Susanne Stahley’s “Better Writing” posts http://davidryanmediasolutions.com/2008/03/08/no-one-will-watch/ got me thinking about how successful marketers are usually also good writers.

It’s important to pay attention to the details when it comes to your business writing.  It matters because just as people judge you by your dress and manners, they also judge you from  your writing — (and yes, I’m talking about the writing in your e-mails too)

Sure, very few of us can be creative writers of great prose or of the screen.  But we can still be good communicators.

And being precise in your writing is one important aspect of good communication.

Here’s an example of what I mean, the use of the two words “just” and “only.”

Think a moment about what these two words do in our language. They are very powerful modifiers. They are used to express limits to some thing or action.

When you leave your house and call out, “I’m just going to the store,” you may hear your junior high English teacher in your head correcting you, “ahem it’s . . . I’m going just to the store . . .” You roll your eyes and quash that voice and silently reply, “Hey, the folks in the house get the point, come on . . . what’s the big deal?”

Ah, that was one of the beauties of Latin that I gleaned from my undergraduate studies. Latin may be considered a “dead” language, but it’s pretty cool how in that language the roles of words in sentences are determined by their endings, which means that the positions of words in a sentence can be moved around without the meaning of the sentence changing. Good for poetry, but alas, the language still faded. But that’s another story.

In English, position of words in a sentence does matter, and those important limiters, “just” and “only,” are set to modify the words that come right after them. Again, as I pointed out at the top, one could question whether it really matters.

Well, it does. Let’s take an example:

A) The sales manager told her team that they only had to sell three projects this week.

B) The sales manager told her team that they had to sell only three projects this week.

Think about it. The meanings of the two sentences are different.

In A, the “only” modifies “sell,” leaving it open that something else could be implied, such as, “The sales manager told her team that they only had to sell three projects this week, . . . but they had to get statements of intent for six other orders.”

In B, the “only” modifies “three,” and there is no room for misinterpretation.

So remember, “just” and “only” are important modifiers in our language. Use them properly to reinforce clear communication.   And clearer communication results in more success at marketing and sales.

(And you can now replace that image of your junior high English teacher in head with mine.  Hmmm, oh well, I’ll take the risk.)