The Writer's Roadmap for Business

Writing can often be a white-knuckled, pencil-breaking frustration, even for seasoned professionals. One common problem is how to focus what you’re trying to say. In the vast maze of information out there, how do you decide which ideas and facts are irrelevant – which keep you lost – and which get you where you’re going? How do you begin to turn notes into a coherent draft?

The Writer’s Roadmap Target Outline System can help. It starts by forcing you to ask the right questions, questions that direct your thinking – and help you sort through your notes.

Look at the scenario and notes below, for example:

The Alphabet company, an educational consulting firm known for its creative and hands-on approach to working with clients, is throwing its annual “reach out to the schools” party, its largest event of the year. Your company, Event Planners, wants the job, and you’ve been chosen to write the proposal. What do you do?

First, ask yourself three questions:

Who is my audience?
What do they want to know?
What is my bottom line point?

1. Who is my audience? It’s the Alphabet company, but don’t toss that piece of information aside as obvious. What do you know about the Alphabet company? What’s important to them? What have their previous events been like? What will be most likely to win them over?
2. What do they want to know? First, there are the basics. They want to know what kind of event you could plan for them, what it would cost, and how much experience you’ve had running similar events. Ultimately, they want to know why you’re the best for the job.
3. What is my bottom line point? Given the answers to questions one and two, you begin to make notes. You can’t decide on a bottom line point – the single point that makes the strongest argument for you getting the job – without assessing all you’ve got. So, begin to list your strengths and your weaknesses. List your strengths because you’ll play to them, list your weaknesses because if you don’t know them, you can’t either correct them or diffuse them by countering with a strength.

Here’s an example of your notes:

            Experience: We’ve done seventeen similar events, for 100 to 150 people. Some highlights of those events:

1. A Whale of a Birthday Party, for Friends of the Water World, at the Ritz, August 2004, featuring a life-sized, papier mache whale.
2. You’re the Apple of My Eye, for Apple Sellers Inc., January 2005, in which you organized a hay ride and a Johnny Apple Seed activity.
3. Fire and Ice, for The Diamond Association, in which you covered the tables in fake diamonds, and decorated the hall with faux gems, June 2005.

Price: This is your weakness. You’re one of the higher priced event planners in town.

Staffing: You have a staff of 50, and you are known for your excellent customer service. You provide a party strategist for each event, who works one-on-one with the customer and coordinates every member of the staff, including subcontractors.

Plans for work specifically with the Alphabet Company:
You would offer your strategist’s first hour free, to interview the event coordinator at the company and learn about their vision of the event.

Once you’ve put down the notes, it’s time to think about the answer to question three: What is my bottom line point? In this case, you’ve got to decide what your greatest strength is when it comes to the Alphabet company. Price is your weakest point, but you’re strong on experience. However, it’s likely your one-on-one approach that will win the Alphabet Company over – this plays to their own reputation for creative, individualized work, and it also shows how you’ll put your experience to work for them.

Therefore, the plan is your ultimate bottom line. That’s what’s likely to win the customer. Therefore, in your piece of writing, that’s where you’re headed. But how do you know where to begin?

Simple. If you know the answer you’re trying to provide, you must prompt the reader to ask the question that will let you answer it. Therefore, to open your piece of writing, frame the reader’s needs so that your solution resolves them. In other words, get the reader to ask the right question – the question for which you’ve got the answer.

In the case of the Alphabet Company, their general need is an event planner. You’ve got to open your piece of writing so that they realize for the kind of party they want to throw, what they need is your plan.

You could open with something like this:

Every year, “Reach Out to the Schools” gives the Alphabet Company a chance to reach out to the educational community, and introduce itself. It’s more than a party, it’s a showcase of the company’s mission, and exactly how it accomplishes that mission. That’s why attention to detail is crucial in this event, and at Event Planners, we’ve built a reputation on making sure every detail is perfect – and perfect for you.

You’ve now re-framed the reader’s problem. The Alphabet Company doesn’t just need to have a party planned. They need a party that showcases who they are, and you’re just the people to do that for them.

From there, you’d organize the piece so that your weakness on price would be enveloped in a theme of quality work – because people are willing to pay for quality. You’d build to your strengths – experience, a large, attentive staff, and ultimately, a concrete plan – so that you could answer the reader’s question – why are you best for the job?

By making the reader understand his own problem in a new way, you’ve readied the stage for your resolution – the bottom line that should win you the job. Your next step is to organize the other relevant information so that it takes your reader along the straightest path from that PROBLEM to that RESOLUTION.

To learn how to do that, read my upcoming book, How to Say It: Business Writing That Works, coming in October from Prentice Hall, or available now, on Amazon.com. There you'll learn:

How to make the reader ask a question so he or she will want to read looking for your answer.

How to decide if, where, and how to use each piece of information you have.

How to organize your facts to yield a message of maximum power, no matter how complex your subject.

And much, much more.