Affiliate since: 07/22/2012, Power Rank: 99999999 | Read Vincent's 9 other Ask SC answers

This is an excellent question.

Many people cringe at the idea of "writing" because they think they don't know how to write, but, the bottom line, it's much easier than you'd believe.

I was taught good writing skills during my education years all the way through college. I was fortunate to have some very good teachers. Having said that, writing skills are more about communicating an idea to people. One does not have to be William Shakespeare to do this.

First, as an SFI Member, you have access to many "Templates" other members have written and used in their communications. I'd highly recommend you review them. You can edit them to suit your personal preferences and copy/paste them into your PSA/CSA/Team Mail correspondence. The SFI system will save your versions for future mailings.

Secondly, think about what piques your interest. There is no reason why you shouldn't convey that to others. This is especially helpful to get Team Members that are on the "same page" as you and build a personal relationship.

Finally, keep your content simple and to the point.
Standard successful advertising rules are as follows:

1) Subject Line - Maximum 20 characters in length. Do NOT include $ signs or references to "making millions", etc.
2) Content - Maximum 200 characters in length. Keep the content relevant and concise.
3) Contact Information - Very important to allow your Team Members to access you on a PERSONAL level.

I hope this helps you in your endeavors to communicate with your team.

God Bless and Success.
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This is an excellent question.

Many people cringe at the idea of "writing" because they think they don't know how to write, but, the bottom line, it's much easier than you'd believe.

I was taught good writing skills during my education years all the way through college. I was fortunate to have some very good teachers. Having said that, writing skills are more about communicating an idea to people. One does not have to be William Shakespeare to do this.

First,
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Affiliate since: 12/31/1969, Power Rank: 99999999

For an effective communication with our team members, SFI provides us with readily available resources such as draft messages, E-Cards and Instant Messaging. To make an effective use of these tools, it is not critical to be a renowned writer, although it does help. Fortunately it is a skill that can be learned rather easily, without taking to much time.

Hence, my recommendation would be to approach this challenge in two steps.

For now, you can fully rely on all what SFI has made available to all affiliates. Use the affiliate snapshot, to access information about your PSAs, their personal file and valuable information about their goals.

https://www.sfimg.com/AffiliateSnapshot?sfiid=xxxxxxxx

At that page you also have access to an extensive database of sample messages already pre-written. For nearly every circumstance you may face and need to communicate with your team members, you will find a sample message appropriate for that use.

https://www.sfimg.com/PopUp/sampleMessages

In addition, you may also want to read as much as you can from the SFI database, especially the "Training" section. You will find there all the information you can use in your daily contact with your team members as well as develop your communications skills, while increasing your knowledge about SFI.

This will build your self-confidence and help you approach your communication tasks with ease in mind.

Within the "Training" section, you will find an "Expert Reports" subsection

https://www.sfimg.com/Training/ExpertReports

and a subdivision on "Sales Writing & Communication".

This is highly valuable advanced knowledge on business, sales and communication that very few people are truly and fully familiar with. You can make it your goal to be an expert in these fields, and you will excel in communicating with your team members while growing your business and helping them do the same.

This is already enough to cover the basic communication needs.

If you want to develop further writing skills, there are numerous free online resources. You just need to do a quick search and you will find the appropriate writing tutorials. The most important part of learning to write with clarity and effectiveness is to start with short sentences, small paragraphs to compose an essay on a subject that interest you. Give that essay to a friend and ask for feed back. Repeat the exercise as frequently as you can. Soon you will find yourself fully competent and confident to attack any writing task with ease.
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For an effective communication with our team members, SFI provides us with readily available resources such as draft messages, E-Cards and Instant Messaging. To make an effective use of these tools, it is not critical to be a renowned writer, although it does help. Fortunately it is a skill that can be learned rather easily, without taking to much time.

Hence, my recommendation would be to approach this challenge in two steps.

For now, you can fully rely on all what SFI has
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Affiliate since: 12/31/1969, Power Rank: 99999999

You do not have to be a good writer to be a good sponsor and to communicate effectively with your team.

How many people are really good writers? Good writers publish books and any author / writer will tell you that it is not easy getting a book published - even if you are a talented writer.

