Learn to impress your boss

• Always be pro-active. Don’t wait for order to work. Find solution to problems even if not assigned to you. It will unveil your potential and dedication too.
• Always attend the training sessions. Broaden your horizon. It will help you to learn and grow. It also shows your interest.
• Take good care of your health. A bad health could run down your productivity and all career dreams.
• Know your boss’s priorities. If he judges quality by quantity, quantify your result. If he is inclined towards client satisfaction, treat client as the sole purpose of your work. Customize your working style as per your boss’s attitude towards work. No boss likes contradicting employees.
• Follow your boss. If he is more comfortable with telephonic conversation that email, follow the same. Study him or her for a while before grasping and adopting his style of conduct.
• Always ask questions. It will reflect your interest in work, curiosity towards new things. Ask unexpected questions reflecting your intellect and deep analytical skill. Your boss would flaunt you everywhere then.
• There’s no problem in seeking or providing help. When you need help ask for it. If you are capable of lending a helpful hand, don’t hesitate either.
• Do everything with a personalized touch of yours. That’s what makes you different from the rest. Do the same job in your own style. But don’t let the logic fly off. Within given limitations try to add your own style. It could be your superb style of writing or even just a small entertaining act before the big presentation.
• Be punctual throughout your career life except few emergencies. Always come on time. You could reach earlier too. Reach meetings on time. It reflects responsible behavior. Don’t be absent often.
• Always meet deadlines. Make sure you complete your task before the due date. At the same time quality shouldn’t be compromised.
• Don’t be afraid to voice your thoughts and ideas. Your observations and ideas could be very important for the company. Speak up with confidence. Raise new points. He will definitely appreciate your concern and interest. It will also set a good tuning of yours with your boss. If he sees good potential in you, he may consult you every time when he needs to decide upon new things.
• Last but not the least, always be his fan. Every boss needs a little stroke of his ego, little appreciation, little admiration and lot of flattering. Following his examples could fetch him great compliments.

Follow the tips I have shared in both the articles, and you will always make a place in the good book of your bosses.

A group discussion typically works in three phases –

• Introduction
• Body of the GD
• Conclusion

Introduction and conclusion of the GD are the most important phases, as these phases help impressing the examiner.

Introduction stage of GD is your opportunity to write your destiny. This is your first chance to impress the examiner. While you initiate the discussion you not only grab the opportunity to speak first, but you equally draw attention of the examiner and other candidates. First impression lasts for long. If you can kick-off with a good start (on basis of content, logic and your communication skill), the ball is already in your court. Don’t get numb or stuck soon after the introduction, it shows you started with a bang just for the sake of drawing attention. Maintain your participation throughout and make sure you are heard. On the other hand don’t jump into the well and start before others; if you are not confident about the topic. A hollow start brings negative marks. You are supposed to put things in the right perspective of framework. Some handy points which can help you to try a good start are –

• Definition of the topic in hand
• Related quotes
• Questions
• Shock statement
• Facts and figures (along with credible source)
• Short story
• General statement

Conclusion stage of GD is equally important. Every GD is summarized. Summarize what the group has discussed during GD, in a nutshell. It could be a conclusion either in favour or against the given topic. While concluding don’t raise new points again, avoid putting personal opinion or perceptions, avoid rigidity towards one aspect, keep your views short and crisp, don’t add anything new apart from the already discussed points.

Examiner not only pays attention towards your spoken words; but also sees through your personality traits and non-verbal communication aspects like –

• Ability to work in team
• Reasoning ability
• Communication skill
• Leadership skill
• Persuasion skill
• Assertiveness yet humbleness
• Pro-active attitude
• Flexibility
• Creativity
• Independent thinking process
• Time management
• Body language
• Patience and tolerance

When these things are taken care of, a big win is not far from you.

To keep things simple for you, I am providing here a news writing framework that will help you craft a piece of interesting to read news. This framework will help you make the news interesting to read. Fill the details in the following boxes and then just interweave them to give it the shape of a piece of news.

