Dear Bertie. Warren Buffett’s simple writing trick

Warren Buffett has built a $US140 billion fortune through his investment genius.

But he’s also a brilliant communicator.

(Buffett famously said improving communication skills can boost lifetime earnings 50% … which in his case would be billions!)

Buffett uses many rhetorical tricks: metaphor (“If you can’t communicate, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark.”); story; humility; humour; personification …

But he has one particularly powerful technique that ensures his writing is pitched at the right level: he pretends he’s writing to just one person – his younger sister Bertie, a long-term Berkshire Hathaway investor.

When he sits down to write, Buffett even begins with Dear Bertie.

Why his sister?

She is, Buffett says, highly intelligent, but no expert in accounting or finance; she understands plain English but would be puzzled by jargon.

Buffett says Bertie is a “perfect mental model” of a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder: a person he cares about who has entrusted Berkshire Hathaway with their savings.

Like his investing, Buffett’s technique appears simple but is actually sophisticated.

Buffett is creating a rhetorical ‘scene’: establishing the underlying roles of communicator, audience and message, all set in the context of his persuasion goal.

You can picture Buffett sitting in a loungeroom updating his sister on how he’s invested her money. He’s not lecturing her, hectoring her or selling her. He’s simply imparting information in a way she would find interesting. The tone is conversational but respectful.

If Buffett imagined another scene when writing – say reporting to the chair of a stuffy board of directors – his tone would emerge completely different.

All of us can be more effective communicators by asking who our ‘perfect mental model’ is: the one person we can imagine we’re communicating with. We can then ask: What tone does that produce? And is that the tone we need to persuade?

Ben Power Communications