Writing for Small Business Owners
In business we thrive on executive summaries and bullet points. Business writers use these when there is back up material so that executives can pour over details and tweak assumptions should they need to. With the Internet, supporting one's conclusions is even easier for readers. Articles typically have links or attachments to supporting research, articles and documents.
Not so in writing for small business and franchise investors. Many small business writers do not bother to provide ANY supporting proof of what they write. They prefer to write a general shoot-from-the-hip conclusion because they figure that it is self-evident that they have life and franchising figured out and that readers somehow instinctively can sense their brilliance. Why bother providing supporting evidence?
Avoid Oversimplification
Here's an example. A MarketWatch writer, quoting an Entrepreneur writer, which is then finally printed in the Wall Street Journal. (It's amazing how these things online are passed on), writes four things to consider when evaluating a business to buy.
- Choose a business you like because if you hate it the business will be challenging for you
- Ask the seller questions to figure out if it is the right business for you
- Evaluate the drivers of the business
- Be realistic and enlist a business broker who can be helpful
- Love your mother and give her a big hug today
OK. I threw in the last point for good measure. I figured it's a truism that is hard to debate. Notice how "enlist a business broker" is just thrown in the middle? There is no back-up for such a claim. Some reader will probably be sloppy enough to take "enlisting brokers" as the gospel truth.
Use Hyperlinks
Beware of simplistic lists that propogate unsupported business advice. Such lists are lazy, bad writing and the conclusions are suspicious. Business nor life is rarely so neat and simple. Online writers, by all means be brief and use bullet points but remember being brief also means that there is even more reason to use hyperlinks.
What do you think? Should small business advice columns use links to support their writing?
How to Use Hyperlinks
In order to create hyperlinks:
MEMBER INSTRUCTIONS: If you are logged in and writing a comment, highlight the word that you want to add a hyperlink to. Click on the chain link button on the edit bar below. A box will pop up and ask you on the top field for the URL (the linked page). Paste or write the full URL in that top field.
After highlighting a word to be hyperlinked, click on the chain link button in the edit bar
GUEST INSTRUCTIONS: For those who are not registered or logged in, there is no edit bar. You must use HTML code. For example, if I want to hyperlink the words BLUE MAUMAU to the www.bluemaumau.org page, this is the HTML code to do it.
TIPS: The HTML code goes between the < > and the web page URL that you want the reader to travel to goes between the quotations " ". Also, remember to put http:// in front of the www or else the link will not work. You must write the full URL. No shortcuts.
If logged in members want to write HTML code like our guest have to, they should click the "disable rich-text" link below the comment field to display everything in plain text instead of rich-text.
Mr. Blue MauMau
Moderator