How To Send And Receive Less Email

This year most of my email training clients have had the same main request; they want their employees to learn how to email effectively so that they send and receive fewer email. And no wonder since the average business person sends and receives over 100 email every day… many over 300 every day.

Email was once seen as a tool that would increase efficiencies and competitive opportunity. Today email is a great business tool we can’t do without. But more and more we’re using it as a crutch instead of as a catapult.

Email Icon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The challenge is that the way we write email is decreasing our efficiencies, easily costing companies $3,000 or more PER employee every year in loss of productivity and opportunity lost… not to mention the loss to their personal and professional reputation.

How much time we spend emailing every day is astonishing. For example: if a person sends and receives 100 email during an 8-hour day (not accounting for lunch, breaks or meetings), they use email every 4.8 minutes.  If they send and receive 300 email they use email every 1.6 minutes. imagine…

Thankfully there are a easy steps we can all learn to use that will reduce email volume and be more efficient at work; here are just a few.

Use The Phone Or Walk Down The Hall

Sometimes even the most professional email is not the right solution. If we’re wondering how to email, the best strategy may be to pick up the phone – especially if there are issues that need to be brainstormed. The bonus is that conversations often build better business relationships and usually take less time.

Consider All Of Your Needs – And All Of Your Readers Needs

Too often we write email as a single thought – not a complete need or objective. Over an extended period of time (and countless email interruptions), we send email messages back and forth until we finally have discussed or shared (perhaps with some frustration), all the important points. When you write email, learn to bottom line your objectives and stick to the important issues – but cover all of them at once.

Write Great Email Subject Lines

Email subject lines are used as a primary resource readers use to determine if they will read your email now, later or never. Subject lines are also the first opportunity for you to make an impression. If you leave the subject line blank – or use a universal word like ‘Sale’ or ‘Meeting’, you risk being overlooked – all the time.

Value Your Values

Employees should know without hesitation the corporate and department values. They should also know how they can use these values to differentiate the company and themselves every time they write email or speak with clients, suppliers or their co-workers.

Conclusion

Email training is a fast and efficient way to turn email back into a catapult for your employees and business. When you know how to email, it’s a powerful business tool and a very sound investment.

Happy communicating.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting is based in Toronto and facilitates business writing, email writing and email etiquette courses.

We are… Strategic   Branded   Relevant

Other Interesting BMC Articles: What Is Communication?, Measure Training Effectiveness, An Email Style Guide; Should Your Company Have One? and Effective Business Email Writing Training.

Give us a call at 416 462 1473. We’ll listen.

www.brucemayhewconsulting.com

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Words Matter: Two Easy Writing Tips For 2012

Do words matter?

Even though most of us are not great authors we’ll still spend most of our day writing. Why? On average 90% of business communication is done using email or instant message (IM). Not to mention the time we spend writing proposals and reports.

So, do words matter? Sure they do. Two of the most common areas we can improve are:

1. The number of words we use (we use too few or too many)
2. The actual words we use (we often don’t fully describe what we are trying to say)

Let’s discuss these opportunities!

I believe all we need to do to start writing better is to learn to control the ‘Busy Beast.’

What is the ‘Busy Beast‘? It’s what I call the feeling of being so ‘busy’ that our email writing stops informing. We stop managing people’s expectations. We write so briefly our writing loses focus, and when this happens we actually:

• Get less accomplished
• Create more work for ourselves and the people around us
• Become less efficient; costing us time, money and potentially opportunity
• Sound pushy, rude and / or bossy
• Lower our customer service ratings

I believe another reason for our brevity is that we’re becoming so used to 140 characters (Twitters limit), that our meaning – our intent is so “high level” so “50,000 feet”, that the words we do write are virtually meaningless.

Email Example 1: Being Too Brief

If your boss sends the following email to you, what’s your next step?

Are you going to ask your boss:

• What are the priority areas is she most concerned with?
• What behaviour she wants to see from your team?

If you do ask your boss might question your competency even though the real meaning of her request is lost. If you’re like most people you’ll ‘interpret‘ what you think your boss is asking for and what your team needs. You’ll use your experience but be cautious.

Unfortunately, if you don’t ask you risk wasting your time, effort and budget.

This is why words matter. The problem isn’t your competency, it’s the email message. Too few words were used resulting in too little information being shared.

