Get to the Point: Your Five-Step Guide to Writing Business Reports

You’ve taken something you excel at, and you’ve turned that into a business. It’s almost time for your team and your stakeholders to meet with you. Not only do you have to give a great presentation, but you’ve got to send them a comprehensive business report afterward. 

Writing a business report can feel like a stressful chore. How are you going to ensure that people are genuinely going to take in your information? How can you make sure that your business report can be something reliable, something that people can look back on to help them make decisions?

We’re going to simplify this process into five steps. These steps aim to help you narrow your focus to what’s necessary to report. This isn’t that other information isn’t important, necessarily, but different communications are more effective in different areas. 

What belongs in a quick reminder email, for example, might not necessarily belong in a business report. 

Let’s get started!

1.) Clarify your report’s purpose from the beginning.

- Make this report something that your collaborators know they can rely on from the beginning. Ask yourself why you need to create this report (not just because it’s the end of a quarter). What decisions need to be made? What information needs to be shared?

-Think about who will be relying on this report. You, your team, any other stakeholders. What do they need to understand? Adjust your language, both style and depth of detail, to make sure it meets the needs of your audiences.

2.) Keep it concise. Ditch the fluff.

-You’ve probably gathered a lot of important data, but will all of these points be relevant to your purpose? Not right away. You’ll use them at another time. Prioritize the points that fit the purpose of your report.

-The right charts, graphs, or other visuals can be invaluable. They will help your audience to better understand your points. Be strategic. Too many visuals can be overwhelming, but the right amount will make your information stand out.

3.) Be direct.

-The right word at the right place at the right time isn’t just for novelists. It’s for every written and verbal communicator. Use strong adjectives and action verbs that drive home the importance of what you have to say and motivate your audience.

-Use plain language. We’ve talked about being audience-focused, and we mean it. Your report should be easy to understand and limit use of jargon, technical terms, and acronyms that your audience might not recognize. You might need to use some, so if you do, make sure that you give explanations when necessary.-Use a variety of sentence lengths (both short and long) for readability, and divide complex concepts into shorter segments that are easy to understand.

4.) Be correct and courteous.

- Using plain language and organizing your information effectively is practical. It also shows that you respect your team and your stakeholders. You are saying that you want them to understand what you’re communicating to them, and you respect them enough to let them in.

- Maintain grammar rules. No matter your style of writing, keeping your writing grammatically correct shows that you care about what you have to say. If you care, your audience will follow.-Fact check, fact check, fact check. Make sure that all information that you’re giving in your report can be properly verified by multiple sources. When analyzing new data, fact checking can look different. It might help to run your findings by different people before writing it in your report.

5.) Review and proofread.

-If you care about what you have to say, it will show. Make sure that you’ve proofread your document, saying all that you mean to say. 

-Send your report to people you trust to give good feedback. Ideally, send your report to someone who understands your audience. When you spend a long time working with a document, you might miss errors that would be otherwise easy to spot. Take in feedback as it comes and spend time with it before making a decision. 

Communication is essential always, and Purposeful Prose is here to help. Visit our blog at any time for more tips and insights or contact us for professional assistance. We personalize our approach to make sure your content is clear and engaging.

You believe in your business. Use your words, and others will believe in you and your business.