技巧4：注意受众中的神秘读者。任何一本优秀的商业写作指南都会告诉你，必须考虑到接收你消息的各种不同的读者群体。例如，如果你正在写一份并购目标评估报告，公司的首席执行官、董事会以及投资银行家都可能阅读这份报告，你知道他们的需求各不相同。更难应对的是神秘读者——那些你一无所知的读者。比如，你的某个目标读者可能(不经意地)将消息转发给你认为不应该读取该消息的某个人。请记住网络版的墨菲定律：“有可能出错的事情总会出错。”另外一个例子就是在你和目标管理者之间充当哨兵的个人助理，这些人会浏览和过滤所有来信。遇到这种情况时，你可以先写一封邮件作掩护，专门让助理去处理。不要忘了，一份文件可能会储存很长时间，有可能在几年后才会被不知原委的人阅读，因而可能出现误解。所以要充分考虑神秘读者的存在，以及如何进行应对。
Tip 4. Beware of the mystery readers in your audience.Every guide on business writing worth its salt will tell you that you have to take into account the various reader segments that your text is addressing. For example, if you’re writing an assessment of an acquisition target, you know that both your CEO, your company’s Board and their investment banker, each with different needs, may read it. Much more tricky to deal with are the mystery readers — that is those you don’t know about. For example, one of your targeted readers may (inadvertently) forward your text to a person who in your mind should be the last to read it. Remember the cyberversion of Murphy’s infamous law that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Another example is the personal assistant who stands as a sentinel between you and your targeted executive, scanning and filtering all incoming mail, in which case you might write a cover email designed to make her act first. And don’t forget that a document can have a long shelf life and be read a few years later by people who have no clue about its original context, and thus may misinterpret it. So think through the mystery readers and how you could cope with them.
技巧5：堵上挑刺者的嘴。当然，绝大多数读者都不傻。他们知道内容重于格式，漂亮的格式(干净的构成模块、漂亮的布局、页码等)并不能保证内容的质量。但是，他们也会经常下意识地推断，如果作者连格式都不关心，那么很可能也不会重视内容的质量。注重格式质量还可以让所谓的“挑刺者”闭嘴。我们对这类人都很熟悉：在参加演示会时，他们会立即翻到有饼形图的那一页，检查所有百分比加起来是否刚好100%。虽然这些吹毛求疵的人既不会致命，也不会增加价值，但是不要让他们能轻易抓住你邮件报告的把柄，把读者的注意力从真正的信息上引开。
Tip 5. Kill the mosquitos. Of course most of your readers are no fools.They know that content is more important than form, and that an attractive form (clear building blocks, an appealing lay-out, page numbering, etc.) is no guarantee of the quality of the content. Nevertheless they often reason unconsciously that, if the author didn’t even bother about formal quality, in all likelihood he didn’t bother about the quality of the content either. Form quality also neutralizes the so-called mosquitos. We are all familiar with them: the people who attend a presentation and immediately turn to the pages with a pie chart to check that the percentages add up to exactly one hundred. While these nitpickers are neither lethal nor value-adding, don’t make it easy for them to criticize your email presentation and distract your audience from your real message.
技巧6：让回应你的邮件变得简单。评价一块布丁的好坏要靠品尝，而检验写作的质量则是要根据读者的反应。切记，不回复往往是一种更方便的选择。虽然你很难迫使读者作出回应，但是至少你可以刺激一下他们。为此，从开头的第一句话就要表明来意，说明你为什么写这份邮件，以及你希望对方作出什么样的回应—— 商务信函不应该像是推理小说。到结尾时，要为读者提供默认选项，方便对方做出回应。例如，你可以在邮件中写：“如果您在周一之前没有回信，我就会当做您同意了我的建议。”(当然，如果邮件的接收者是你的顶头上司，这一点就很难做到。)默认选项的威力巨大，因为人们往往不愿意花太多精力去做别的选择。人们往往很难对默认选项说不，特别是当你指出，你提供的选项是正常的，或者甚至是被他人所推荐的。如果默认选项不太好想到，你可以明确向读者表示你期待回复，并请他们告知他们的打算，以及相关的时间和方式。仅仅是询问人们的计划就可以起到推动作用。
Tip 6. Make it easy to respond to your text.If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, then the proof of your writing is in your reader’s response. But remember that not responding is often a more convenient alternative. While it is hard to force a response, at least you can prod. To start with, make it clear, almost from the very first sentence, why you are writing to the reader and what you expect from her – business texts should not be mystery novels. And when you come to the end, make it easy for the reader to respond by providing her with a default option. For example, you might include in your email: “Unless I hear from you by Monday, I will assume that you agree with my recommendation.” (This might be difficult if your reader is your boss.) Defaults are powerful because people often are not willing to spend much effort coming up with other options. The choice for the default option is especially hard to resist if you suggest that yours is the normal or even recommended choice. If there is no easy default option, you can explicitly tell your readers that you expect a response, and you can ask them to let you know what they intend to do, by when, and how. The mere fact of asking people what they intend to do acts as a nudge.
技巧7：反复修改。没有偷懒的办法。写出一封非常出色的邮件需要时间和精力。想想托马斯爱迪生那句最被人喜爱的格言：“大多数人错过了机会，因为机会穿着工作服，而且看起来像工作。”只有付出时间提高邮件的质量，才有可能获得回报，赢得机遇。只需要按下发送按键，你的读者就有可能注意、查看、理解你传递的信息，并采取行动。
Tip 7. Work and work again on your text.There is no escape. Writing a high-quality text takes effort and consequently time. Consider Thomas Edison’s most endearing maxims: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” The opportunity relates to the return you might get from spending a bit more time on raising the quality of your text. Chances are your audience will then notice, read, understand, and act upon your message after only hitting the send button once.
总而言之，邮件作者应当像设计师那样精心设计自己的邮件。好的商务邮件作者既不是艺术家也不是工程师;他是可以预见人们需求或想法的设计师，然后据此精雕细琢出一封恰当的邮件。利用这一方法，你可能就会得到自己想要的回应。
In summary, a writer should behave like a designer. A good business writer is neither an artist nor an engineer. He is a designer who envisions what people need or are thinking and then crafts an appropriate email. Follow that approach and, chances are, you’ll get the response you want.
赫尔曼万特拉彭是布鲁塞尔战略咨询公司Akordeon的董事总经理，以及《The Executive Action Writer》一书的作者。
Herman Vantrappen is the Managing Director of Akordeon, a strategic advisory firm based in Brussels, and author of The Executive Action Writer
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