Why Business Editing is Important

It is ironic that with today’s fancy technologies, failure to clearly communicate is an unfortunate side-affect of our high-speed, digitized rat race. Consequently, mistakes in business writing can be expensive. Language errors, typos, and poorly constructed sentences are not only embarrassing; they reflect poorly on company credibility, which in turn reflects poorly on you. Existing and potential customers and clients may wonder if your organization is sloppy in other ways as well. As a result, many may quickly move to your competition.

Effective business communication is paramount. One poorly worded advertisement or a regrettable mass email message can be a huge money-losing mistake. Many a reputation has been ruined this way and recovering it is not always easy. In today’s online world, this can happen overnight. Who needs your company brand to be dragged through the online mud simply because you failed to see the value of business editing? The truth is that jumbled or unclear language and factual mistakes can also have disastrous legal consequences especially if these involve public safety, personal liability, or significant sums of money. A poorly worded technical manual or a confusing business letter can land you in court. Like many things in life, business writing requires due diligence!

To make certain you have quality, clarity and consistency, be sure to hire an outside business editor. You need to ensure readability, accuracy, proper word choice, flow, and audience appropriateness.

One of the reasons for the excess number of mistakes we see these days is that business writing is often done by committee and business editing is often done on the fly, at the last minute, or not at all. When many hands get involved in the process, the results can often be sub-standard. For instance, if you are putting together your company annual report, it is important to consult key people in your organization to obtain valuable input. Marketers, sales managers, lawyers, and those on the shop floor or front desk may all offer valuable insights and information and need to be consulted. However, after all the appropriate people offer their input, the resulting document is often convoluted, redundant, and disorganized.

The same dilemma holds true for a sole proprietorship. If you own a small business, you are no doubt very busy with day-to-day tasks. Yet how many times have you reminded yourself that you would really like to update and rewrite the content of your website, but it never gets done? It could be that writing web copy is not your forte. Or, even if you are very good with words— and have the technical ability —you just never seem to find the time.

Even if you do get around to dealing with your business communication needs, mistakes are easy to make when you have so much else on your plate. Therefore, it is well worth the price to outsource your business editing needs.

Whether you work in a corporate environment or own a small business, hiring a business editor is not a big deal. There is also added value to outsourcing your business editing needs because by doing so, you ease the burden on you and/or your staff, which allows everyone to focus on core business activities.

Remember, if your business writing is sloppy, incorrect, or unclear, your trustworthiness suffers with customers, suppliers, and the public at large. Why take the chance?