Why the words you use could be losing you business

I’m sure you can think of a few ways that words can lose you business.

Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. A candid moment intended to be private captured and made public. Having a meltdown and going on a LinkedIn tirade, effing and jeffing your way into your clients bad books.

These are all obvious no no’s (I hope).

But one way you might be leaving money on the table that isn’t so obvious is your tone of voice (or lack thereof). In this short blog, we’ll look at the benefits of a strong tone of voice, how it should be as much a part of your brand as colours and logos, and how it can help you connect and engage with your target audience.

There’s no wallflowers in business

No one goes into business to blur into the background. You want to stand out from the crowd and be memorable.

How is that achieved?

It goes without saying that first and foremost that’s done through delivering a consistently good service for clients.

But a big part of being recognised comes through your brand identity.

More than a visual update, it’s a process that goes to the heart of your business’s values and personality.

And once the hard graft of defining your core identity is done? Well, it’s communicated across every touch point with your client. Your business’s tone of voice plays a key role, and shines through every piece of written content. From your website, thought leadership articles and social media channels to your professional reports and emails, these touch points, little and large, are often the first point of contact for others in your network to get to know you.

So if you’ve ever thought that the way you word your emails doesn’t really matter, think again.

Match your tone of voice with your personality

Your tone of voice expresses your personality. Or at least, it should.

Working alongside your visual brand (your logo, colours and font), your voice is how you’re recognised and how others form an impression of what it will be like to work with you or use your services. So make sure it’s giving the right impression.

Hazarding a guess, you want to come across as any or all of the following:

Trustworthy, approachable, personable, professional, authoritative.

Don’t make the mistake of conflating professionality with formality. Your choice of words can make the difference between hitting the right tone, or sounding stuffy, out-of-date and overformal. Business prospects don’t just want to know what you do, but what you are like. People want to work with people they like, so let your personality shine through.

Five ways to improve your professional writing

If you’d like your writing to sound more personable, while still remaining professional, try these tips:

1. Ditch over formalised turns of phrase

There are an abundance of overformal phrases floating around the professional ether, but for me, the worst perpetrator is:

“Do not hesitate to contact myself”

Not only is it grammatically wrong (save this reflexive pronoun for when you’re doing something to yourself, like dressing or washing), but it’s overly formal and never something you’d say in person. (What’s wrong with “Get in touch” or “Give me a call”?)

Before slipping into these old habits, stop and ask yourself:

Would I say this to someone’s face?

2. Be direct

Be direct and write for one person. Talk to them with active verbs where possible. You’ll instantly sound less bureaucratic and more personable.

Instead of: It is considered that… try: Our view is…

Instead of: The building was found to be in a poor condition… try: The building is in a poor condition…

3. If you can say it in fewer words, do

Keep your sentences punchy. With emails and brand messages all vying for your reader’s attention, help them out and get to the point.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use longer sentences: in a professional sector the complexity of a subject will often demand longer sentences. That’s OK, as long as it’s necessary.

4. Don’t overuse capital letters

It’s the written equivalent of the new graduate who turns up on their first day of work dressed in a full suit and tie. It’s overkill. It’s also grammatically wrong and makes your writing look clunky and less legible.

Just as the chair you’re sitting on doesn’t require a capital letter, neither does the planning committee you attended. Save capitals for proper nouns like specific places, people or organisations.

5. And finally, don’t cut and paste directly from ChatGPT

We’re happy to admit that we use this AI tool. It’s a great resource for distilling information and research. But we never – NEVER! – trust it to give us content good enough for public consumption.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that robots can do your writing for you. As professionals, we can see ChatGPT a mile off in businesses copy. It won’t be your tone of voice, it’ll be ChatGPT’s tone of voice.

Develop a consistent brand across your company

You may not have noticed, but this week’s Luma blog is coming to you courtesy of one of our copywriters, Jen Potter – hi! – rather than head honcho Lucy.

In a behind-the-scenes reveal, we confess that writing this blog has always been a task shared out among the team. From today, you’ll get to see who is speaking.

Why am I mentioning this?

Because a business’s tone of voice should remain the same, no matter who is actually speaking. When we write content for our own brand we take care to reflect the Luma personality – warm, approachable and fun – in our writing, regardless of which of us has written it.

If developing a consistent tone of voice sounds to you like marketing jargon – it is. But even if you don’t work in marketing, you’re a brand representative for your company. Before I became a copywriter, I worked as a town planner. But even then I was a writer. I just didn’t realise it. Turns out, I wasn’t just building a planning case, I was a custodian of the company’s brand.

Stop sounding like a robot

Resist the misnomer that formality equates to professionalism and credibility, and instead take the opportunity to help your company stand out through its written communication.

Armed with a style guide setting out your brand’s tone of voice, your whole team can consistently represent your brand across all touchpoints, helping make your company more recognisable and memorable.

At Luma, we help businesses in and around the built environment shape and sharpen their writing.

Whether that’s through writing content in the company’s established tone of voice or helping to define a tone of voice for professional staff to adhere to.

Get in touch if you need help developing a consistent tone of voice and style, or writing quality brand-consistent content, to present your brand consistently to your audience.