There are some things you can do to make sure your writing is professional.

1. Make sure you spelling is correct. If you write your letters in Word you can use spell check
and check yourself before you send it out to your team. At the same time you are building
up your own library of newsletters or supporting messages.
2. Check your sentence structure - the best is to use shorter sentences. Long sentences can get
all messed up and hard to understand.
3, Make sure your facts are correct.

You can always use the letters SFI provides until such time that you feel comfortable writing your
own letters. You can edit these letters to suit your team's needs.

If you have team members that speak a different language you can also use Google Translate.

Do not try to use "big" words if you are not proficient in the language. You also do not need your writing to be too difficult to read and understand. If your team has to use a dictionary to understand what you are saying, it is a problem.


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You do not have to be a good writer to be a good sponsor and to communicate effectively with your team.

How many people are really good writers? Good writers publish books and any author / writer will tell you that it is not easy getting a book published - even if you are a talented writer.

There are some things you can do to make sure your writing is professional.

1. Make sure you spelling is correct. If you write your letters in Word you can use spell check
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Affiliate since: 05/10/2012, Power Rank: 99999999 | Read Wayne's 236 other Ask SC answers

A major part of building your SFI and TripleClicks business is being able to communicate with everyone that you will be involved with as you are growing you team. We all know that at this present time most (if not all) of our communications will be done through writing (typing on your keyboard).

We will find that we need to write messages using the stream post, newsletters, Ecards, forum and ASK SC and a host of other things. Your success in SFI can be enhanced or hampered by the way we express ourselves with our writing.

Writing is like any other skill that we have acquired during our life. All the skills we possess have come through trial and error in attempting to get better results one of the best ways to learn any skill is through observation and practice.

How do you observe writing? Easy – just start reading how other affiliates in SFI are writing their forum post and newsletters and etc. The more you read the better of a writer you will become. Learn to look beyond the words – notice the structure of the message, the tone, flavor and flow of the words as they form a paragraph.

Some people believe that you have to know all these long complicated words to be a good writer – that is far from the truth. If you explain something to someone in your team using whatever vocabulary that you now use as if you were explaining something to a friend then your message will get the point across without all those fancy, long words.

As a matter of fact using the simplest, easy to understand words in your messages is the best way to communicate with your teammates. The reason being is that not all your affiliates will speak the same language as you do so the easiest way to get your message said the better it is.

The more you read and the more you write the better you will get at communicating with your teammates.

Just remember the most important aspect of your writing should be up-lifting, positive and contain good useful information – if you do that in your communication then you will do just fine.

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A major part of building your SFI and TripleClicks business is being able to communicate with everyone that you will be involved with as you are growing you team. We all know that at this present time most (if not all) of our communications will be done through writing (typing on your keyboard).

We will find that we need to write messages using the stream post, newsletters, Ecards, forum and ASK SC and a host of other things. Your success in SFI can be enhanced or hampered
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Affiliate since: 10/01/2013, Power Rank: 75 | Read Aina's 157 other Ask SC answers

How do we define good communication? Is it only writing? If we were to go deeper in our interpretation of good communication, the following would also contribute to the overall meaning of good communication instead of just writing.

1) Body language – can dominate a conversation more than our tone or words. Making
sincere eye contact with your potential sign ups, warm market etc, dressing well with good
posture can make a difference when making a sales pitch or working with your clients (for
ECAs especially).
2) Listening – be a good listener to better understand what someone else is saying
3) Empathy – being aware of the needs of others through what they say to you
4) Patience – not losing your cool when you send out an email and don’t get a reply

As to writing skills, practices make it perfect. The more you write, the better you will become. Observe how other people present their views, writing their website or blogs and so on. If you have some ideas, write it down. If not for immediate use, you may need it later, when you need ideas, you can refer back from what you have written down before.

Back to SFI, sample letters are available for use. From SFI, contribution by Senior and successful old members can be traced from archive. Forum is another avenue where sharing of ‘out of the box’ information made available 24/7, by SFI community to all Affiliates. You just need to ‘search’ for topics of your interest, digest all pertinent info and re-write in your own words. Use a simple and easy to understand words, as long as your message is clear and concise for people to understand.

