ICML training courses > Business writing > Effective business writing course
The business world is doing more writing than ever thanks to email, texting, Slack and other channels. Yet many professionals have done too little to refine their writing skills.
When documents are clearly written, concise and compelling, they will be more influential with the reader, capturing their attention and encouraging action. This business writing course helps participants become more effective with written professional communication.
This highly interactive business writing course builds the skills to quickly write crisp and logical business documents. This tailored course is available in-house or online in the following locations:
Melbourne | Sydney | Brisbane | Adelaide | Perth | Hobart | Darwin | Canberra
All regional areas | Asia | And anywhere else
This business writing course is designed for people who are required to write any business document such as emails, proposals, reports, submissions, or any other official document.
In this business writing course, participants learn how to:
We deliver our training programs either through:
We deliver our professional writing courses in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, or any other city or regional area in Australia as well as internationally.
Where relevant, we will use your organisation’s internal formats, templates and style guide.
We will also use anonymised examples of participants’ writing in the workshop. With this material the facilitator:
Ask us how we apply this to your organisation.
For more information go to our business writing training programs page to see some of the programs we offer. The page gives more details about:
We also coach individuals to build their writing skills; an effective way to improve writing, fast. Ask us how we can tailor the business writing course to suit your needs:
If you’re still unsure about the benefits of taking a business writing course, we’ve put together extensive information to help you make the best decision for you and your organisation.
Business writing is important for everyone, no matter what level of the organisation you are at.
If you work at the front desk, you should strive to be able to pass along even the most basic messages as clearly as possible, so recipients aren’t getting potentially distorted messages.
Likewise, if you are overseeing a team or the entire company, you want to be able to communicate core directives as clearly as possible, so that there is no confusion or wasted time in implementing your goals.
When you are trying to write effective business communications — whether it’s a basic email, a proposal document or presentation — you need to be able to get your point across clearly and concisely. That includes making sure your writing is error-free.
That means you write every sentence with a purpose, and make sure nothing gets lost in the shuffle. Sentences that are too long, paragraphs that come across like a big block of text, spelling errors and so on can all individually hinder your message. If they are too frequent, the point you’re trying to make can be lost entirely.
For that reason, a critical part of effective business writing is actually reading. Specifically, it requires proofreading what you’ve written before you send it (or saying it aloud), so that you can be sure what you wrote makes sense.
To help you get a better handle on your business writing, particularly as you refine those skills, it helps to understand and remember “the 5 C’s.” Your writing should be:
Clear: You should make sure that everything you want to communicate with your writing is coming across to readers or listeners. Begin every paragraph with an idea of what you’re trying to convey. Being clear also means writing in plain English and not complicating your message unnecessarily.
Complete: Along similar lines, you should strive to make sure you pass along all the information you want to convey. You just want to make sure your audience isn’t left with any lingering questions.
Concise: We’ve all experienced the feeling of reading something that’s two pages when it could have been two paragraphs. You don’t want your writing to drag on, so aim to say as much as you can in as few words as possible. That includes avoiding the passive voice. At ICML, we teach course participants how to identify and remove redundant words and reduce the total word count by 30 percent.
Courteous: You need to keep in mind that every minute someone spends reading your writing is time they could be devoting to other business tasks that could be equally important. Write without talking down, and with gratitude for the opportunity to pass along crucial information.
Correct: Obviously, you want to make sure everything you write is accurate. This includes using good grammar and proper punctuation. Double-checking that this is the case before you hit “send” is a must.
While there is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach to business writing — everyone has their own writing style and preferences as a reader, after all — you should certainly make sure you’re following the five principles outlined above.
However, you must also tailor your writing to the specific kinds of communications you’re sending. How you write an email to a co-worker who you know well should be quite different from how you write a business letter you’re sending to a prospective customer or client. Such skills are equally important.
At ICML, we have several business writing training courses that can help you hone your skills and knowledge, both in general and for very specific types of communication skills. These lessons should be part of your broader professional development.
Our various courses will equip you or your entire company with the unique skills you need to succeed. We offer both in-person training and online courses. Contact us to learn more about what we can do for you.
We’ve listed just some of the areas in which course participants may see improvements in their writing skills:
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Lynne’s session was excellent and I would highly recommend it to others. The program was well-delivered and engaging - could have easily become a very dry subject in someone else's hands.
Fantastic course. Thank you Lynne!
Lynne is always so professional, friendly and encouraging. Excellent qualities in a facilitator. The course material was very useful and practical and will be a great resource to reference following completion of this course. Thanks Lynne! I got a lot out of the course and will no doubt stop myself from using cliches and repeating myself in emails now.
Nailing Council Reports was informative and interesting; the facilitator Lynne was great – really knows the subject matter and presents it in an easy to understand and apply way.
Peter was engaging, funny and very knowledgeable on the Effective Business Writing course. Course materials were well structured and easy to navigate with exercises that were fun, varied and perfectly timed to avoid “post lunch dip”. The course more than paid for itself in re-invigorating my writing.
We have been utilising Lynne’s skills over the years. Lynne is our ‘go-to’ person for writing, editing, writing for government courses every 2-3 years. We will continue to do so.
Do you have any questions about business writing you’d like to ask? Do it here. One of our trainers will answer on the page and we’ll let you know by email when we post the response. We aim to come back to you within a few business days. If you need more urgent advice, try our chat at the bottom of the page.