I just returned from Illinois – a trip for business and pleasure. The pleasure was visiting with family in the windy city. The business was working with one of my clients who is often required to write reports in his business and has no clue what steps to take. The steps I’m outlining for you are the steps I’ve outlined for him only he and I talked about specific application to his business. He has this uncanny ability to make things complicated that shouldn’t be confusing at all.
A business report may be a business plan, a strategy for your business, a proposal for a particular project, or even a description of a product or service you may be marketing. A business report is meant to be read by people working with you and by people whom you may never meet. The readers may know about your subject matter of your report or they may not have any technical knowledge at all.
The fact is a business report usually has more than one audience. Even so there are logical step you can use that explain the information and data regarding your business related issues.
Title Page.
This page includes your title, the author’s name and date.
A good title should be clear and brief. Don’t use ambiguous words and a title of more than two lines weakens its impact. Avoid expressions such as “Studies of” or “A Report on“. Above all, don’t be catchy just for the sake of being catchy.
I like to include an overview of the main idea in the text as the next piece. Some may call that a letter of transmittal which gives the reader background information of the business report. It’s almost like the first page of a magazine when the editor writes a little something about all the articles included in that issue.
Table of Content
Your Table of Content is the next piece. This includes the major titles or headings mentioned in the report. You may want to consider using subheads also in the content. Besure to include the correct page number for each title.
The next page should contain a list of illustrations and photos with credits.
The executive Summary follows which summarizes the purpose and scope of the report, the problem that was to be solved, together with your major conclusions. This summary is only one page long and provides information that is essential to know if a very busy customer is interested in what you have to say about your new service.
I’ll write more about writing reports in my next post. In the meantime if you have questions be sure to send them so I can either contact you or answer your question in my next post.
Much success in your report writing.
Ruthan
Ruthan Brodsky