So, good communication does not mean only in writing, it consists all of the above-mentioned. If you can combine all of them and put into practice, you will become ‘almost’ a perfect person not only in writing but the overall aspects of good communication, eventually you will become a good communicator.

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How do we define good communication? Is it only writing? If we were to go deeper in our interpretation of good communication, the following would also contribute to the overall meaning of good communication instead of just writing.

1) Body language – can dominate a conversation more than our tone or words. Making
sincere eye contact with your potential sign ups, warm market etc, dressing well with good
posture can make a difference when making a sales pitch
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Affiliate since: 11/29/2011, Power Rank: 21 | Read Gliceria's 402 other Ask SC answers

Good writing is a learned skill. But it need not be a problem in order to communicate effectively with your team.

Be a wide-reader. You learn how to write well by reading extensively, especially books and articles written by authors in good plain and clear English.

Learning how to write well starts with clarifying your thoughts and knowing what you want to say and expressing it with well chosen, simple and well-ordered words.

When communicating with your team by team mails, stream posts, and weekly group messages, use plain English that is precise, brief, appropriate and straightforward..

Avoid using words or phrases that are misused or over used that may cause confusion or misunderstanding and not convey clearly what you want to say.

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Good writing is a learned skill. But it need not be a problem in order to communicate effectively with your team.

Be a wide-reader. You learn how to write well by reading extensively, especially books and articles written by authors in good plain and clear English.

Learning how to write well starts with clarifying your thoughts and knowing what you want to say and expressing it with well chosen, simple and well-ordered words.

When communicating with your team
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Affiliate since: 05/03/2002, Power Rank: 45 | Read Mar's 582 other Ask SC answers

In building relationships with your team members communication is the key. Your ability to communicate comes from experience, and experience can be an effective teacher.

The fact that you’re able to communicate what’s in your mind and asks this important question means that you can learn to write well and communicate with your team members effectively.

How to learn to write well and improve your communication skills in written form?

- Effective writing is not a gift that you’re born with; it’s a skill that you need to cultivate.

Before you start writing, consider what you want to say. Generally most people start working out their thoughts as they’re writing, which makes their writing less structured, meandering, and repetitive. Ask yourself this question: What should my audience know or think after reading this email/message? If the answer isn’t immediately clear, you’re moving too quickly. You need to step back and spend more time collecting your thoughts.

- Be direct to the point.

Make your point right up front. Most people find that the writing style and structure they developed in school doesn’t work as well in the business world. Postponing the message that you want to convey in the middle part of your writing will make your communication engagement with your audience unclear and ineffective. By concisely presenting your main idea first, you save your reader time and sharpen your argument before diving into the bulk of your writing.

- Avoid jargon.

Be selective in choosing words in consideration to your audience. As the business communicator, you must focus on the words you use and how you use them. Short, simple sentences, in themselves composed of words, also communicate a business style. In your previous English classes you may have learned to write eloquently, but in a business context, your goal is clear, direct communication. One strategy to achieve this goal is to write with the same words and phrases you use when you talk. However, since written communication lacks the immediate feedback that is present in an oral conversation, you need to choose words and phrases even more carefully to promote accuracy, clarity, and understanding.

- Always read what you write.

Consider putting your shoes in your reader’s shoes and ask the following questions: “Is my point clear and well structured? Are the sentences straightforward and concise?”

If you are writing ad copy, the goal is to motivate consumers to make a purchase decision. In each case, you are writing to a specific purpose, and a great place to start when considering what to write is to answer the following question: what are the readers’ expectations?

Reading is one step many writers point to as an integral step in learning to write effectively. If you want to write effectively in business, you need to read business-related documents. These can include letters, reports, business proposals, and business plans. You may find these where you work or in your school’s writing center, business department, or library; there are also many web sites that provide sample business documents of all kinds. Your reading should also include publications in the industry where you work.

You can also gain an advantage by reading publications in fields other than your chosen one; often reading outside your niche can enhance your versatility and help you learn how other people express similar concepts. Finally, don’t neglect general media like the business section of your local newspaper, and national publications like the Wall Street Journal. Reading is one of the most useful lifelong habits you can practice to boost your business communication skills.

