An excerpt from Jason’s latest column in Inc. Magazine: “Why Is Business Writing so Awful?”

When you write like everyone else and sound like everyone else and act like everyone else, you’re saying, “Our products are like everyone else’s, too.” Or think of it this way: Would you go to a dinner party and just repeat what the person to the right of you is saying all night long? Would that be interesting to anybody? So why are so many businesses saying the same things at the biggest party on the planet—the marketplace?...

Unfortunately, years of language dilution by lawyers, marketers, executives, and HR departments have turned the powerful, descriptive sentence into an empty vessel optimized for buzzwords, jargon, and vapid expressions. Words are treated as filler—“stuff” that takes up space on a page. Words expand to occupy blank space in a business much as spray foam insulation fills up cracks in your house. Harsh? Maybe. True? Read around a bit, and I think you’ll agree.

Read the full piece.

A potential new customer saw a coupon code at our site and asked us for an additional discount on Highrise.

Initial draft of a response:

I’m sorry, but we don’t offer any discounts or special pricing beyond what is published on our website. If you’d like to signup for a new paid account today, you’ll have the 30 day free trial, but we can’t offer any additional discounts on subsequent months. Sorry about this.

Seemed negative so went back to the drawing board:

We’d love to have you as a customer. I think you and the business will be very happy with Highrise. When you signup for a trial account, you automatically get 30 days free time before you’ll be charged. On top of that, if you use 37HRWEL as the coupon code, you’ll get 20% off the first month. That’s the best offer we have available right now.

I hope you guys will come on board. Have a great day.

Says about the same thing without the sorrys and nos. 1st way: sorry, don’t, can’t, sorry. 2nd way: love, very happy, free time, on top, best offer, hope, great day. Tone makes all the difference in the world. Which way would you rather buy from?

The About Samsonite page throws around important sounding phrases about embodying the brand, leveraging craftsmanship, and creating unique solutions.

By identifying trends and interpreting travelers’ needs, Samsonite continues to infuse innovation and new ideas into travel, re-igniting the sophistication and experience of the past.

Yawn.

It’s a good example of the way big companies wind up talking. Bloated language is what happens when copy gets filtered through a committee.

Compare that to The Saddleback Story, the tale behind bagmaker Saddleback Leather.

It all began when I had my first bag made while living in Southern Mexico as a volunteer English teacher to kids who needed a little help. I had looked everywhere for just the right bag, but with no luck…

In my search, I walked into a little leather shop and met the fellow working leather in the back. I asked him if he could make me a bag if I were to draw it out. I told him that I wanted this bag to be made so well that my grandkids would be fighting over it while I was still warm in the grave. He said “Si” and I said “Bueno” and that’s how it all started.

And it continues from there. Now that’s copy with a pulse. A personal story like that is something a little guy can deliver that a big corp can’t. A tiny company can bring people inside the fold this way and turn a perceived weakness (small size) into a strength.

Lots of surfers, lifeguards, and paddle boarders are big fans of Birdwell swimwear. It’s definitely not because the company provides cutting edge web design:

Oof, it’s like 1997 all over again. And the site’s tone is reminiscent of a surly old shopkeeper that’s going to sell you what you want only if you play ball first. Check out the curious combination of curmudgeonry and “we’re all family here” folksiness…

Don’t send them too many emails:

Please do not spend 22 emails discussing what you want — and then say, “that’s what I want, when can you ship” — you know what you want, I only answer questions. I don’t remember all your decisions. Write it down and send it to me with the name address and payment information.

No more “wishy washy stuff” about overnight shipping:

If you tell me you really want it tomorrow and it is possible to do so? You have requested expedited carrier service and will be charged accordingly … No more of this wishy washy stuff and nonsense. You know the difference between right and wrong, fair and unfair. You don’t want to join the One Thousand Club. If you ask for expedited service, but I don’t remember when I quote the price? You are charged for the service you receive. Okay, go ahead and teach me a lesson. Welcome to the Club.

How do you collaborate on a book when one author (DHH) is in San Francisco, one’s in Chicago (Jason), and one’s in NYC (me)? Last week, we did a joint writing session and pulled it off. Here’s how we did it:

We all log into iChat and start an audio chat. That way we can discuss what we’re doing.

Then we work on one essay from the book at a time and paste the current version into SubEthaEdit. While originally designed for coding together, its collaboration features work great for co-writing text too.

All you need to do is drag a person’s name from iChat into SubEthaEdit and then they’re collaborating on the document with you. Color coding lets you see who’s editing what. It works so well that you can have multiple people editing at the same time and it doesn’t get (too) confusing.

We even use this setup to collaborate on text when we’re all in the same room together. It’s a great way to let everyone take a crack at text without it leading to chaos.

The only downside is that tone can get a little inconsistent when different people are editing. After the session is wrapped, I go through the text again and make sure everything flows well and the tone is consistent.

A screenshot from the SubEthaEdit site.

There are certain places that people expect text to be rote, boring, and dry. When you come in with some humanity instead, it really stands out. Example: Sönke Johnsen’s “Advice For Potential Graduate Students,” a wonderful piece of writing that is given to lab applicants. An excerpt:

In many ways you will turn into your advisor. Advisors teach very little, but instead provide a role model. Consciously and unconsciously, you will imitate your advisor. You may find this hard to believe now, but fifteen years from now, when you find yourself lining up the tools in your lab cabinets just like your advisor did, you’ll see. My student Alison once said that choosing an advisor is like choosing a spouse after one date. Find out all you can on this date.

