Whenever you want to get through to people, whether they’re clients, suppliers, or executives, you have to communicate appropriately with everything being clear and precise. This is where writing a business report comes in handy. It gives a more in-depth meaning to what you’re explaining or presenting. However, people sometimes don’t reach or connect to their audience too well through it. So, let’s take a look at some important ways for you to grab people’s attention with your business reports.
Give Your CEOs What They Want
When you’re preparing your business reports, you need to keep in mind that your bosses need something they can sink their teeth into, which means they want to rely on something that has a multi-data source, and you need the right service to help you achieve this for them. It wouldn’t hurt to utilize the capabilities of Whatagraph to be able to look at data from each important source. It gives you a complete picture of everything, and it makes CEOs run and market the business a lot easier and better. For example, your boss would like to see the sales CRM and financial data at the same time, so it’s clear for them to understand what’s going on precisely.
Think of it this way. If you provide everything on its own, with each source alone and not linked together, then your boss won’t get the complete picture, and they won’t be able to properly follow what’s happening. It has to be simple and easy for your CEO to delve into the different analyses and aspects of all your important data sources, whether it’s sales phone call logs, financial statements, account receivable data by each individual person, and much more. So, remember to keep it that way so your higher-ups can do their jobs much more efficiently.
Why Are Business Reports so Important?
A business report gives a broader explanation of any topic at hand, no matter the circumstances. Its key points are the facts of analysis and observation, and it has an extremely important role in the business world. You want a clear and elaborated way to discuss specific issues, problems, or progress in detail. It makes it easier for you to give CEOs and top management teams what they want, which is noteworthy and reliable information. When the higher-ups have this information, they can start brainstorming and come up with solutions and conclusive decisions.
Think of it as a basis for judging and assessing the performance and progress of different departments in your company. It’s similar to a well-built blueprint for control and planning in any company in the business world. It gives your management team and CEOs the chance to absorb that important information and utilize it to create proper strategies, contingency plans, and answers to various issues in the business. You need something documented and archived so they can get back to it whenever they want.
Business Reports – Do It in a Correct Fashion
Many people forget that the people in charge want you to get straight to the point. They don’t want any unnecessary extras that will waste their time and distract them. Which is why you need to prepare them in a precise and clear way that is easy to follow. Many rookies tend to think this is going to be like a sales presentation, and they try their best to have many different PowerPoint slides or colorful gimmicks that serve the purpose of catching their attention, but that can backfire very quickly.
You need to understand that flashy images, sound effects, colorful transitions, and the likes might seem eye-catching, but it takes your audience’s attention away from the important stuff. Some executives might find it confusing or too much as they simply cannot follow you because they are focused on the wrong thing. You don’t want them focused on your work that is full of gimmicks; you want them focused on the issue at hand with the data and numbers they need, and this is what separates effective business reports from sloppy ones.
Know Your Audience and Focus on Them
It’s really important that when you present your findings, it has to be engaging and directed at the people you want to connect with and convey the right information to. That is why you first have to figure out who they are, so you don’t end up wasting your time and theirs—the time is an important thing when it comes to this. You have to come up with the right tone that suits your targets when writing your business reports, meaning you have to know how much they know about the topic at hand once you figured out who your audience is. If you find out what their needs are and the specific information they want, then it’s going to be effective and attention-grabbing.
If you focus on your targeted people and provide them with the right data and important numbers and analyses they were looking for, then you will have them hooked and completely focused the entire time. Your findings must have every single piece of relevant data without any extra constraints or topics that they don’t want to hear about. Showing that you understood what they asked for and didn’t get them something unrelated means that you alleviated their fears, concerns, and doubts, so they will be much calmer knowing that the bigger picture is presented to them on a silver platter, allowing the people in charge to decide on the right course of action.
Organize Everything Correctly While Having a Professional Tone
The people in charge are busy as it is, so if you keep it simple and to-the-point without compromising on your engaging language, then it will be easy for you to keep them focused and attentive to what you’re saying. You should be concise and should not stray from the point. The text shouldn’t be dense or full of redundant jargon. It has to contain simple language with a professional touch, making it not boring or unclear. Try to watch for expressions or sentences that are too wordy, or constructed in the passive voice.
