When running a business, you must be aware of how you communicate with your customers, staff, investors, and suppliers. Your written material, from business plans to marketing material, is often the first encounter someone has with your company. Therefore, it’s important to ensure your writing is clear and relatable. In this article, we’ll explain the value of plain language in your writing and how to implement it.

What Does Plain Language Mean?

As a small business, you must get used to getting your message across quickly and in a way that’s easy to understand. This is where the principles of plain language come into play.

Plain language means keeping your writing clear and concise. It also means removing content that distracts the reader from your message.

For Example:

“His report outlined three issues: a lack of high-paying clients, conversions, and return customers.”

Is much more effective than:

“His report to upper management delineated that the issues of the day were threefold. These included observations about the influx of low-level prospects, a lack of effective conversions, and an inability to attract return patronage.”

6 Ways to Simplify Your Business Writing

Here are six ways to simplify your language:

1. Remember your audience – Does your audience know as much as you do about your area of expertise? Maybe not, so keep things simple. With this in mind, you should:
   • Drop the jargon – Remove specialized language that’s difficult for others to understand.
   • Use simple language – Replace “fancy” words with their more simple synonyms.
2. Organization – Your message should always be presented in sequential, logical, or step-by-step order to make it easy to follow.
3. Use active voice – Make it clear who is doing what. For instance, use phrases like “We will do this to achieve X” rather than “The company will achieve X by doing Y.”
4. Use clean design – The presentation of your message is just as important as the words you use. Effective use of white space, headlines, subheadings, colour, font, and images are all elements that can support your message if used correctly.
5. Avoid long blocks of text – Help your reader digest information by presenting it in small chunks whenever possible. Break up long paragraphs into shorter ones with subheadings, and make sentences no longer than 20 words.
6. Use tables, charts, and examples – When incorporating complex information or data into your writing, it’s helpful to include visual aids or examples.

These tips will make your business writing more straightforward, readable, and easy to understand. Making information more accessible for readers will mean more customers flocking to your business.

Small Business BC is Here to Help

SBBC is a non-profit resource centre for BC-based small businesses. Whatever your idea of success is, we’re here to provide holistic support and resources at every step of the journey. Check out our range of business webinars, on-demand E-Learning Education, our Talk to an Expert Advisories, or browse our business articles.