get-togethers, etc.)
7. ________ X 7 = _______Number of hours per day for chores, errands, extra grooming, etc.
8. ________ Number of hours of work per week
9. ________ Number of hours in front of the TV per week
10. ________ Average number of hours per week socializing; dates, etc. Be honest!
11. ________ Now add up the totals
12. Subtract the above number from 168 - _______ = _______

The answer in #12 is the remaining, unallocated hours in your week. How’d you do? Need to find a way to save time?

Effective time management is critical to your success. In the Ocular Forum, our peer and accountability group for small business success, one of our sessions is focused on effective time management - GoldTime.

In GoldTime the first thing you do each and every day is to spend an hour on an important but not-yet-urgent task. The fires won’t burn your office down. They can wait one more hour. Focusing on urgent but not-yet-urgent tasks will reduce the number of urgent tasks you face. Otherwise all the important and not-yet-urgent tasks will eventually become urgent, which will keep you in a perpetual state of reaction.

Do you have a time saving tip? Be BOLD, focus on the GOLD and pass it on.

Sign up for the BOLD Bulletin, our monthly (most of the time) ejournal for business owners and professionals. Sing up this month and receive Dale Carnegie's e-book, The Art of Public Speaking for free.