- Allocate time to practice everyday.

Learning to write well takes time and your writing skills will improve as you practice everyday. Go to your local library and look for well written materials (books, magazines, etc.) to read everyday. When you read, be attentive to the word choice, sentence structure and flow. Most importantly, build time into your schedule for editing and revising. Writing and reworking your own writing is where the change happens, and it’s not quick. The time is well spent because good writers distinguish themselves on the job.

To summarize, here are the list of do’s and don’ts:

Do:

- Plan out what you will say to make your writing more direct and effective.

- Use words sparingly and keep sentences short and to the point.

- Avoid jargon and fancy words. Strive for clarity instead.

Don’t”

- Argue that you simply can’t write. Anyone can become a better writer with practice.

- Pretend that your first draft is perfect, or even passable. Every document can be improved.

- Bury your argument. Present your main idea as soon as possible.

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In building relationships with your team members communication is the key. Your ability to communicate comes from experience, and experience can be an effective teacher.

The fact that you’re able to communicate what’s in your mind and asks this important question means that you can learn to write well and communicate with your team members effectively.

How to learn to write well and improve your communication skills in written form?

- Effective writing is not
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Affiliate since: 07/08/2018, Power Rank: 99999999 | Read Ufuomaoghene's 238 other Ask SC answers

Good day Darla,

Communication is key to the success of any business. Also, the means of expressing yourself in writing is another aspect entirely.

It's vital to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively as people in general do not have the time to read book-length emails as well as the patience to scour badly-constructed emails for "buried" points.

The better your writing skills are, the better the impression you'll make on the people around you including your colleagues, friends and your clients. You never know how far these good impressions will take you.

To be good writers, we need to be forcus, patient, determined to write to avoid mistake and ambiguities.

First and formost, to learn how to write, we need to:-

1. Consider our audience and format of the email to be sent:-The first step to writing clearly is choosing the appropriate format. The format, as well as your audience, will define your "writing voice" – that is, how formal or relaxed the tone should be. For instance, if you write an email to a prospective client, should it have the same tone as an email to a friend? Definitely not. Start by identifying who will read your message. Is it targeted at Gary Carson (Founder of SFI), your entire team, or a small group of people? With everything you write, your readers, or recipients, should define your tone as well as aspects of the content.

2. Composition and Style:- Once you know what you're writing, and for whom you're writing, you actually have to start writing. We can try these tips for composing and styling your document.

a) Start with your audience – Remember, your readers may know nothing about what you're telling them. What do they need to know first? For instance, a Welcome Email or letter to our nw PSAs/CSAs.

b) Create an outline – This is especially helpful if you're writing a longer document such as a report, presentation, or speech. Outlines help you identify which steps to take in which order, and they help you break the task up into manageable pieces of information.

c) Use AIDA – If you're writing something that must inspire action in the reader, follow the Attention-Interest-Desire- Action (AIDA) formula. These four steps can help guide you through the writing process.

d) Try some empathy – We always need to remember our audience's needs at all time and see how it will benefit them. For instance, how to place a Standing order.

e) Use the Rhetorical Triangle – If you're trying to persuade someone to do something, make sure that you communicate why people should listen to you, pitch your message in a way that engages your audience, and present information rationally and coherently.

f) Use simple language – It's usually best to use simple , direct language for our prospects to understand.

3. Structure:- Your document should be as "reader friendly" as possible. Use
headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbering whenever possible to break up the text to avoid confusing our prospects or team members.

4. Grammatical Errors:- Errors in your document will make you look unprofessional. It's essential to learn grammar properly, and to avoid common mistakes that your spell checker won't find. This indeed will make it easier to understand and readable to anyone.

5. Proofing:- The enemy of good proofreading is speed. Many people rush
through their documents, but this is how you miss mistakes. If we follow these guidelines to check what you've written, it makes errors to be reduced drastically.

a)Proof your headers and subheaders – People often skip these and focus on the text alone. Just because headers are big and bold doesn't mean they're error free.

b) Read the document out loud – This forces you to go more slowly, so that you're more likely to catch mistakes.

c) Use your finger to follow text as you read – This is another trick that helps you slow down.

d) Start at the end of your document – Proofread one sentence at a time working your way from the end to the beginning. This helps you focus on errors, not on content.

