Business Communication - Planning Steps for Communication

There are six planning steps before we transmit our message:

1.       Know the purpose of the message
2.        Visualize your reader ( or listener )
3.        Choose the ideas to transmit
4.        Get all the facts 
5.        Organize your ideas in the most effective order
6.        Revise and proofread

Know the purpose

When you are arranging business communication you must know the purpose clearly. You must know why you should write and what should be written. The purpose may be sale, goodwill, request, inquiry or refusal etc.

Visualize your reader or listener

It is better for the sender to understand the receiver. You should know his background, qualification, education, position and status in the company. You should also know his desire, expectations, problems, circumstances and possible reaction to your request. In addition, you should know whether he is superior, subordinate, laborer, professional or technical person, colleague, single or married, man or woman, young or old, new or longtime customer.

Choose the idea

After having decided on the purpose and visualized the reader, you begin to choose the idea to be inserted in the message. The idea to be included in the letter or report depends upon the type of message. Before you start working you should jot down the points to be covered in communication, and then bring them in order of importance and urgency.

Get all the facts

Communication of any sort should be backed by the facts and figures, making the communication more emphatic, forceful and pithy. To explain facts and figures visual aid may be utilized augmenting the communication.

Organize ideas

Once the ideas have been jotted down they should be properly arranged and organized. Disorganized writing reflects a disorganized, illogical, untrained and even weak mind. Failing to organize will foil the objective of the message.

Revise and proofread

Short communications are east to transmit or dictate without revising or proofreading them. However, detailed and complex writings need revision substantially. The reason is to ensure that the message fulfills all principles of communication. A poorly organized and written message is waste of material and money.