Finally, have your fun now. Five years is a long time when you are 23 years old. By the end of graduate school, you will be older, slower, and possibly married and/or a parent. So if you always wanted to walk across Nepal, do it now. Also, do not go to a high-powered lab that you hate assuming that this will promise you long-term happiness. Deferred gratification has its limits. Do something that you have passion for, work in a lab you like, in a place you like, before life starts throwing its many curve balls. Your career will mostly take care of itself, but you can’t get your youth back.

If, after reading this, you want to apply to this lab, we would love to hear from you.

I assume the text accompanying most lab applications is pretty cut and dry. By injecting a real person’s voice in here, the whole tone of the interaction changes.

It’s a good lesson for anyone writing copy for an instruction manual, SLA, or another place that typically features “robot text.” Look for a spot to inject some humanity. Even if it’s just a sidebar or an introduction, it can make a real difference. And it’s another way little guys can stand apart from big corporations that have no choice but to sound stiff.

We’re busy writing our new book. So far we’ve handed in our first draft and are now working on the second draft. One bit of feedback the publisher gave us: “It will be important to anticipate readers’ objections and head them off.”

So we’ve been building in an “I object” voice to a lot of the text by directly addressing counterarguments that we hear frequently. Of course, we then go and refute those views. But anticipating potential objections is a nice way to show readers you get it.

That way you’re not just bulldozing them, you’re empathizing with them, at least in some small measure. You show that you know what their concerns are and where their fears lie. And you address them head on. Some examples below.

We tell people to just begin. The voice of the opposition:

“It’s just not the right time for me to do that now.” You hear that all the time. But the perfect time never arrives. It always seems like a bad time to start a side business, buy a house, raise a family, or go on a long vacation. You’re too young or old or busy or broke or something else. But if you constantly fret about timing things perfectly, they’ll never happen.

Later on, during a similar point:

“What if the problem is so big that I’m afraid to make a decision?” Then break it into smaller pieces that have less impact.

We advise against business plans. The voice of the opposition:

“Won’t I need a plan to get investors?” First of all, do you even need investors? Remember, this is your company, product, or service. You decide what to build. You decide whether or not you need investors.

We preach the advantages of staying small. The voice of the opposition:

“But I work inside a big company. Does that mean I’ll always miss out on the advantages of staying small?” Not necessarily. Even if you’re not running your own business, you can still seek out a small solution.

Maybe you can start your own department or team and run it as a separate unit. For example, inside big publishing and music conglomerates, there are often editors and artists who have their own imprints.

We explain why you should strive to make money right away. The voice of the opposition:

“But wouldn’t it be nice to not have to worry about making money right away?” Only if you like living in a fantasy world.

Revenues and profits are the basic building blocks of your business. Worrying about them immediately is the best thing you can do for your business. When babies are born the most important thing for them to do is take their first breath. When your business is born the most important thing to do is take your first dollar.

When you really believe in your point of view, there’s no reason to be intimidated by opposing views. Let those views in and you come off as someone who has true faith and confidence in your own beliefs. Give it a try next time you’re writing something controversial.

As we continue to make tweaks to the Highrise marketing site, I wanted to share the writing process I went through last week.

The goal was to fit the same amount of information into roughly the same horizontal space, but one-third less vertical space without just shrinking and cramming everything together.

I didn’t want to shrink the icons or the font sizes. This meant the actual copy was on the chopping block. Almost every paragraph on every page on every piece of paper or every screen can be edited down without losing meaning. I love the challenge.

The process

The first thing I do when I want to cut out some words is not read the original version. I just write a new one. I don’t want to be influenced by what I thought I had to say before. I want to think about what I want to say now. After I’ve written a new one I go back to the old one to see if there was anything critical I missed.

“Fast Food Nation” was revealing. “Kitchen Confidential” was juicy. But wow, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is something else. The best book on food I’ve ever read.

In the book, Pollan shoots a pig, hunts for mushrooms, slaughters a chicken, works as a farmhand, examines industrial and local farms in person, explains how we’ve come to be dominated by corn, shows how grass is the key to life on a farm, explores the connection between oil and food, and much more (PDF of the introduction and first chapter).

But as I was reading it, something kept gnawing at me: how terrible the title of the book is. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.” Yawn.

“The Omnivore’s Dilemma” part sounds like a math problem. Plus, omnivore is a word that most people won’t even get. And “A Natural History of Four Meals” isn’t any better. Sounds like a biology textbook.

The book is thrilling to read, intensely scary, and a real call to arms. So why is the title so lame? (Sure, it sold well, but that’s because the content is so strong. I’d argue those sales came despite the title, not because of it.)

Moving to simple and strong
Perhaps Pollan felt similarly, because the title of his latest book packs a lot more of a punch: “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.” Simple and strong.

He even comes up with a short, tight call to action: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” No way to miss the point there. He explains it in this article.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.

Great to see a title and call to action that are as clear and cogent as the rest of what Pollan writes.

There’s a lesson here for all writers: Spend as much time on your titles, subtitles, headlines, summaries, and calls to action as you do on the bulk of your content. If you don’t hook readers upfront, they may never dive in and get to the rest of your message.