Make sure that your statements are given in a way that represents a logical progression of what’s needed from the topics and issues at hand, meaning you have to make it easy on the eye with details that are simple to grasp. Remember to use a format that the people in charge prefer, so you should stick to the plan and specifications that they want. You should have an outline with an introductory section to warm them up, then give a background of the issues before discussing them thoroughly. A clear structure that makes sense will always keep everyone focused and with you 100% of the time.
Business Reports – Proofread It More Than Once
This is extremely important because the last thing you need is your boss or upper management team to think you did something sloppy without putting maximum effort into it. You have to edit everything you’ve done and triple check for spelling mistakes, structure and grammatical errors, and punctuation. It’s possible that you might miss these errors because this is your own work, but you can fix this issue by asking someone else that works with you in the department to do it for you. You can both switch and edit each other’s work, making it easier on yourselves when you catch some mistakes or give feedback for better writing.
The next thing you should do during the proofreading process is going through the actual findings. Make sure everything is correctly listed, and nothing is missing any details. Finding something without enough context can confuse the reader, and you will lose their attention. Also, it’s equally important that you cut or remove some of the details written if it’s too much. You are not trying to bore your boss and lose him/her with too many details about something irrelevant, so give them what they want and only list what’s worth reading about.
Your Conclusion Should Have Different Recommendations
When your researched information is coming to an end, it has to be filled with logical and clear conclusions to follow the data you have provided at the beginning of it. You should write details about the changes. Different goals could be achieved better if things were done in a specific way. And every point or solution you give should have precise indications of what could happen if they followed through it. The people in charge need to see how it can help them meet their goals more effectively if they decide on picking one of them.
This is how every employee should strive to perform in front of their bosses, giving them solutions instead of waiting for them to come up with one. You should have three or four different courses of action or strategies to handle anything or make things work better. This gives your boss a much better understanding of what the best outcomes could be, and the final decision would be on them. Not to mention that it makes your managers and CEOs highly impressed by your hard work and smart decisions. It can lead to a better future for you later on.
Business Reports – Maintain Integrity and Cite Sources
It doesn’t matter what type of report you’re writing if your claims and findings are not true. The authenticity of what’s being written can be the difference between a company making millions or going bankrupt. You have to make sure that the data is accurate and reliable. It has to be business-critical information that makes your business reports useful and effective. Build the trust you need with your audience when you manage it accordingly. Not to mention that it makes it a lot easier for the people in charge to make their important decisions. It makes the next process of action planning a lot easier.
Also, it’s equally important that you reference the sources to the data you’ve collected. The format for citing the sources should be appropriately based on your industry and from relevant platforms. Explaining how and where you got it gives the people in charge of a background to review or go back to if they need more information. There are some people who should check these sources for your boss. They will give them more context and clarity during the decision-making process. Also, they will definitely need it when your report is intriguing and important.
Being Organized Is Key
Another way to keep them engaged in the work done is to have polished and well-organized folders, files, and binders. You should write an executive summary giving a brief overview of what you’ve found. This way you can give your very busy executives something to read. It should be about 200 or 300 words long, and it needs to have the most important findings. Your boss will appreciate the compliment and would probably expect nothing less from your well-researched and thorough business reports.
You must have a table of contents for your graphs and charts. Any other relevant sections that are equally important. Try to make it easy for the person in charge to flip through it without losing the line. Make sure they know where the summaries and conclusions are. It needs to be logically listed and properly numbered with the various subheadings. It should look sharp and intriguing so your audience can read everything and not skip a detail. Anything that’s organized and neatly presented will always be interesting.
Whether it’s for a small company or a huge corporation, you need business reports that are clear. This system makes things go smoother for your audience and the people in charge. You just have to find the perfect way to get their attention and to keep them focused. You don’t want to make them bored or unable to understand your point. So, make sure you prepare something worth remembering.