Before You Write, “File a Flight Plan”
This is the first in a three-part Tips series, and is an example of foundational coaching I offer to individuals and teams who want to write clearer, more effective business communication. They cover the basics (planning, simplifying, and revising), but apply whether you’re drafting your first email to a client or your hundredth strategy memo.
Tip #1: File a valid flight plan before takeoff
“Simply, tell the story.”
When I started working in organizational communication and change, this was the best (and most frustrating) advice I got.
The comma matters, because the advice was two-fold: Avoid complication, yes. But for your reader’s sake, get over the love of your own prose and move quickly to the useful, the meaningful, the valuable. Practically and syntactically, that phrase changed me as a comms professional.
It taught me to edit more carefully, ditching the stiff, academic word choices that served me pretty well as a new writer, but worked against developing my voice. I didn’t know how to turn complicated, often unpleasant messages into a story that spoke to readers, and which could, ideally, motivate them to take action. I often failed one or both parts of my dual mission: getting it right—technically accurate, forthright (with little to no obvious “spin”), and clear—and helping someone feel something.
Starting “too big, too quickly” is a common mistake I made. Under the time pressure that comes with working in professional services, and lacking the trust and confidence in my own voice to choose a direction and start exploring it, I’d do something like this:
- Speed-read any background information that seemed relevant (retaining “less than enough” of it).
- Draw connections between obscure data points and dense technical verbiage that seemed to make sense to me.
- Divine a set of reasonable core messages out of what I’d pieced together in my brain and “decided” that I understood about the audiences and stakeholders involved.
- Maybe test them with a colleague, or on a smaller deliverable, to validate them… but more often than not, just press forward, synthesizing them into a draft.
- Hear from the client or another consultant that the first draft was pretty wide of the mark, get kinda bummed about that, and start revising.
“Nicely written,” one might say, “but I’m not sure what you want me to do with all this information.”
Avoid the “Harrier approach”
The Harrier jump jet is capable of lifting off almost vertically (with little or no runway); flies fast and, often, low to the ground; maneuvers side-to-side more efficiently than most other planes; and can hover, almost helicopter-like, over a point in space.
Like a Harrier, I’d launch straight up, hover around a Big, Scary Objective (BSO) for a piece of writing, choose an angle of attack, and start writing…and writing, and writing.
Eventually, I’d write myself into a corner, running out of steam and/or reaching the limit of my understanding of where to go next. Like the Harrier, I’d then swing a few degrees to one side or the other, view my BSO from a different angle, and keep writing.
Big mistake.
So many words, so many different angles… none of it cohesive, or all that compelling. None of it anchored in a strategic approach.
If I was lucky, I’d have knocked a few holes in the BSO… but with so much time lost that when I looked at my work in progress, it would hardly seem to have been worthwhile. And I’d be exhausted.
I was writing without a “flight plan.”
What a “flight plan” looks like
So how do you know when you’re ready to write? I ask myself four questions before I start. If I can answer them clearly, I’ve got a flight plan for that piece. If I can’t, I pause and think before I put words on the page. (Note: A plan like this isn’t the same as a communications strategy. But if time pressure, lack of a cohesive strategy, or other factors mean you have to “wing it,” this is the next best tool to have in your toolkit.)
- Who is your audience?
In the beginning, you may not know…not totally, anyway. So stay flexible here. But as a starting point, try to come up with a single statement about the person or group who will read what you’re writing and, hopefully, take the action you want them to take.
For example: “I’m writing for first-year college students, many of whom are away from home for the first time.” Or: “I’m writing for CPAs. They’re used to technical language and detail, but they’re busy, so I want this to be less dense and more conversational.”
- What is the goal of the piece? Why should it exist?
Is it meant to inform? Persuade? Build rapport? Your answer should be clear, concrete, and summarizable in a sentence or two.
For example: “I want to share something I’ve learned about buyer behavior (to promote my newsletter, which will deliver valuable lessons to my readers, monthly).”
- Do you have a measurable objective?
Will the piece be a success if a specific number of people sign up for your newsletter, download your lead magnet, or click through to a sales page? (Or, maybe, click “Reply” and tell you where you can stick your lessons?) What is that number?
If your objective isn’t quantified yet, don’t stress. Especially in the first draft stage, there might not be a magic number you’re targeting. Put this question to yourself another way: Do you know what “done” looks like for this draft? When you get to “done,” how will you know?
If you’re struggling, don’t let this one hang you up. Let it remind you that your reader’s time is valuable–and their motivation to act, even more so.
Because the goal, nearly every single time, is to drive an action.
- What is the action your reader must take?
Even simple, somewhat passive actions (like “Think about this”) are okay here. Many marketers will disagree with me on that. But, not everything needs to push a reader to buy, subscribe, or vote. But everything you write should lead logically, in big or small ways, to your chosen call to action (CTA).
My CTA for this piece, in case you’re curious, is “Next time you sit down to write, answer these questions for yourself and jot down your flight plan.”
Hide the Harrier keys and get to writing
Got a target audience, goal, objective, and CTA in mind? You’ve got a flight plan. Now you can write with direction instead of hovering in place, burning fuel and hoping something clicks.