From the very first resume you type to get your first job interview to the letter you compose to announce your retirement at the end of a long and prosperous career, your ability to write will play a fundamental and critical role in whether or not you are going to succeed.

Through your writing you share your experience and understanding; your acquired knowledge; you also persuade people in the selling of your ideas; you influence and sway people to follow your lead. That is, if your desire is to be a leader rather than a follower. You will accomplish these things through a variety of different media-letters, faxes, email, reports, newsletters, meeting minutes, memorandum, sticky notes and the list goes on.

Persuasive, powerful, writing is a craft and as with any craft, there is a process that enables you to learn it, develop it, and lastly, master it.

There are six steps in the development of persuasive writing and developing your writing style. They are:

Preparation
Planning
Drafting
Reviewing
Rewriting
Polishing

Preparation and planning sound similar but there are subtle differences between the two. Preparation is about how we prepare our minds and organize our thoughts and approach in the engagement of our reader in the presentation of our topic. Planning effectively deals with how we prepare the actual material and organize our information for presentation.

If you are like most people, you are likely short of time. Which means you will need to write quickly as well as clearly, concisely, accurately, and in a manner that engages and holds the very short attention span of your reader(s). Think about it, how many times have you been bombarded with information or reading that required your attention, how did you read it? Word for word? Almost certainly not, most likely you skimmed the writing gleaning the most critical and important information. Often, depending on what we are reading, all we do is look at a title to determine if something is worthy of our time. Therefore the time we spend in preparation is crucial to capturing our readers’ undivided attention.

This is true no matter what we are writing. Blog writing, creative writing, persuasive writing, resume writing, KSA Writing, Business writing, etc., all require us to prepare and organize our thoughts on conveying our message in the most meaningful and captivating way.

The amount of time you spend on a project will depend on three things, the importance of the communication, the complexity and extent of the material, and the time you have available to complete the writing. Once you have determined the amount of time you have available the entire six step process should look like this:

Preparation – 10%
Planning – 30%
Drafting – 20%
Reviewing – 10%
Rewriting – 20%
Polishing – 10%

The same process in terms of an hour writing project would look like this:

Preparation – 6 minutes
Planning – 18 minutes
Drafting – 12 minutes
Reviewing – 6 minutes
Rewriting – 12 minutes
Polishing – 6 minutes

Notice, you spend 40% of your time in planning and preparation, and 60% of your time getting your words on the page the way you want your reader to see them. Notice you only spend 20% of your time actually working with a blank page. The drafting phase is short because we have spent the correct amount of time in the preparation and planning stages to accommodate a quick draft getting your thoughts onto the page with the maximum amount of fluidity and minimizing the interruption in the process because of optimal planning and preparation.

As stated previously, persuasive, powerful writing is a craft and as you write and develop your craft, this process becomes second nature enabling you to become a more productive, successful and competent writer.