People at all levels of the company write email like this. Not because we hope our readers will fail. In most cases it’s because we’re all so ’busy’ we don’t take 20 extra seconds to ask ourselves “Have I given my readers enough information for them to understand what I am saying or asking for?“

What if we did take an extra 20 seconds to include the information our audience needs to understand our request. In this example, what if the email the boss wrote was this:

We see that words matter because they can help our audience understand what we are thinking, feeling, wanting.

As I mention in my blog post called Increase Productivity By 15% Or More!, if you have to write one more email to 15% of the requests that come to you (because your co-worker didn’t write a clear message for example), you’re wasting 12 days of your valuable time each year (and they’re also wasting their time). There is a very real cost / loss when employees write bad email.

Email Example 2: Being Too Vague

Here’s another of my favourite examples. “I will contact you later.“ What does that mean?

Here are some of the possibilities for:  “I will contact you later.“

What is contact?	What is later?
Phone your office Phone your mobile phone Email Instant Message BlackBerry PIN MAC FaceTime or Skype Come by your office Facebook message	Within the hour When I’m out of my meeting This afternoon On my drive home Today Within the week When I have an answer When ‘X’ gets back to me

We need to give the people we communicate with some help. They don’t live inside our head.

Much of this seems to be commonsense; natural even because it’s what many of us learned when we were young. However, in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives many of these truths have been set aside and we’ve become unaware of our abrupt, abbreviated 140 characters or less impact as we move through our day.

It’s time to slow down – to control the ‘Busy Beast‘. It’s time to become more efficient by no longer wasting our efforts and time and the efforts and time of the people around us.

Most of the time an extra 20 seconds will may go a long way to communicating effectively (the first time), and to building meaningful relationships.

Kind thoughtful words do matter.

Imagine work being easier. Imagine work being more productive.

Happy communicating.

Click here to join our priority list of people who receive our latest Business Communication blog posts.

If you enjoyed this post we think you’ll like: Email Writing Training, Core Values, Measure Training Effectiveness and Good Email Bad Email.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting facilitates business writing, email writing and email etiquette courses.

Give us a call at 416 617 0462. We’ll listen.

www.brucemayhewconsulting.com

Out Of Office Reply = Customer Service

Your out-of-office reply is often the last thing on your mind and the last thing you do (if you do it at all), when you go on vacation or attend a conference.

That’s unfortunate since your out-of-office message is an important part of customer service and client management while you’re away. It’s also likely going to impact how relaxing your vacation or how rewarding your conference will be.

Manage Expectations: Client Respect and Co-worker Respect

Other people are relying on you. A simple, clear out-of-office reply demonstrates client management and co-worker respect. Keeping clients informed is also great customer service and business etiquette. And, it means it’s less likely something will go ‘critical’ because you are out-of-office.

The bonus is that if your respect your clients and co-workers you’ll also protect your brand and reputation. Here are three steps you can take.

Step 1. Four Suggestions To Prepare Early

• Make your pending departure part of your email signature and voice mail ahead of time. Why wait to the last-minute? All of your clients and co-workers are busy; this also serves as a gentle reminder
• Write your best out-of-office reply ahead of time. Follow the voice and email  guideline I’ve provided below
• Identify your back-up person and prepare them for your departure. Follow the work with your back-up guideline I’ve provided below
• Update your ‘at work’ calendar so it shows you are out-of-office

One approach I often use when I’m going to be away for a week or more is to block my calendar as out-of-office one day earlier – and in the office one day later. This helps me prepare and manage critical / last-minute things at the back-end and sort through email and phone messages and get caught-up on the front end in a controlled – focused way.

Risks of a bad out-of-office reply (or no message at all), is that your mind and energy will keep focusing on work-related ‘stuff’. This isn’t fair to you or the people you are with. Especially on vacation, everyone needs to get some time-off.

Step 2. How To Create An Out-Of-Office Reply

What should you include when creating an expert out-of-office reply? The following provides some business etiquette guidelines – but also consider your audiences specific needs.

Make your message relevant for your audience – and useful. Example: It should include:

• Your name, position and company
• Day leaving / returning
• Your back-up’s name and position
• Your back-up’s email address and phone number
• Still invite them to leave a message
• Invite them to press 0 for the operator (if appropriate)
• Will you be checking messages?
• Will someone else pick-up and respond to your messages?

Give the people calling all the information they need to act or to find your back-up. Don’t make them hunt for an email or phone number – they have already spent time trying to call you. Hunting down your back-up will only frustrate them… and your back-up is going to be the one getting an earful.