Copy writing is like cooking. If you do it with love using proper ingredients in the right proportion then the guests will be delighted, but when the copy is cooked without much consideration to the proportion of each ingredient, the guests will excuse themselves and leave the party. A good copy consists of the proper use of six key ingredients, which we will discuss below.

Visitor value

No one is interested in knowing how cool the technology was that you used to make the product you are offering, nor do they want to know how ground-breaking the innovation is on which you have based your product. No one gets sold on empty words. People need empathizing words, words that understand their needs, and tell them how good their lives will be after using the product in question. They want to know, why they should invest time, energy and obviously money in the product you are selling.

Appeal to emotion

Do not get sold to the idea that we are made of nuts and bolts, reasons and logic, and comparison and decision. No, we are not. We are, if you prefer it that way, emotional fools. We are governed by the synaptic firings and misfiring, and yes we are made up of veins and bones. We only act when we feel something is important or worth it, and we see any worth or importance in any word or goods only when we understand the value of it, and we understand the value only if the product or the word connects. Touch me where no one has touch before, and I am all yours!

Headlines are important

How many times do you want me to reiterate the importance of headlines in making the visitors act? Instead of wasting my words on how important a good headline is, and how you should create one, I will suggest you to read How to Write Crowd-Pulling Headlines Part –I and three other articles following this. Please do not mind my words. I was trying to be funny. I know I have failed.

Make it lively

Well, the last two sentences of the previous paragraph was written deliberately to make you react, and that is what I call making the post lively. Do not preach gospel. You do not need to adopt a serious tone and make a long face to say something serious. People are not that dumb! You can use sarcasm, controversy (yes, I mean it), humor, drama, or anything that you think will make your writing lively. An image can also do the magic.

Third-party endorsement

My employer says I am a good writer. He thinks I am one of the best writers he has ever employed. Do you believe it, or will you believe it more when I say, I am the best writer around, and you cannot find a writer better than me in the budget you have? Which one sounds more credible? Indeed, the first one, and that is because someone else is saying I am good. You should do the same for the products you are writing about. We call it using testimonials. Testimonials vouch that there are people who liked this product. Use credible and authentic testimonials.

Call to action

Hey man, you wrote a great article, but what am I supposed to do? I liked what the product you wrote about, but from here where should I go? What should I do? These are some questions that are in desperate need for an answer, and the answer is call to action. Add call to action words like, “Hurry, the Offer is Limited!,” “Call Now to Avail Special Discount,” “Click here to Know More.” in the copy you write and the click through rate and also the conversion rate will increase significantly.

I hope I have done justice to this topic. What do you think? Have I missed something that had to be covered? Your suggestions, feedback and complains are welcome. Use the comment box below.

There is a certain structure you need to follow in order to build a strong argument that in turn will win over the recipient. Before discussing the structure of a persuasive letter, let’s first talk about the research objective. The following list will tell you what all you need to know before you can begin writing a persuasive letter.

• Define the target audience
• Purpose of writing a persuasive letter.
• Make a list of information you want to include in the letter
• Make a list of supportive arguments. The arguments will show the reader what is in there for him.
• Make a list of possible objections, or mental block that might be pushing the reader to decide against your proposal.
• Is there something peculiar about the problem you are going to address? Make a list of it.

Anatomy of a persuasive letter

Introduction: Introduce your product, services and request in this first paragraph. Outline the important changes in this new version.

Outline the benefits: The introduction paragraph should be followed by the paragraph that will talk about the benefit of the product, services and request you are making. In this paragraph write statements that will build case for you.

Call for action: Once the recipient knows about the benefit he will have by accepting your proposal, you need to tell him what you want from him, and what action he should take to help you.

Thanks: Thank your reader for the time he has devoted in reading the letter. Also include a conclusion in this final paragraph. The conclusion should be as forward thinking as it can be.