Open ltr 2 all of u out there

Apr 26, 2010 @ 18:54

Today while I was doing some cleanup around the office I came across some letters and messages from people who had contacted me over the past few years either to ask for work or to ask to distribute some of my software products. I had kept them aside as a reminder on how not to do business. It is a pet peeve of mind that when you communicate on business purposes to do it properly and to write well and to try to do your best to use proper grammar and spelling.

I might be showing my age, but it does gets me very mad when I receive some business message that is either very badly written or written as it you are sending a SMS message like the title of this post. There are no reason for either ones, especially the first one as nowadays spelling and grammar correctors are ubiquitous on all computer platforms. If somebody wants to find a job or wants to do business with someone it looks very bad on you when you send messages like that as the first impression you make to your prospective client, employer, or partner is one that you cannot even bother to put your thoughts down and write them properly.

Professionally I write thousands of words daily on various subjects and for various purposes, all of it with minimal editing and proofreading, so I am the first person guilty of grammatical and spelling mistakes, but when you come across as if you have no idea of what you are talking about due to poor writing skills or worse you consider business communication no more important than a quick SMS to your best buddies you will have problems going forward with any goals you might have in mind. This is not just for the younger generations out there, a lot of people of my generation suffer from the same problems.

I deal with people from all over the world daily and I do understand that if English is not your primary language, you might have some problems in communicating perfectly. I know from experience as English is not my mother tongue, French is. I have also spoken English since early childhood, and essentially have studied and worked in English since my late teens so English is my primary language these days, even though that at home now for the past 2-3 years we have switched from using English to using Spanish. I find the same problem with French and Spanish speaking people, that the quality of the written communication has dropped down dramatically over the past 10 years, when it should have increase a lot with all the spelling and grammar correction facilities we now have. It seems that people just don’t care anymore.

Wake up people, you have the tools to communicate in a better and more effective way. If you are too lazy to even take the few second to communicate effectively life will pass you by as where it counts people will think that you are too lazy to work effectively. Also take pride in you language as if you do not use it properly who will? For those like me who communicate mostly in languages that are own, take pride in learning it properly so that you can communicate and work effectively.

Take this advise seriously as we human can make something with our lives and progress with effective communications and those who do not even make the effort to do so will be left behind. It is not just an old consultant like me who says it, it is the entire business world. When faced to choose between two candidates, which one do you think a decision maker will select, the one that sounds like a professional or the one that sounds like some street gang member?

Don Luc