Want results? Know your audience. by CodyC

Words that Count prides itself on getting results for its clients. If you're happy, we're happy, and results come from knowing who you are trying to get results from. One of the most common things you will do as an employee in an accounting firm is draft letters, memos, e-mails, etc.When writing professional correspondences, the first and often most important step is to analyze your audience. Knowing your audience, their expectations, and their attitudes will provide you a foundation on which to build. In an accounting firm, there are two general audiences: those within the firm and those outside of the firm, such as clients.

Writing within your own firm takes on many different forms. For example, a quick e-mail to a fellow coworker might be devoid of any formatting or grammar at all, but you should still be cognitive of content. Even informal e-mails can and will be read by unintended audiences at some point and therefore should not be anything you wouldn’t want your boss reading. If your audience is your entire division, however, then you will want to consider what is the action I want from my audience? This simple, conscious step will change the tone of your writing in a way that will be more likely to incite that action.

What should a writer consider when drafting to members outside of his or her own firm? First and foremost, this correspondence should always be professional in style, word usage, structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. In this situation, the writer is representing the firm as a whole and should never disregard etiquette, no matter how close the relationship may be with the client. The next thing to consider is the audience’s attitude towards the subject. If the audience has a negative view on the subject your approach will be much different than if the audience’s view is a positive one. Lastly, you need to establish the purpose of your writing and what you want to get out of your audience. Is your purpose to be persuasive or informative? The video below is a fun example from the movie "Thank You For Smoking" that shows how incredibly useful it is to fully understand one’s audience, especially regarding those outside your own firm. The tobacco employee has traveled to the home of a man involved a very expensive and risky legal battle with the tobacco company.