a nose for pertinent facts. Make your point without overstating the case. You will need

Research Story Structure Benefits Facts Sound writing style Legal permission and speed.

Step 1. Look for the best story for your audience, concrete numbers, and results. Step 2. Structure

the case study by presenting the situation, problem, solution, and evaluation. Make sure

you capture the customer's principal concerns or issues, the overall challenge, the personal

journey, and the practical implementation. Step 3. Organize the case study with attention

to clear, easily understood benefits. That focus will make circulating key information

on websites and through social networking sites more effective. Step 4. Use pertinent

facts and quotes that potential customers would want to know. But also, connect the

numbers and results to a personal benefit for the customer. This could encourage team

members to become heroes by using your examples to achieve the same results for their company.

This is a soft-sell document and will be undermined by formal verbal posturing, or cliches and

jargon. Step 5. Write the case study as a brief and detailed sales document. Focus on

who, what, why, when, where, and how, rather than the more slanted or generalized hyperbole

of the corporate press release. Give it personality through simple, factual, intelligent English.

Step 6. Provide the client with a legal case study release, containing the right to approve

content. Do nothing without their knowledge. Step 7. Get it out there right away, to beat

the short shelf life typical of case studies. Expedite this through the people inside whom

you've been able to interview, who can get more done faster than you at this point. Did

you know In 2007, a major study by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills reported that nearly

81 percent of employers found high school graduates deficient in writing skills.