The following message is not helpful: “Hi, I’m on vacation and will have limited access to email and voice mail.”

Example Email / Voice Mail Structure Variation (to one line):

I’ll be out of the office on Friday December 12 and will return Monday January 2. While I’m away I will have limited access to my email. I’ll be checking email (once a week, every morning, etc).

Step 3. Work With Your Back-up

If you have a back-up (like Ben), make sure Ben knows he is your back-up and also that Ben will be in the office (and not on his vacation).

Then, spend time with your backup to review your accounts / projects. Set them up for success – not failure. Review critical clients and expectations with them. This will help prevent emergency phone calls and email to your while you’re away. Make sure your backup is managing tasks – not putting out fires.

Oh – and when you are away I recommend you turn roaming off your smartphone. Often your App’s (Blackberry, iPhone, Android or other), will keep ‘pinging’ the service server and updating. Turning your phone off will save you from a large bill.

If you’re looking for how to set up an out-of-office vacation auto-reply check with your email or voice mail service provider. Each program has variations both within the program application as well as each version.

Bonus Tip

If you’re planning to be reachable while you are out-of-office so that you stay up-to-date, be sure to set parameters around your contact. I personally try to avoid staying in touch when on vacation – everyone needs a rest.

Imagine work being easier. Imagine work being more productive.

Happy communicating.

Click here to join our priority list of people who receive our latest Business Communication blog posts.

If you enjoyed this post we think you’ll like: What Is Communication?, Measure Training Effectiveness and Effective Business Email Writing Training.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting facilitates business writing, email writing and email etiquette courses.

Give us a call at 416 617 0462. We’ll listen.

www.brucemayhewconsulting.com

Email Marketing: Direct Marketing In Action

Email is part of an evolution that started in the 1960’s as an inexpensive solution to instantly send messages between networked computers. While email wasn’t designed as a direct marketing tool, email marketing is certainly a natural evolution considering how quickly our lives and communication styles have changed since the 1990’s when email became popular.

It’s no surprise email marketing also has some unique challenges.

Get To The Point

With the widespread adoption of email many of us lost our ability to get to the point. Back when we had to invest in hand writing or phone communication, getting to the point was more natural. Who had the time to hand write a page or two of background or meandering thoughts?

But email helped make typing lots of copy quick and easy. Soon abundance became a common error of email writing as well as web writing, brochure writing and proposal writing. We started to write down everything and hope the reader found a reference to something they liked, related to and/or needed.

Not much changed when businesses started to use email as a marketing tool. Lots of email marketing did… and still does look like a child’s cereal box. The problems were too much detail, too many photos and as much attention grabbing hoopla as possible.

And for a while people paid attention… because email marketing was new. It’s not new anymore.

Email Marketing Is Often An Interruption

Today email marketing is more competitive and our target audiences are jaded from being over stimulated and/or taken advantage of. There’s been so much bad email (even regular business email), that when you get a good message it really stands out. Customers notice.

Remember the Mini Car ad’s when the car re-launched? They stood out – they were fun. They were never seen as an interruption because they were relevant and to-the-point. Even if we didn’t want one we wanted to learn about them.  They were so to-the-point we would read them and instantly know why it would be great for us.

So in the end the Mini Car ads were good for the customer… and good BMW who own the Mini brand.

Strategic   Branded   Relevant

Return To Basics: It’s About Need And Offer

To improve the overall quality of email campaigns, marketers need to return to basic. Businesses need to focus on the ‘What’s In It For Me’ (WIIFM) message for their client. What’s the client need? By creating messages and content that solve their clients’ needs (not pushing only an offer) businesses will also build trusting respected relationships.

Even back in the 1960’s ads showed housewives and husbands ‘What’s In It For Me’.

Being successful in email marketing isn’t about creating a grammatically correct copy with pictures and flashy layouts. It’s also not sending your campaign to everyone you can get access to or by renting your ‘ideal client wish-list’.

A successful in email marketing campaign is about sending a short, clear, relevant message and offer of value to your segmented, targeted audience.

This is especially true when connecting with existing relationships. If you keep sending them mindless irrelevant junk they are very likely going to click the unsubscribe button, or even worse, mark your message as spam… which causes you big problems in the future.

Delivery / Execution

You have a great message and great creative – you’re almost finished.

