How many specific references did you add to your own draft and to
Brad’s? Here’s Brad’s revision:
After careful comparison of the three site options, the bottom line is that
the best choice for our new factory is Georgia. My analysis used proprietary
stochastic simulation techniques, incorporating data collected from
over one hundred sources, from the government and other public sources
to interviews. To get a fresh view, one of my assistants met with a risk
manager with no knowledge of the risks involved in doing business in
either Florida or Georgia. Designing the model required creativity and diligence.
All data is tested and proven by fact checkers verifying the information
from additional sources. Objective too. Let me answer—
anticipate—questions I think you’re going to want to know the answers to.
Q: What data did you collect?
A: I collected over five hundred separate facts from all sorts of data
sources.
Q: Why is Georgia a better choice than Florida or Illinois?
A: It’s lower risk overall and in key specific areas including weather, transport
and available labor as well as a positive labor climate.
Q: What’s the most compelling benefit of choosing Georgia?
A: Diversification. We need to mitigate against the chance of a problem in
weather or labor unrest or zoning or taxation in Florida. If these problems occur
in Florida, and we have more than one factory in Florida, it is easy to no doubt
see the problem. Both factories is effected, not just one factory. It’s easy to
understand why some of us lean toward selecting Florida but we should use
objective, not subjective, criteria to make the decision. If we do that, we must
conclude that the site with the highest profit potential at the lowest risk is
Georgia.
Here’s what Brad said about his revision. “I realized that I had already
used examples; for instance, when I listed where Georgia is lower risk and
in mentioning the potential problems in Florida. All I did was add a
few numbers and rewrote some sentences to highlight the data.”
Step-by-step, Brad’s report is getting better. How about your draft?
Can you see that it, too, is better?