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Continuing the series of extracts from my book Confident Business Writing demonstrating the benefits of following my Business Writing Process Plan –
Having created your content, please don’t get rid of it by publishing it straightaway. Check it first.
From my experience as a professional proofreader, this step is more often than not the one that is overlooked and is probably as important, if not more important than all the other steps in the process.
One reason that it’s overlooked is because you haven’t factored in enough time to do it before the deadline looms or you’ve just given it a cursory glance before hitting the ‘print’ or ‘send’ button and then maybe regretting it at a later date. This is how mistakes are missed and a sub-standard piece of writing is published with sometimes costly consequences.
Much will depend on what you’re writing. If you’re responding to an invitation to tender, to which a multi-million pound contract is attached, you MUST make sure that the assessors can make sense of your submission. If they can’t, then your chances of winning the contract have gone. You must therefore allow enough time in your plan for your submission to be checked so that it has the best chance of success.
A shorter or less formal piece of writing should still be checked and maybe this can be done in-house by a work colleague, always supposing they have got the time to do a proper job.
Using professional proofreaders can have significant business benefits, not least that they are more adept at picking up mistakes and grammatical issues than an author who is too close to the work and more likely to miss them.
As with engaging a copy/content writer, working with a proofreader will save you time and money that you can spend on doing what matters to you.
At the end of the day it’s your reputation that’s at stake. How much do you value your reputation? Can you afford for it to be damaged?
You’re now ready to have your document published. Next up in the series – Publishing your writing?
Confident Business Writing is for you, if:
- You are a small business owner;
- Your business writing is a challenge, for whatever reason;
- You could have a simple process plan to follow when you are writing something in your business that will help to alleviate your worries.
To order your copy, click here