B2B Writers’ Dirty Little Secret

What’s the B2B writer’s dirty little secret? We overuse adverbs that end in ‘ly.’

But instead of bringing a user experience to life, adverbs are like excess baggage that weigh down the sentence, disrupting the flow of noun-verb-context and meaning.

Three Things I do to limit adverbs

in the hurry-up world of b2b writing

Here’s my approach to sentences that are rich in meaning and free of adverbs (mostly).

• The overarching statement

• A specific instance

• The payoff

Here’s an example.

Overarching Statement.

A recent flurry of break-ins in what were once low-crime Chicago neighborhoods has condo owners concerned about the safety of their buildings. The rise in crime is attributed to the lucrative ransacking of postal boxes, looking for cash, or sensitive personal information that enables bank fraud.

Example.

That’s why homeowner associations (HOAs) are lobbying the property manager/owner to install smart, as in cloud-connected, video intercoms so they can see who wants to come in before opening the door. Door buzzers are annoying, and residents ‘buzz in’ unknown persons to stop the noise nuisance. Telephone intercoms are built on aging landline infrastructure, and maintenance costs are going up, up, up. And there’s no camera to show residents and managers the person who wants in.

The Payoff.

Cloud-connected video intercoms let residents see and talk with the person who wants to enter before opening the door. That feels safe. And that’s the way home should feel. Property manager/owners get the convenience and efficiency of managing access from an everything-in-one-place cloud dashboard. This enables the monitoring of entance events captured by video logs and even identifies vandals who try to damage the unit. That feels good. And safe.

NOTE: I am an employee of the Chamberlain Group, the company behind the trusted LiftMaster brand of access control hardware, powered by the myQ Community cloud.