I have a client whose two admin ladies are not that familiar with business writing. He is a consultant and after meeting with his clients, he usually dictates his thoughts. Then the ladies are required to type this up and create a report from it to send out to the client.

The problem is they don't know how to change his brief dictation into a client focused report with recommendations. He doesn't seem to want to check the reports too much, so the reports have no proper structure and the language is as he dictates, mainly fragments and not in any particular order. There is one recommendation at the beginning, one in the middle, one at the end, in between you find lots of confusing introductory comments and other details.

He asked me to teach them how to do it properly. So I developed a proper, professional report template with front page, table of contents, letter, intro, etc. etc. I also wrote guidelines about how to sort his thoughts. I feel it's best to type his dictation, then sort it into the appropriate sections of the report and afterwards file on the language. I also added some rules to business writing, but I don't know if this is enough.

Do you have any suggestions of what I else I could do to help with this problem?

Thanks a lot. Much appreciated.

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Heike Miller
www.heikemiller.com

Sorry to jump in without any suggestions for you, Heike. But I just thought that this sounds like a great tool and maybe something you could market. I'd buy it.

Deb

Heike,

You seem to have it covered from what I can see.
I am with Deb on this, what you have outlined is very marketable, and I would also purchase it if you did market it as my report writing is not as is should be.

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Vicky
www.c-vas.eu

It's a fabulous idea to provide a fill-in-the-blanks report template. Of course, transmitting skill in writing is another story, not so easily taught with a template. I'd guess your client will see vast improvements, nonetheless ... Be sure to get his testimonial, as I bet others could use this 'product.'

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com