Executives with presidents are not only good speakers, but they also communicate well through written communication. In this lesson, we're going to look at a few ideas as how you can elevate your writing skills to write like an executive. Now, whether it's an email, a memo or a report, when an executive writes, The message is clear, it's concise, and most importantly, is persuasive. He who has the pen shapes how events and information get perceived. This is one of the most powerful tools that a financial executive wields when it comes to things like management reporting or reporting to the board directors, investors and to bankers, what information gets disclosed, how results are discussed, and the language used very much shapes, how users of information, make decisions, and for perceptions about performance, and the future of the organization. So this is a very powerful advantage of financial executives, because you're often called upon to prepare and circulate Reports throughout the organization, use this power to your advantage.

Now let's begin with a discussion of what makes for strong writing styles. We all know how to write but there's a difference between having coverage of a topic and using words that instigate action. Having written countless courses, cases, white papers, mdna, financial statements and even our own book. We've learned a few things through the years about the types and styles of writing that are effective. So here we go. Blair Jen's top five rules of communicating like a financial executive.

Rule number one is that shorter is always better, shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs, shorter words, shorter emails, shorter reports, concisely conveying your message is necessary so that your audience interprets your message in precisely the manner intended. Because when you use those long flowery words, sentences and paragraphs, you leave wiggle room for interpretive So our first number one is locked down right like a newspaper journalist, paragraphs, paragraphs was no more than two to three sentences sends. This should not scroll four lines on your screens. And when you notice yourself using conjunctions or semi colons, break that sentence into separate sentences to improve the readability. As you proofread your your written reports and memos remove unnecessary words from sentences whenever you can. Because as Bohr says, If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour.

Number two, a subtle and often ignored rule of thumb of languages that adverbs and adjectives impart opinion. Now alternatively, when you use nouns, you're imparting facts. There's a time and a place for opinion, but often in a business context, and in particular, in a financial context. We often want to present a neutral unbiased opinion of financial results when we use these adjectives In these adverbs, we may inadvertently invite challenge to our ideas. So for example, let's say we state that revenues are growing strongly. That invites a challenge as to what does strongly represent strongly as an adverb.

It's better to replace these types of words with facts, if you don't want to be challenged, so for instance, we could say that revenues are growing at 10%, which is higher than the industry how 3% a much stronger way to convey that thought. By making our nouns precise and avoiding using adverbs and adjectives in this way, we can be much more persuasive with our audience. Thirdly, verbs are super powerful words because they impart action. they impart drive and they command a response. Most definitely use strong verbs like perform, or calculate or drive and avoid the use of more nebulous verbs like understand or do They're much softer and don't impart action quite as well. Number four on our list was speak in the active voice and avoid the passive voice.

I also like speaking directly to an individual by saying I if I'm taking accountability for something or you if I want you to take accountability for it, when we use the proverbial we, accountability is always less clear. When we use the passive voice, we pretend that our topic is almost separate from us. It treats your point as an issue that some on identify person is going to have to deal with. Consider this example the company is being impacted by competitive pressures is resulting in falling margins. Versus you are being hit by competitive pressures and it's crushing your margins much more powerful when it's written in the active voice. Note that this is going to require financial professionals to wear two hats because often financial information is written in that passive passive voice Which makes it less persuasive and frankly more be boring to read.

This rule may fly in the face of what is traditionally associated with financial language, the language that we use in our financial statements and our regulatory disclosures, which is very often written in a passive voice. When you write all your reports using this type of voice, you're much less persuasive and frankly, it's just a lot more boring to read. And finally, avoid jargon. Unless you're talking shop with specialist jargon almost always is going to diminish your executive presence, because it makes your ideas more complex, not less. Not everyone knows what efa stands for, or what OSC 52 109 certification entails. Make your communications as simple as possible for your audience to comprehend, digest, and allow them to reflect upon your message without getting caught up in the jargon.

While these are the basic rules They only apply probably 80% of the time because the art of writing is that it's a creative endeavor to get your point across executive presence incorporates the art of spin, spin can be used to augment or divert a message using clever, but hopefully not manipulative language. Spin can help frame perception. And you can use the artist spin to reframe issues to cultivate the readers thoughts. You know, I like this this example here from Ronald Reagan. And he had the age was obviously an issue when he went against Walter Mondale in the US elections back in 1980. And here's here's his reply.

