Chapter 10 - Persuasive and Sales Messages

Chapter 10 - Persuasive and Sales Messages


In business, we have to being a persuasive person because it's needed to build the best relationship and also brings the best company. Mastering persuasive skill means being able to create successful persuasive messages. There are six effective persuasion techniques such as :
- establishing credibility so the sender must engender trust to the receiver,
- making a precise request so the request must be realistic one,
- tying facts to benefits in order to support the sender’s view,
- recognizing the power of loss to be a powerful motivator for the receiver,
- expecting and overcoming resistance,
- sharing solutions that acceptable to all concerned and compromise.

Not only that, there are five steps to do in writing persuasive messages such as:
- prewrite especially the purpose of the message and the profile of the audience,
- gain attention with making the reader aware of the problem and establishing credibility,
- build interest with using facts or statistics and always be positive one, reduce resistance with recognizing any weaknesses and suggesting well-reasoned counterarguments, and motivate action like stating a specific request such as deadline and repeating a major benefit that appeals to the reader.


You will mastering the successful persuasive messages when you follow these aspects and steps.

Chapter 9 - Negative Messages

Chapter 9 - Negative Messages

Business and proffesional organization certainly use negative messages especially when the bad situations or something happen in the business. We certainly face bad things like a poor service, customer did not satisfaction, undelivered goods and many others. There are two ways to communicate the negative messages like using the direct strategy and indirect strategy.

The direct strategy effectively used

- When the bad news is not damaging
- The receiver may overlook the bad news.
- The organization or receiver prefers directness.
- Firmness is necessary.

The Indirect strategy is effectively used when

- The bad news threatens the customer relationship.
- The bad news is unexpected.
- The bad news is personally upsetting.
- The bad news will provoke a hostile reaction.

Chapter 8 - Positive Messages

Chapter 8 - Positive Messages

There are 3 parts of business messages such as positive messages, negative messages amd persuasive messages. These business messages are exchanged in the form of e-mails, memos, or letters. In this chapter i will focusing on positive messages which deliver straightfoward request, replies, and goodwill. Goodwill messages contain five key like be selfless which means only discuss about the receiver, not the sender; be specific which includes special details; be sincere which shows honest feelings of the sender with conversational language; be spontaneous which avoids canned phrases; and keep the message short so just write as long as needed only.

Here the example of positive messages :

Chapter 7 - Electronic Messages and Digital Media

Chapter 7 - Electronic Messages and Digital Media

Most of people use electronic messages and digital media rather than traditional paper for writing and sharing messages to each other.Electronic messages and digital media are not unfamiliar things for us, especially when we live in business world.There are many electronic messages that we have commonly used such as  electronic mail, instant messaging, text messaging, podcasts, blogs, wikis, and social networking. There are pros and cons of instant messaging and text. There are two different perspective about it, the first perspective is some people say that it really useful for doing business and develop our business and the second perspective say that it may be dangerous for business.

Here is the pros and cons :

The pros :

1. Messaging avoids phone tag and eliminates the downtime associated with personal telephone conversations.
2. Texting can be a low-cost substitute for voice calls.
3. Both IM and text enable users to get answer quickly and allow multitasking.
4. Instant Messaging (IM) allows people to share information immediately and make decisions quickly.

The cons :

1. Organizations fear that privileged information and company records will be revealed through public instant messaging systems.
2. Companies worry about phishing (fraudulent) schemes, viruses, malware (malicious software programs), and spim (IM spam).
3. Companies fear that business track and store messaging conversations need to comply with legal requirement.


The existence of electronic messages and digital media cannot be avoided. You just need to use electronic media professionally. 
To keep  instant messaging and texts professional, you must know your company’s policies, separate personal from business contacts, stay away from personal messaging at work, make yourself unavailable when you need to concentrate, wait until receiving a reply before shooting off multiple messages, avoid sending confidential information, and use correct grammar and spelling.

