When in Doubt, Look it Up
A few years back I worked with another writer on a series of customer success stories. It became apparent that she didn’t know the difference between the business terms "revenue" and "profit."
I had taken for granted the fact that I knew and understood terms like this, from experience as a reporter for a city business journal.
Why is this so important to customer stories?
Including details about return on investment (ROI) makes a story compelling to buyers. Often that requires writers or marketers to talk about, or at least understand, such business terms.
I may know about revenue and profit, but in the course of writing case studies, I do encounter industry terms or acronyms I don’t know.
When in doubt, look it up. I frequently refer to several resources to support my writing:
Wikipedia.org
Dictionary.com
Yahoo Small Business Dictionary
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-dictionary
BusinessDictionary.com
If you’re writing for a specialized industry, find out if there are online dictionaries just for those fields. My own work has required me to turn to civil engineering, and oil and gas dictionaries.
Have any favorite resources to share?
P.S., Revenue = amount generated from sale of goods or services. Profit = the surplus remaining after total costs are deducted from total revenue.
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