This blog post concept developed as a result of a rather enlightening experience I had recently. Here’s the story …
Several weeks ago, I reached out to a prospective client by email. After a week or so, I sent a follow-up email to see if he had read my initial proposal, since he had never responded to my first email.
When he received my follow up email, he called and left a message on my voice mail that was perplexing. He provided me with some constructive criticism about my style, which he described as “polite but too direct”.
Some people would have erased the voice mail and forgotten about it. However, I had the need to speak directly with this gentleman to find out why he perceived my email in such a negative light.
Believe it or not, it was a great conversation! So often, the written word can be misconstrued or taken out of context but when people have a chance to speak, one-on-one, their true selves emerge and relationships are developed.
I explained to the gentleman that my work is fast-paced and I do my very best to stay organized, manage time and connect with clients and potential partners … that I use email as a tool to save time and build relationships. He and I shared our feelings on the good, bad and confusing feelings some emails leave us with. We also agreed that being direct in an email doesn’t mean the sender is “rude”; likewise, those who send an abundance of detail shouldn’t be label as a “rambler”. People have varied styles and that ‘s what makes the world go around. In the end, we came to a mutual understanding and decided to “stay in touch”.
That being said, I have given a lot of thought to this conversation and have come away with some insight and ideas I’d like to share.
First, professionalism must shine through in everything we put our name on — emails included. No matter how busy we get, no matter how many tasks on our to-do list, we must always respect and be sensitive to the feelings of our recipients. Sure, emails are meant to be efficient and less formal form of correspondences, but if they are ruffling feathers rather than enhancing productivity, they need to be examined.
If your emails don’t succeed in helping you to build your business … if they alienate people, confuse recipients or are ignored entirely… try these strategies, now embraced by my entire organization:
1) Keep your subject line very brief and direct. “Following up on my proposal” is better than “Last email” .
2) Start every email with a quick greeting that includes the recipients name. Whether it’s a friendly “Hi Bob”, or the more formal, “Dear Mr. Smith”, your greeting should set the right tone for the rest of the email. Without the recipient’s name, your greeting will seem generic and insincere. Adding “Hope all is well…” or a similar phrase is always a nice ice-breaker.
3) Do your best to utilize proper grammar; people form impressions based on your use of language and punctuation. It is easy to make mistakes when we are in a rush or have a great deal of emails to send.
4) Create an email signature WITH a gracious sign-off, such as “Thanks” or “Regards”. Include all relevant contact information.
5) Once complete, read your email out loud to be sure that the message is clear, concise and cordial. There should be no chance for misinterpretation.
6) Eye-ball your email. Can you format the text with indentations or line breaks to make your message more compelling?
Finally, the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given: Fill in the “TO” line with the recipients name, last.
After you’ve checked that all of the above strategies have been followed, all promised attachments are actually attached and any emotion related to your message — anger, disappointment, fear — has dissipated (and your text has been revised to reflect this), you can enter the name of the recipient and press “SEND”. There’s nothing worse than clicking “SEND” accidentally, before your email meets your standards. After all, once it’s sent, an impression is made and there’s not much that can be done to reverse that impression.
Do you have any business email tips? Have you ever received an email that confused or offended you? We’d love to hear about it! Please comment below…