Now you need a trusted system to deliver your messages. This often means hiring a eMarketing / Digital Communication supplier to help you make sure your campaign gets to the people on your list (and not in a junk folder or identified as SPAM). Professional eMarketing / Digital Communication companies also have easy access to proven tactics they can use which mean further success for your campaign… and ways to measure your success.

Do it yourself is risky to you, your business and your brand reputation. For example, one important step is to notify your email host that you are about to send mass email (which is likely out of character for you). If you don’t do this your host may perceive your sudden spike as SPAM and shut your whole email system down… and I mean all of your email.

Conclusion

Email marketing works because it can drive direct sales to a targeted audience in a controlled manner that builds relationships, loyalty and trust. It’s also a natural fit in a Drip Marketing Program.

So, start thinking how you can get out there and create an awesome package and offer as part of your overall marketing strategy. Go ahead – it can be a great opportunity for you to try something new. Whether you hire a professional or try doing it yourself, you’ll need:

• A relevant offer
• Creative… creative
• A clean organization list (opt in preferably)
• Clear execution that doesn’t look (or act), like SPAM
• To measure your results

Happy communicating.

Other Interesting BMC Articles: Unique Value Proposition Definition, Measure Training Effectiveness and Effective Business Email Writing Training.

Give us a call. We’ll listen.

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Bruce Mayhew Consulting is Strategic Branded Relevant

www.brucemayhewconsulting.com

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Accelerated Learning: How Business Training Can Benefit.

Learning styles research tells us different people learn in different ways (OK – we didn’t need research to tell us that).

There have been many learning models to support this. Some models outline three learning styles – other models outline four, eight or more learning styles and associated learning cycles. In a later blog I’ll create a comparison of a few popular learning styles like Kolb and DISC.

No matter which model you use or how many individual learning preferences you focus on, the one thing every trainer should consider is that almost everyone learns best when many learning styles are engaged. This is called Accelerated Learning.

Accelerated Learning

The name given to learning that engages multiple learning styles in a training environment is ‘Accelerated Learning’. The benefit of Accelerated Learning is that it’s a multi-pronged approach to training (especially business training), that should results in improved retention (learning), in less time. This is a plus to help your organization see a greater Return on Investment (ROI).

The best training design therefore combines both traditional fact-based linear training and active learning – alternating frequently / never keeping one going for a long time.

Active Learning does not mean throwing in a few games or plans to get participants to stretch or dance every hour during a traditional fact-based linear training program. It may however include a combination of experiences including:

• Auditory stimulation
• Physical movement
• Sequential learning
• Analytical exercises
• Intuitive thinking
• Hands-on experiences

Why Does Accelerated Learning Work?

Switching between multiple learning styles works because it lets each individual benefit from their preferred learning style, and then also use the other learning styles to reinforce knowledge transfer. Makes sense right? And there is an added benefit that switching between multiple learning styles help keep participants engaged and awake (seriously).

The irony is that traditional fact-based lectures are still predominantly the norm. The problem is that traditional learning (fact-based linear learning), keeps participants physically inactive and most often (within 5 to 20 minutes), participants unconsciously become disengaged. This is true for the child and the adult learner.

It’s not that traditional fact-based lectures are bad. In fact, short burst are great support to have within an Accelerated Learning program.

Conclusion:

Even people with similar learning styles are not the same. We are all different, so even if you and I share the same primary learning style, our preferred learning process will be different. To demonstrate, consider three very natural variables:

• How quickly each of us learn
• How dominant our preferred learning style is (i.e.: strong or weak)
• What our secondary learning style is (and is it being used during training)

So, even though two people with the same preferred primary learning style will learn at a different pace, using multiple learning styles that involve our emotions, body movement, our senses and the full breadth and depth of our personalities will enhance our learning.

To succeed in introducing Active Learning, openly communicate with employees what they will experience and ask them to ‘listen’ and ‘be active’ without judging. Before you know it, they will be fully engaged – to the best of their abilities and learning styles. Mindfulness is key.

______________________________________________________

What might be your primary Kolb learning style?

Accommodating

The Accommodating learning style is ‘hands-on’, and relies on intuition rather than logic. They commonly act on ‘gut’ instinct rather than logical analysis and prefer to work in teams.

Diverging

The Diverging learning styles prefers to watch rather than do, tending to gather information and use imagination to solve problems, tend to be imaginative and emotional, and prefer to work in groups.

Assimilating

The Assimilating learning preference is for a concise, logical approach. These people like to work alone, require good clear explanation, and prefer readings, lectures and having time to think things through.