Chapter 6 - Revising Business Messages

Chapter 6 - Revising Business Messages

Revising for conciseness

a.Eliminating flabby expression

Flabby expression is extra words that make your writing seems unclear, weak, rambling, and unstructured. It often contains overused words which seem meaningless to the reader.

It is required to eliminate the unnecessary words in order to make your writing reach a higher level.

b.Limiting Long Lead-Ins

This means you need to delete unnecessary introductory words.

c.Dropping unnecessary there is/ are and it is/ was fillers

d.Rejecting Redundancies

Redundancies are expressions with repeating meaning or including unnecessary words (redundant. For example,  the word unexpected surprise can be changed into surprise because unexpected carries the same meaning as surprise.

e.Purging empty words

Empty words and phrases: case, degree, the fact, factor, instance, nature and quality.

Revising for clarity

1. KISS

KISS stands for Keep It Short and Simple. KISS formula is using active-voice sentences that avoid indirect, pompous language.

2.Cliches and Slang

Cliches are expressions, words, and phrases which are overused. For example, you say “below the belt” instead of “last but least”.

3.Unburying Verbs

(buried)Conduct a discussion of - Discuss (Unburied)

(buried)Create a reduction of - reduce (Unburied)

(buried)Give consideration to - consider (Unburied)

(buried)Make an assumption of - Assume (Unburied)

Chapter 5 - Organizing and Writing Business Messages

Chapter 5 - Organizing and Writing Business Messages





3-x-3 Writing Process according to Guffey's

Prewriting: analyze, anticipate and adapt
Writing: Research, organize and compose
Revising: Revise, proofread and evaluate

Formal and Informal Research Methods

Formal research methods: access electronically, search manually, go to the sourche, investigate primary sources and conduct scientific experiments.

Informal research methods: we look in the flies, talk with your boss, interview the target audience, conduct an informal survey, creating cluster diagrams and brainstorming for ideas.

Organizing Ideas Using Lists and Outlines
There are two outlining formats: format for alphanumeric outline and format for decimal outline.


Organizing Ideas into Patterns

We need to organize ideas into pattern to attract audience attention. There are two pattern such as direct pattern and indirect pattern.
Direct pattern used :
- When the audience seem to be pleased
- midly interested
- neutral

Indirect pattern used:
- If unwilling or uninterested
- If displeased or disappointed
- If hostile

Direct Pattern for Receptive Audiences :

Chapter 4 - Planning Business Messages

Chapter 4 - Planning Business Messages

         This chapter will discuss four basic principles of writing, the 3-x-3 writing process, the phase of the writing process, the “you” view, conversational but professional language, bias-free language, simple expression, and vigorous words, how teams approach collaborative writing projects and what collaboration tools support team writing, and the legal and ethical responsibilities of business communications.

The 3-x-3 Writing Process
The writing process will be easier if you follow the 3-x-3 writing process: prewriting – 25% (thinking and planning), writing – 25% (organizing and composing), and revising – 50% (45% revising and 5% proofreading ). This writing process allows you to have a systematic plan, as it is described below.
                   





Adapting to the Task and Audience

1. Developing audience benefits

2.“You” view is necessary used to give emphasize on the audience. The sender focus must be changed to audience focus to show the “you” view as it is shown in this example.



3.Being conversational but professional, adapting to the task and audiences



4. Expressing yourself  positively
Expressing your thought positively makes your surrounding reacts positively as well. The way to express your positive thought is by using positive words or avoiding negative words.

5. Being courteous
Being courteous is an exact way to get good response to a letter, report, or memo. It is not only about saying “please” and “thank you”, but it is also about the tone of your writing.

6. Choosing bias-free Language
You must avoid language which tends to discriminate others – language which is sensitive to people’s sex, race, age, and other differences.

7. Employing Precise, Vigorous Words
To avoid ambiguity which can lead to misunderstanding, you need to use precise and vigorous words. For example, use word “fax me” instead of “contact me”.