What are your first thoughts when you see an email that could fill an 8x11 page?&nbsp; How closely do you read the content of the email?&nbsp; How well do you retain the information when you are managing the 5 other communication channels at the same time (text, work voicemail, work phone calls, personal email, personal voicemail, Twitter, Facebook, etc)?

I don't know about you, but I cringe.&nbsp; Think about it from the perspective of the senior executive who you are communicating with.&nbsp; She or he is probably managing a minimum of 300 work emails a day.&nbsp; How much time do you think this individual has to read your email really closely?&nbsp; A few seconds at most.&nbsp; If it is does immediately clear what the purpose of the message is, delete...next message.

Here is a three-step process for writing&nbsp;a concise&nbsp;message for senior audiences.&nbsp;

<DIV><STRONG>1.&nbsp; Define your purpose for communication</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>The first thing to do in developing the purpose statement is to determine why you are writing.&nbsp; An easy way to do this is to determine if you are informing or persuading.&nbsp; Basically, the purpose of any message can be boiled down to are you trying to tell something or sell something.&nbsp; So be sure you are clear about this.</DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>2.&nbsp; Determine What’s In It For Me (WIIFM and aka the audience)</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV>This step&nbsp;involves thinking about a number of things from the perspective of your audience.&nbsp; Usually, in any message, there is going to be one primary person for the message, so some considerations to think about are:</DIV>
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<LI>How much time do they have?&nbsp;&nbsp; So it is best to keep it short.</LI>
<LI>What is their attention span?&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>What is their level of expertise on the topic?&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>How much can they influence the outcome?</LI>
<LI>What is&nbsp;their current level of support?</LI></UL>Tip:&nbsp; The more senior, the more you need to keep it concise, short, and sweet.

<DIV><STRONG>3.&nbsp; Develop content</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV>Draft the content of the message with the most important information first.&nbsp;</DIV>
<UL>
<LI>
<DIV>Put the conclusion first.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV>Next, put the evidence and/or details that you outlined as the body.&nbsp; Use bullets to differentiate one detail from another</DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV>Thirdly, end with next steps.&nbsp; What is the action you want your audience to take.&nbsp; This should be explicit.</DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV>Finally, simplify.&nbsp; Use simple sentence structure.&nbsp; Don’t put dependent clauses at the beginning of the sentence.&nbsp; Eliminate unnecessary details.&nbsp;</DIV></LI></UL>Using these steps will enhance your communication&nbsp;skills&nbsp;and your overall performance.&nbsp; You can even leverage&nbsp;these three steps for speaking because usually you are writing before speaking for a presentation.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Keep me posted of your success.&nbsp; I look forward to connecting with you.