How to Write Good for Business
Businesspeople who read my Substack have begun asking me for writing advice — actually they haven’t, but I feel them asking, in their minds. So I’m going to give a little primer. First tip, you’re free to ignore Microsoft’s style comments: for example, Word wants me to delete “actually” and put a comma after “So” in the previous sentences, but I refuse.
Verbs
To make your business writing livelier, you want to mix up your verbs. I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve written a letter to investors every month since August 1998 (during the EM crisis), when I felt quarterly wasn’t enough. By now it would offend my OCD to stop, and anyway the monthlies force me and my team to organize our thoughts sufficiently to convey them in brief. In these letters, to vary the verbs, I might say that our stocks got “hammered” or “crushed,” maybe “slaughtered.” There are a lot of great choices.
Also, although normally you want to use active verbs, the passive voice can be invaluable. In communications to shareholders or investors, a CEO or fund manager could say, “Our profits were reduced by [X excuse],” or “Performance was hit by [Y excuse],” or finally, “We do not believe our strategy has been disproved.”1
Adjectives
In a recent Substack, I needed an adjective for the Russell 2000’s underperformance of the S&P 500. I considered “significant,” “dramatic,” even “shocking,” but these didn’t conjure the image I wanted, of the Monopoly Man reading a ticker tape and just fucking reeling. I settled on “staggering,” which I think was what the French call “le mot juste.”
In fact, I’ve found that the adjectives used in marketing can be reliable indicators of a venture’s likelihood of success. If a “huge” opportunity is offered, you will lose half your money, and if it is “massive” you will lose it all. Certain adjectives, like “robust” and “generous,” seem to appear only in investor letters, to describe earnings and dividends, or restaurant reviews, to describe portions, as of potatoes.
Adverbs
Style guides tell you to avoid adverbs. This is stupid — unbelievably stupid. Do you see what I did there? Adverbs are essential to fund manager communications, especially value-oriented managers, as they help to express their pain, which investors will hopefully empathize with.2
Samples: “Unfortunately, the earnings bottom we expected for our telecom equipment holding remains in the future.”
“The decline in the market for fax machines sadly has continued.”
“Disappointingly, cord-cutting continues to crush cable companies.” (No harm in a little alliteration while delivering bad news.)
My favorite adverb is “actually.” I’ve tried to figure out why I use it (and its cousin “in fact”) so much and all I could think of is, a lot of my writing is about looking past preconceptions and toward actuality. That’s how I think, and my writing is the sound of me thinking. Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualley are kissing in this Instagram story (sorry, that was me thinking.) I must say the word a lot too, because I remember when my sons were little, them coming out with statements like, “Actually, I’ll have chicken nuggets and a hot dog.”
Exclamations
I once saw a parody headline, “Cold-Hearted Bitch Won’t End Text with an Exclamation Point.” In my emails I’ve surrendered to the exclamation point, and just today replied to a dinner invite with the obligatory “Looking forward!”
Business writing should maintain an even tone, avoiding hyperbole. “Act now!” is for TV hucksters, not dignified professionals. Whereas on the trading floor someone may scream, “Tesla is collapsing!” on paper that would be, “Our Tesla position suffered a setback.”
I use a more formal style in investor communications than on Substack or in emails, for example by avoiding contractions. In a private email, I might write, “I can’t stand much more of this,” but to investors I’d say, “I cannot stand …” – actually, it would translate as, “It is the patient investor who reaps the rewards.”
Private vs. Public
In this litigious era, anything written can be discovered, so remember to express your odious political views only orally. Preferably keep them to safe spaces, such as the bar at the airport Hilton or the golf club grille. They say that whatever you put in an email can wind up on the front page of The New York Times, so I make sure that every paragraph has at least ten factual errors or misperceptions, so it’ll fit right in.
Quotations
It’s good to start your report or letter with a quotation: who you select can convey a lot about your personality. If you want to come off as an intellectual, you might quote Hegel or Shakespeare. To seem wise and folksy, Ben Franklin and Warren Buffett.
If you’re an activist investor, or just want to look tough, you can find something in Lao Tzu, Patton, or Bear Bryant. (If you get to Stalin or Pol Pot, you’ve gone too far.) Yogi Berra is always a good choice, since the reader can interpret that any way they want.
My personal favorite quote is from Russian ex-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who said, “Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда,” or “We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.”
Special Section for CEOs and Investor Relations Chiefs
The phrase used most frequently about CEOs, “inappropriate relationship,” has become a cliché. The imaginative IR person will find more creative expressions, like “unseemly dalliance,” “incorrect canoodling,” or to be bolder, “coming unbecoming.” It may now be sufficient just to write, “[CEO name] has been Coldplayed and is stepping down.”
Conciseness
Again, I’m OCD about writing and must cover my subject in exactly, exactly — exactly — 1,000 words.
Despite the bad rap it has gotten from English teachers, sometimes passive is the perfect voice, as in the famous poem, “Milk, milk, lemonade/Around the corner fudge is made.”
“Hopefully” is fine; saying “one hopes” makes you sound like a British toff and everyone hates you.
You is right.
This was awesome and hilarious. Thank you.