Posted on July 5, 2011 by Lloyd Morgan at Lone GunMan<\/p>\n
Proving that good writing can be found anywhere, writer Nancy Friedman points to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett\u2019s annual reports as examples of excellent copy writing. I cannot but agree. Friedman submits that we can learn to write better copy by studying Warren Buffett\u2019s annual reports, offering these six tips, highlighted after studying his annuals:
Tell stories.<\/b> Reading a Berkshire annual report is like sitting across a booth in a diner with a great conversationalist possessed of both intelligence and insatiable curiosity.
Use vivid language.<\/b>
Talk about people.<\/b> It\u2019s one thing to say, as almost every one does, that business is about people. It\u2019s another thing entirely to portray those people fully fleshed and full of foibles.
Be generous with humour.<\/b> Every Berkshire annual brims with jokes (including some groaners), drollery, and wit.
Get to the point.<\/b> \u201cBe fear ful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,\u201d Buffett writes. That\u2019s an entire business philosophy in twelve words.
Let your enthusiasm show.<\/b>
\nAs Anastasia pointed out in the comments section, Buffett wrote the wonderful pref\u00adace to the SEC\u2019s A Plain English Handbook: How to create clear SEC disclosure doc\u00aduments (click through for pdf). He offers this \u201cunoriginal but useful tip\u201d: Write with a specific person in mind. When writing Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s annual report, I pretend that I\u2019m talking to my sisters. I have no trouble picturing them: Though highly intelligent, they are not experts in account\u00ading or finance. They will understand plain English, but jargon may puzzle them. My goal is simply to give them the information I would wish them to supply me if our positions were reversed. To succeed, I don\u2019t need to be Shakespeare; I must, though, have a sincere desire to inform. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s the key; picturing your audience as intelligent non-experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Posted on July 5, 2011 by Lloyd Morgan at Lone GunMan Proving that good writing can be found anywhere, writer Nancy Friedman points to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett\u2019s annual reports as examples of excellent copy writing. I cannot but agree. Friedman submits that we can learn to write better copy by studying Warren Buffett\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-6wv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}