In summary, it's important to know how to communicate your point quickly and professionally. Many people spend a lot of time writing and reading, so
the better you are at this form of communication, the more successful you're likely to be. Identify your audience before you start creating your document. And if you feel that there's too much information to include, create an outline to help organize your thoughts. Learning grammatical and stylistic techniques will also help you write more clearly; and be sure to proof the final document. Like most things, the more you write, the better you're going
to be.

All the best Darla.




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Good day Darla,

Communication is key to the success of any business. Also, the means of expressing yourself in writing is another aspect entirely.

It's vital to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively as people in general do not have the time to read book-length emails as well as the patience to scour badly-constructed emails for "buried" points.

The better your writing skills are, the better the impression you'll make on the people around you including
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Affiliate since: 10/01/2013, Power Rank: 426 | Read Nimo's 381 other Ask SC answers

I agree wholeheartedly with you - good communication is vital in SFI but please remember that the written word is one of the several ways of communication, although it is the most commonly means of communicating.

If you are not good at writing, you have the options of learning to be a better writer (and this seems to be what you are looking for) or develop other forms of communicating such as by phone, Skype and other similar software applications, video (U Tube etc)

How to write well is often a challenge for a lot of people because it is a skill that is acquired over time, requiring a lot of practice, trials and errors and refinements. We need to be patient with this and take 'baby' steps as we develop our skills.

I would recommend that we start off with short simple statements. One 'thought' or idea per sentence. Do not have long and complicated sentences. Use everyday words. Use only words and phrases that are not slang or peculiar to our part of the world or dialect. Position our sentences in logical order.

If we are communicating with someone who is of another language, we should write in their language if we can. If we cannot, we should use translators that are readily available on the internet. I would suggest that we have our message translated into that other persons language and then have the translated text translated back into our language. Keep doing this until we are happy with the final content and then send that message away.

While we are developing our writing skills, there are other strategies that we can adopt in the meantime.
We can use text that have already been written by others. Take note of what our sponsors and uplines write, what people write when answering ASK SC questions, what is written in the Forum, sample welcome and newsletters texts in SFI. We can use all these to develop and teach our team members.

The easiest thing to do is to simply refer our people to the links with
short introductions from us. Doing it this way saves us a lot of time and work. We also acknowledge the text author at the same time.

We can also copy and paste onto a new document if we want to but with should always acknowledge the source and author of the texts.


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I agree wholeheartedly with you - good communication is vital in SFI but please remember that the written word is one of the several ways of communication, although it is the most commonly means of communicating.

If you are not good at writing, you have the options of learning to be a better writer (and this seems to be what you are looking for) or develop other forms of communicating such as by phone, Skype and other similar software applications, video (U Tube etc)

How to
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Affiliate since: 10/05/2011, Power Rank: 26 | Read Francis's 105 other Ask SC answers

Yes, it is true that good communication is important in relating with the rest of your team, but you can still get your message across without necessarily being a professional writer.

I think the basic communication skills will do, however, like in most areas of life, there is always room for improvement. In this context your writing skills can be improved by reading the relevant books. One such book is “Bird by Bird, some instructions on writing and Life.” It is written by Anne Lamott and is available on Amazon.

As you read more and more such books your writing will get better. Having said that as a sponsor at SFI, you can still get along and effectively in corresponding with your affiliates if:

1. Identify what you want to say
2. Structure your message and type it
3. Read through what you have just written as if you were the recipient of the message, or even give it to another person in your home to read
4. Make use of editing tools on your computer such as spell check and grammar correction
5. After corrections, read through the message again and if you are satisfied, post it.

With these basic principles, you can slowly build a foundation upon which to improve and the next message you write can only be better than the previous one!

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Yes, it is true that good communication is important in relating with the rest of your team, but you can still get your message across without necessarily being a professional writer.

I think the basic communication skills will do, however, like in most areas of life, there is always room for improvement. In this context your writing skills can be improved by reading the relevant books. One such book is “Bird by Bird, some instructions on writing and Life.” It is written by
...more