Secret 8: Delegate task, it always cheaper either in dollars or patience. Place an ad at local college and offer $30 to $45 per tape. I have found several through Business Centers at high schools and community centers. If interview is rare or precious, hire a professional service and pay higher rate. Have at least 10 ways you can get a tape transcribed reasonably and fast at your disposal. Start with Yellow Pages. Rate them on fastest and quickest. Consider using FedEx to deliver and pick up tapes, for safety, and to save time. I never recommend sending tape out of your country to save money.

Secret 9: Don't sign a contract, ever, if they have a clause in it, "All notes, tapes, materials and transcripts must be turned over to publisher." Cross it out and don't agree to this. If publisher is paying for transcription and your time separately for interview, they are yours.

Secret 10: Prepare questions ahead of time and stick to them. Preparation saves time all around. If you are not sure what questions to ask, ask publisher what questions do they want to have answered when they give you assignment. It is a good procedure to provide questions before hand to interviewee. This helps them prepare. If they read from their typed notes then ask questions differently or drift with one question then return. They will usually stop reading, think, and not return to their notes.

Secret 11: If you are a fast typist you will most likely be able to type and capture 75% of conversation. Learn to leave out repetitious information and use a keyboard shorthand. After call, review notes immediately and expand shorthand. If you use a common shortcut, use "find and replace" in your word processor as a time saver. Also explain that you will be typing their response so that sound of keyboard doesn't distract from conversation. If you prefer, you can even ask for permission: "I hope you don't mind, I'm a fast typist so I prefer to type my notes as we talk." It’s like asking for permission but not quite.

(C) Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.

Later on in my career, I worked at a company that prided itself on its easy to read reports. While this was true (to some degree), one of directors loved to throw in a difficult word in every report he wrote to make marketing manager reach for his dictionary. He thought this was really clever and that his clients would be in awe of his knowledge. I’m guessing his clients thought he was a tosser (interestingly, I met an ex-client years later who told me that when their company received one of his reports they would quickly scan it to find unusual word and then erupt into hysterical laughter).

Articles that are written to impress your audience about how clever you are, do nothing more than distance them. No matter how learned your market is, they still prefer to read information that is easy to digest.

A great way to test whether your writing is easy to comprehend is to read it out loud. If someone spoke to you, using those words, could you instantly understand what they were getting at or would you have to really concentrate?

Scripts for marketing videos are no different. In fact, they need to be extremely simple in order to quickly grab attention of people walking past at a trade show, for example.

Writing that is heavy on technical terms and jargon can be a real turn off. The beauty of a marketing video is that it uses both pictures and words. The saying “A picture tells a thousand words” is a powerful concept with corporate movies. It means you can actually get away with saying less, but easily get your message across, because pictures do all of talking.

Surprisingly, clear writing can be quite a difficult writing style to master, but effort is well rewarded. And look at bright side, at least people won’t burst into fits of laughter when they read your masterpiece.