Warren Buffett's No. 1 Writing Tip — Doris and Bertie Ltd

Below is a transcript of the video.

Hello and welcome to the channel. I’m Dr Clare Lynch of the Doris & Bertie writing school and I’m on a mission to help you become a more confident writer.

Today I’ve got a brilliant, simple writing tip for you - and in sharing the tip you’re also going to learn where I got the name of my company, and of course my writing school, ‘Doris & Bertie’.

So a comment I get with pretty much every new client I meet is “I love that name! Where does it come from? And who are Doris and Bertie?”

And maybe it’s something you’ve been wondering too. Or even if you haven’t the explanation comes with a fantastic, great writing tip.

So here goes…

Now, traditionally a lot of my clients have been in the field of financial services. It’s an industry that’s often legally required to write in a clear, accessible language - but also it’s any industry that deals with a lot of complex concepts, and where the language can be over-wordy, over-complex and full of jargon. Which is where I come in and as someone on a mission to help people write and speak in a way that’s clear, concise and compelling, I can help that type of client.

Now, not all financial experts are bad writers however - people who struggle to communicate clearly.

In fact, here’s Warren Buffett, the most successful investor in the world - and he’s also an absolutely brilliant writer. If you’ve ever read any of his annual reports, you’ll know that his style is warm, engaging and super super clear. It’s the very furthest you can get from dry corporate prose.

And actually I think you can make a link between Warren Buffett’s writing style and his success as an investor. He famously says that you should never invest in something you don’t understand - which I think explains his commitment to writing for his investors in a way that’s really easy to understand.

Now Warren’s such a great writer, a few years ago he was actually invited to write the foreword to this document.

So this was produced by the SEC, the financial regulator in the US, to help businesses communicate clearly with their investors. It’s a great little resource and it’s available for free online so I’ll pop a link to it in the description box below.

Now, here’s an extract from Warren’s introduction to that guide:

“When writing Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report, I pretend that I’m talking to my sisters. I have no trouble picturing them: Though highly intelligent, they are not experts in accounting or finance. They will understand plain English, but jargon may puzzle them. My goal is simply to give them the information I would wish them to supply me if our positions were reversed. To succeed, I don’t need to be Shakespeare; I must, though, have a sincere desire to inform.

No siblings to write to? Borrow mine: Just begin with "Dear Doris and Bertie."

So that’s where we got the name Doris & Bertie, and I hope you’ll agree that that’s some pretty great advice from Warren Buffett.

So next time you sit down to write, especially if you need to get a complicated idea across to your readers, remember Warren Buffett and his sisters Doris and Bertie and you’ll be well on your way to success.

Post cover image credit: Bloomberg | Creator: Daniel Acker

For more writing advice, enrol in my online course, Writing With Confidence, available at the Doris and Bertie Writing School.