Converging

People with a Converging style like to experiment with new ideas, to simulate, and to work with practical applications. Prefer technical tasks and to work alone.

Happy communicating… Happy training.

Other Interesting BMC Articles: Unique Value Proposition Definition, Measure Training Effectiveness, Build Client Trust and Effective Business Email Writing Training.

Give us a call at 416.617.0462. We’ll listen.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting is based in Toronto and facilitates business writing, email writing and email etiquette courses.

We are… Strategic   Branded   Relevant

bruce@brucemayhewconsulting.com

Don’t forget to Subscribe to this blog (upper right side). Your email address will be confidential and well-respected.

An Email Edit: The Best Way To Protect Your Reputation.

A quick email edit is one of the best things you can do to improve your reputation.

You don’t need to be an email expert. If you send 50 to 200 email each day (and most people do), you could be destroying your personal and corporate reputation faster than you expect. From a client relationship perspective, how many are you losing… not to mention the negative impact on your productivity?

With over 90% of office communication being done via email, the personal and professional impression you make is largely based on the courtesy and professionalism of your email messages.

Want more proof an email edit is valuable to business success? In an earlier blog post I estimated the average person loses 12 days of productivity every year – not to mention opportunity lost or time spent following–up on  the email messages people have ignored or deleted. Much of this is avoidable with an investment of just a few seconds.

So, what’s a quick email edit you can make to improve a
client relationship? Here are a few ideas.

Email Errors To Avoid:

• Subject Line: Never leave the subject line blank – or vague.
• Personalize: Use the recipient’s name in the message to put your reader at ease.
• Objective: Get to the point immediately. Your readers are as busy as you are… and as many as 75% of your audience may now be reading email via a mobile devises.
• Long Email: Sure content is king, but long email are most likely going to be ignored or deleted… so keep them short.
• Punctuation: Structure your messages so they are easy to read and easy to respond to.

Be Sure You Also Do This:

Your readers will see you as a professional (so will your boss), if you always support your organizational values. For example, if ‘Customer Delight and Reliability’ are two company values, use your email as an opportunity to let them know you’re available to help (but please don’t make it a part of your canned email signature). Being approachable is one of the best things you can do to gain people’s trust and respect.

Conclusion:

Effective business writing can have a direct (positive or negative), impact on your reputation and your productivity. A quick email edit will swing everything in your favour. Every email you send is an opportunity for you to promote and market the best of you and your organization. 

You don’t need to be an email expert to decrease your email errors. In just a few hours we work with your whole office to turn every email into a client relationship tool – helping your staff become part of the solution.

Happy communicating.

Other Interesting BMC Links: Email Writing Training, Core Values, Measure Training Effectiveness and Good Email Bad Email.

Give us a call. We’ll listen.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting delivers business writing, email writing and email etiquette courses.

We are… Strategic   Branded   Relevant

Don’t forget to Subscribe to this blog (upper right side), if you haven’t yet. Your email address will be confidential and well-respected.

Email Etiquette; It’s Not About Perfect Grammar

Email etiquette is not about having absolutely perfect grammar and I don’t think we should expect email messages to have perfect grammar. Really…. Why?

Whether we do business in English, French, German or some other language, most offices today have diverse teams of people from different cultures. This likely means they’re doing business in their second language and that most of have (thankfully), learned to be understanding and forgiving. Also, most of us are not trained as professional writers and would be quickly escorted out of any publisher’s office. But take one years of email messages and we’ve likely written the equivalent of a short novel.

So, what is our objective if getting every pronoun placed perfectly isn’t what’s most important?

People and companies should be concerned with two things

I believe it’s critical every professional and every company do two things when they write email messages, have face-to-face conversations or even speak on the phone. They are:

1. Achieve their goal – quickly (what’s in it for them and their audience)
2. Demonstrate value (their personal brand and organizational brand)

But let’s stick to only discussing email messages for this blog post.

Achieve your goal – quickly

Long rambling email messages are often the ones that go unread. In fact, they may be the tipping point that ends a relationship with a valued client or a supplier.

Often email messages are long and rambling because the author doesn’t have a crystal clear picture of their goal or how their message will matter to the reader. So, they include everything and hope something sticks. If we know what the goal is we should be able to get to the point… and discuss it quickly!

Demonstrate value (your personal and organizational brand)

You will be judged on every email message you send – so will the company you work for. Seriously! Every point of contact will form part of the overall experience and impression of you and your company.

