It's carnival time in Germany! Prepare to meet dangerous pirates and dashing musketeers wherever you go. Elaborate masks are more the Venetian style, although masks are always popular both on and off the theatre stage, not just in ancient Greek drama, where they used to be an integral part of performances. Which brings me to this month's special topic in our series on effective business communication: From a Greek Philosopher - 3 Lessons in Persuasive Writing. Let Aristotle remind you of how to write with persuasion and conviction. Have fun!       

From a Greek Philosopher: 3 Lessons on Persuasive Writing

In business, when we write, it is often to convince somebody of something. We may be trying to convince a customer to buy a product, trying to convince a client to buy our service, trying to convince a supplier to sell us product, or trying to convince somebody to hire us. The Greek philosopher Aristotle understood that we often need to persuade people to our side, so he fathered what he called rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the art of using words to convince people to agree with us. Rhetoric consists of three tools: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. We can use these three methods of persuasion in either writing or speech.

• Ethos: Ethos is an appeal to authority; either to your own, or to that of another entity. For example, if you are writing a sales copy for a nutritional supplement that contains ingredient A, you may cite a Harvard university study that found that ingredient A lowers blood pressure, reduces the risk of heart disease, etc. By citing a study done by Harvard—one of the most prestigious universities in the world—your statement becomes far more convincing. You are thus borrowing Harvard’s credibility to convince your reader to buy your product.
  
  
• Pathos: Pathos is an appeal to emotion. Imagine that you go to a job interview and you tell the interviewer that you’ve been unemployed for over a year, your sixteen-year-old son is working full-time to feed your family, and if you don’t find a job soon your family will starve. Though your family’s situation has nothing to do with your ability to fill the position for which you are being interviewed, your plight makes your potential employer feel like he should hire you. This is because you used pathos to appeal to his emotions. Pathos is a valuable asset in persuasive writing and speech.
  

• Logos: Logos is an appeal to logic. To use logos, simply explain the logic behind your proposal. If you are selling a product, explain why a customer should buy it. How will it help them? How will it help their family? How are you giving them a better deal than other sellers? It’s powerful and simple.
  

So there they are, straight from one of history’s greatest thinkers. These three rhetorical tools have lasted thousands of years and are still applicable today. If you use them, your writing will carry a powerful persuasive punch.

Look in again next month, when the topic will be "How to deal with difficult people".
Best of luck in all your endeavours!

Talking to customers and companies is fun.

No, really. When you know how it's done, it's just like cycling or swimming or... Ah, but you had to learn and practise those, didn't you? Well, for those of you still looking for a little guidance on what constitutes effective business communication, here it is: the first in a series of guest posts I'll be posting throughout the coming months.

For this series of articles, expert writer Matthieu M. has kindly agreed to put together for us some thoughts on what works and what doesn't. And because January is a busy time for most of us, part 1 looks at how to get straight to the point in your letters and emails. So simple, really...

3 Steps to Writing an Effective Business Letter

Say you’re contacting new suppliers to work with your business, or contacting anybody for a business matter. You want to get fast responses and good results. This article will explain three key steps to write a killer business letter, poignantly draw the attention of its recipient, and incite a rapid response.

• Step 1: 90% of your letter is the first line. In today’s world we lead incredibly busy lives. The recipient of your letter probably gets tons of letters, emails, and social media messages every day. If your recipient is like me, he/she probably skims through emails and letters glancing at each one for around 3 seconds to see if it’s important to him/her. The first line of your letter needs to be direct and to the point so that your recipient knows it’s worth reading. If you start your letter, “We are an internet fashion retail business that has been in the industry for over 5 years…” it is more likely to be thrown in the trash than read and replied to. A better introductory phrase would be “Our business would like to order at least 500 men’s winter coats.” This sentence immediately shows the recipient that you mean business. He/she will be intrigued and will keep reading.
• Step 2: Clarity, clarity, clarity. People are far less likely to respond to your letter if they’re not sure what you’re saying. Be crystal clear about what you want. The sentence, “We would like to know the pricing of your men’s winter coats” communicates a general message, but the sentence “We would like to know how much it would cost to order 100 of your brown men’s winter leather jackets” tells the recipient exactly what you want. If you write a clear and concise business letter, you will get a clear, concise, and timely response.
• Step 3: A call to action. You’ve written a clear and concise letter with a poignant headline, but what is your recipient supposed to do with it? Finish your letter by telling your recipient exactly what to do next. Don’t say “please contact us at [email protected] for more information.” Request that your recipient do something specific, for example, “Email the prices to us at [email protected] before January 12, 2016. We are interested in purchasing as soon as possible.”

Follow these 3 steps: a poignant first line, a crystal clear request, and a call to action, and you’ll get a fast and informative response to your business letter. Not only that, but you’ll gain a reputation in the business world as someone who is straight forward, means business, and is easy to work with.