---
title: The Seventh Day of Gifts - Bill McDonald – Get to the Point
description: The Seventh Day of Gifts - Bill McDonald – Get to the Point
---

[Blog | Brainzooming ](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog)

# [The Seventh Day of Gifts - Bill McDonald – Get to the Point](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/the-seventh-day-of-gifts-bill-mcdonald-get-to-the-point)

 Written by [Mike Brown](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/author/mike-brown) | Dec 15, 2008 11:00:00 AM

<https://www.brainzooming.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/081128-Infobank-Logo-May-25-2022-01-57-33-85-PM.jpg>Our first week in Kansas City while unpacking boxes and listening to [Mike Murphy’s radio show](http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/09/2712879/longtime-radio-host-mike-murphy.html), I heard Bill McDonald talk about how his company, Kansas City Infobank, researched and identified market opportunities. While unsure about my career, I loved school, was good at it, and Infobank sounded like school. Thus began my “second MBA” – spending 2 ½ years at Infobank doing strategic projects for entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 companies, and everything in between.

Despite our financial challenges as a small business, Bill became an [important strategic mentor. As mentioned before](http://brainzooming.blogspot.com/2008/01/challenges-to-improve-your-2008.html), the business instruction he gave me encompassed lessons too numerous to list. One in particular transformed my writing, helping create a personal business writing style.

Three months into the job, I was struggling with my first major report about the market for a laser printer add-on. Despite the report’s focus, I was writing pages on the personal computer market as an enabler for this technology.

<https://www.brainzooming.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/110310BillMcDonald-4.jpg>Bill finally sat me down and said, “You need to understand you’re not in school anymore. You don’t need to write a long litany of facts to prove you’re qualified. **You’re writing for business. The fact we have this assignment presumes we know what we’re doing. Get right to the point of our recommendations and the rationale behind them.**”

The discussion was a wake up call that business writing was different. Unlike school, where you’re required to demonstrate understanding to support getting a good grade, **business writing needs to get right to the point**. That’s even truer today. Bill’s direction has been a tremendously valuable career-long lesson that I’ve shared with many others to help improve their written communication.

[View full post](https://www.brainzooming.com/blog/the-seventh-day-of-gifts-bill-mcdonald-get-to-the-point)

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