He said, I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I'm not going to exploit for political purposes, my opponents youth and an experience that spin so think of how it executives often choose words to soften or to emphasize a message. So for instance, instead of layoffs an executive might call it a right size. initiative or instead of a salesman, you very often hear executives refer to their Salesforce as customer advisors or customer success partners to get away from that salesy connotation, problems and issues get reframed as challenges and initiatives. And when governments lower taxes instead of calling it a tax cut, they might instead turn around and call tax relief to soften the connotation. And when things aren't going well, for a startup company, they pivot as opposed to communicating failure.

At the same time, we must be mindful of using arrogant language in our writing, because this too can rub a reader the wrong way. consider some of these examples. Let me be perfectly clear, which comes across as patronizing. Instead, you might try I want to emphasize how about this one you're wrong, which comes across to a reader as they are at fault immediately putting them on the defensive. Instead, try saying my information differs on that matter, dot dot, dot. And finally, one last example.

You He might say something like I contend that and instead say something along the lines that I believe that to come across as less contentious. Those of you with executive presence exemplify more tactful diplomacy, and less arrogant dictatorships. So, let's put some of these ideas have spin into practice. Now I'm going to get you to pause the video in a moment and complete exercise seven in your workbooks. And in this exercise, you're going to find an extract from a financial press release shown on the screen in front of you here today. Your task is to rewrite that press release with spin in mind.

In the first part, I'm going to get you to change the wording to put a positive spin on this press release. Say perhaps you want to attract investors. And the second part, we're going to change the wording to reflect a negative spin, say perhaps that you're trying to temper expectations. The changes you make must be plausible, reasonable and substantial. quotations can be truncated But the wording inside the quotes cannot be changed. So take a moment to do that, and I'll come back and share with you the solution.

Ready to see a suggested solution. Let's take a look. Now I've underlined the words that have been inserted to accentuate the positive results, the quote has been truncated to eliminate the parts that had a negative connotation. And so now that it reads the company achieved record revenues in the first quarter of $2.5 million, which represents a 3% improvement over the same period, the prior year as sequential growth of 1%. Over the prior quarter net income was a steady point 2 million, which was which wild down from 4% from the comparative period was up 3% from the previous quarter. And then the quote now reads management has aggressively implemented a price increase in the quarter which helped bolster financial results said Susan man president of pure x. volumes were steadies which was achievement given the high level of competitive activity in the industry, then we expect future growth in revenue and net income to continue in the low single digit rates.

Now for the negative spin situation, the words online underlined have been incorporated into the text to talk down the numbers. So the quote has been truncated to remove the positive language this time. And so this time it reads this way. revenue growth in the first quarter was muted. By strong competitive activity revenue was $2.5 million, which was only 3% higher than the comparative period and only 1% up from the previous quarter. net income slid to 0.2 million down 4% from the prior year but up 3% from the previous quarter, the new quote reads management has aggressively admitted a price increase in the quarter which helped bolster financial results.

It's Susan Mann president of pure x, the company has been forced to spend more on promoting It'll cost to retain customers. Email has its own special considerations to bear in mind when we communicate. And according to Zoeller impressed in the authors of enhancing your executive edge, the human mind interprets emails much more harshly than other forms of communication, which I find fascinating. A positively framed email from a sender tends to get interpreted as just neutral by the receiver. So even jokes that we send around are less funny to recipients than they were to the sender's. Now on the other hand, neutrally written emails get interpreted by the receiver or the recipient has a negative email.

So keep that in mind when you're writing emails, it's slightly different rules. Now your protocols for sending emails with executive presence include updating the subject line to be descriptive of the contents or the desired actions of the email. Shorter is better, but it should be longer. enough to be self explanatory. Using a few key bullets or key points is totally acceptable. And when you have an attachment, highlight the key action or the key insight from the attachment in the email covering note, don't leave it up to the recipients to have to determine that for themselves.

Next, remain aware of the use of language and the tone it says with the reader. Spelling and Grammar absolutely matter so avoid texting abbreviations that we all commonly fall into. And finally use professional looking signatures. You're a leader and people should look up to you. In this lesson, we discussed a number of ideas to help you improve your executive writing skills. One final tip that Jen and I are going to provide to you and that we both use all the time is that once you have written a report, read it aloud or better yet have someone else read it to you.

We guarantee that by going through this editorial process, the quality of your report will be exponentially elevated. It will sound much more natural. In our final lesson we're going to look at ideas for improving your executive presentation skills.