Planning Steps in Business Communication

If you are preparing a business message then you need to follow the six planning steps before transmitting it. The planning steps for communication are following:

1. Know the purpose.

2. Visualize your reader.

3. Choose the idea.

4. Get all the facts.

5. Organize the ideas.

6. Revise and proofread.

1. Know the purpose

While composing business communication you must know the purpose clearly. Knowing the purpose helps what to say and how to say. It can be difficult to arrange the message without knowing the purpose clearly. The purpose may be sale, building market image, making inquiry, request or any other purpose. The general purpose of business communication must be to build goodwill and market image.

2. Visualize your reader

If you are sending a message to a person you should understand him. You should know his background, his reading level, qualification and position in the company. You should also know whether he is professional or laborer, superior or subordinate, man or woman, single or married, middle age or elderly, new or longtime customer.

3. Choose the idea

After you have known your purpose and visualize the reader, you can begin to choose the idea to be included in the message. The idea that you will include in your communication depends upon the type of message. For example, the idea may be to welcome and thank a customer for opening an account.

4. Get all the facts

The ideas in a message should be backed by facts and figures in order to make them more emphatic and forceful. To explain facts and figures visual aids (tables, maps, graphics etc.) may be used to increase the strength of communication. The facts and figures in a message may be certain names, addresses, statistics or any other facts.

5. Organize the idea

After choosing ideas they should be arranged in a logical order and proper sequence. Disorganized writing reflects disorganized, illogical and uneducated mind. A disorganized message has small chance of getting desired objective.

6. Revise and proofread

You will be able to transmit or dictate short communications quite easily without revising and proofreading them. However, complex and longer messages need revision considerably. Revision and proofreading ensure that the message meets all principles of good business communication. An incomplete or ineffective message is waste of time.