Business Writing

Do You Take the Credit You Deserve?

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I teach consultants how to write case studies. As part of that work, I ask that they describe the results of their projects. Here’s where many consultants hesitate. Why?

One group can’t talk, because they’re under non-disclosure agreements.

A second group doesn’t know the results. They do their piece, and don’t check back to see how the project as a whole progressed.

Then, there’s a third group.

The consultants in this group know the results of their work, but they don’t want to talk about them for a simple reason:

They think that to claim even partial credit for a project’s success means that they needed to be its main player. In other words, if they didn’t create the project, set its strategy, and handle its implementation, they pull back on parading their role. They feel they had to do it all.

Here’s what they’re missing, and what I’d like you to always remember:

You can be an important player on a project without having complete control over its outcome. Your contribution can still be crucial, even when you’re surrounded by a team of crucial contributors.

Talking about this idea reminds me of one consultant I worked with. For an hour I asked him to talk about the results of his projects. He hemmed and hawed. I kept pushing. Finally, when he saw I wouldn’t back down he told me something crazy:

A major technology company had hired him, because their product development team was stuck. The team’s direction had grown fuzzy. Teammates were fighting each other.

Through a few group sessions, this consultant helped the team right itself. They clarified their roles, came to agreements, set goals, and got moving again.

Months later, the team came up with a new product. I won’t name this product, but believe me, you know it. 75% of you reading this post own it. Time Magazine called it one of the three most innovative products of the year. The product has made the company billions of dollars, helped its stock price soar, and brought it wild market share .

Yet this consultant didn’t want to speak about it.

He said, “I didn’t invent, design, manufacture, or market the product. I didn’t have any direct hand in it. My client did all that.”

“Yes,” I said, “but without your contribution none of that may have happened. Or, if it did happen, it might have taken longer and cost the client a ton of money in lost sales.”

How, then, would you ethically handle such a situation? How do you take credit for your contribution, without grabbing too much of the limelight?

Here’s what I suggest: When writing about your own success stories, once you’ve explained your involvement in a project and are ready to talk about results, say the following:

“Due in part to my efforts, here’s what happened . . . “

Then, talk about revenues raised, costs cut, buzz created, and all the other results the organization enjoyed.

By using the phrase, “Due in part to my efforts” you’re letting listeners know that you’re not claiming credit for the whole initiative. You’re just rightfully taking credit for a piece of the whole. It’s a communications technique — and business philosophy — that you, your clients, and your prospects will appreciate.

What's the Big Idea?

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Here’s a technique for clear communication that I teach writers. I first read about it in Edward Bailey’s “Plain English Approach to Business Writing.”

If you’re writing an email or an essay or whatever, and you have an opinion to express, a recommendation to make, or a request of the reader, put it right up front and use the rest of the piece to explain it. Why?

Readers want to know how a piece of writing relates to them. If you don’t tell them right away — in the first paragraph or two or three — they’ll scan what you’ve written to find it. Make sense?

If I sent you an email that began, “How are you? I was in Manhattan the other day, eating at a Mexican place in the theater district, and I saw a friend I hadn’t seen in twenty years. His name is Jake, and he’s a lawyer. So we started talking about old times, and something he said triggered a memory from when we were in high school . . .,” you’d probably grow antsy.

If I kept my narrative going, you’d start skipping and looking for how this story relates to you. When you found how it related to you, you’d relax (“Ah, Mark found a potential client for me, and wants to set up a meeting”).

Often, writers are scared to say what they need to say up front, because they think the reader will make an instant judgment, and then won’t read the justification that follows. Really, though, if the writer doesn’t tell the reader how a piece relates to them right off, the reader will skip the writer’s carefully forged prose anyway, until they found what’s being asked of them.

In my writing, I use this “put what you have to say up front” technique much of the time. Sometimes, though, I forget to start my draft with it and, instead, add it later. An example: when I wrote my “Fascination Factor” proposal for Change This.

I was reading over what I thought to be the finished proposal when I realized it wasn’t working. Too much build up. I hadn’t gotten to “the big idea” quickly enough. Readers would have to wade through 250 words before they knew what my manifesto would teach them. Rather than rewriting the whole thing, I added this paragraph to the beginning:

“My proposed manifesto, ‘The Fascination Factor,’ teaches businesspeople how to write books and other thought leadership pieces that are uniquely their own and of considerable value to readers.”

Boom! Once people understood what it was they were about to read and how it could help them, then they could settle down and see if the rest of the proposal substantiated or detracted from my claim.

Don’t think you need to begin all your communications with your main point. No need to be robotic.

But put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Look over your last piece of writing, and ask yourself, “Where do I make my main point? Where does the reader learn why he or she is reading what I wrote?” If you didn’t get to your big idea in the first few paragraphs, think about how the piece might change if you did.