So, let them know what is special about you, your product / service and your company. What are your personal and corporate values?

Conclusion:
Employees should know how to use the corporate goals and values as guidelines to make strategic decisions, meet their objectives and build trust with clients.

For example: If exceptional customer service is a value, everyone needs to know how to demonstrate that value.

Companies are investing $50,000 to perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay each staff member. Besides following email etiquette rules, every employee should demonstrate they are trusted experts and appreciate the clients’ business.

It’s important organization leaders help their employees demonstrate how the staff, the products / services and the organization are special.

Imagine work being easier. Imagine work being more productive.

Happy communicating.

Click here to join our priority list of people who receive our latest Business Communication blog posts.

If you enjoyed this post we think you’ll like: Core Values, Measure Training Effectiveness and Good Email Bad Email.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting facilitates business writing, email writing and email etiquette courses.

Give us a call. We’ll listen.

www.brucemayhewconsulting.com

Email Bankruptcy: Solutions

Email Bankruptcy is a growing problem for business. This is the second of two blog posts I’m dedicating to the topic . The first was Email Bankruptcy: Definition, and this post give some solutions on how you can avoid or recover from a very large… inbox.

Part of the solution will be keeping email etiquette rules in mind when you write email and answer email. Another part of the solution will be how you manage your:

• Contact manger (Outlook and Gmail as examples)
• Email quality, flow and priorities

So let’s explore some solutions to help deal with massive amounts of email.

Email Bankruptcy Definition Recap:

Email bankruptcy is a decision to delete all or a majority of your email messages. This should not be taken lightly – its impact on your reputation can be sever. And lets face it – declaring email bankruptcy is likely only going to provide a temporary solution unless you can identify the root of the problem and apply a solution.

1. Manage Your Email Message Quality:

• Content. Good email out will mean good email in – and fewer overall email. Start this by thinking of what’s important to your recipient and then give them what they need – including the answer to their next question.
• Timing. Let people know when you need more time – otherwise they will think you forgot them. This tip will help you manage their expectations, protect your reputation and will also reduce inbox volume because the sender will not be following up with you.
• Subject Lines. Write email subject lines that are short, tell the purpose of your email and help the reader decide if they’ll open it now, later or at all. If you don’t convince your target audience to open your email, the time you spent writing your message will have been completely wasted.
• Addressing. Use Distribution Lists for your email blasts. Also don’t put people into the To… line who don’t need to act. Both of these tips demonstrate you respect for their time and privacy.

2. Email Folders & Email Rules

A gentleman named Mark responded to my Email Bankruptcy Definition post suggesting the use of Email Folders & Email Rules. I totally agree.

I have Email Folders in Outlook for key clients, suppliers and Social Media alerts. Then I created Email Rules to push incoming email to the Folders.

To keep my inbox relevant I also label email that survive my prioritizing (see below), with colors so I can see at a glance critical email.

3. Set regular times to process email.

Email is a tool to use to do your job. So, I recommend you should not let it interrupt your productivity. The idea is to keep your email notifier off and check email 2 or 3 times a day. A regular schedule will also help manage your clients and employees expectations.

Example:

• 8am: Prioritize your day
• 8:15: Address urgent email & phone messages
• 8:30: Work / Meetings
• 11:00: Check when to write / answer email
• 12:00: Lunch
• 1:00: Flexible time (work / address urgent email and phone messages)
• 2:00: Work / Meetings
• 5:30: Go home

4. Prioritize. If your volume is so high that you can’t respond to every email you’ll have to scan and prioritize so you can address the important email.

• Scan. In your first email processing session of the day quickly decide what email needs to be discarded, responded to by you, or responded by someone else). If it’s not critical and can be delegated – do it.
• Prioritize. Respond to the email that are most important – considering things like clients, employees and potential revenue generations.  Establish your criteria that works for you and stick to it.

Conclusion:

I hope these email bankruptcy tips help you manage your email.

If you establish a process that works for you (and may be slightly different for someone else), you will spend less time working with email while doing a better overall job of managing your inbox, clients and co-workers.

As you set up your process, spend 10 – 15 minutes each day creating Email Folders and Email Rules. Before you know it you will have a cleaned up and well-organized email inbox. 

Other Interesting BMC Articles: Effective Business Email Writing, Increase Productivity by 15% and Good Email Bad Email

Give us a call. We’ll listen.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting is Strategic Branded Relevant

www.brucemayhewconsulting.com

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Bad Email Habits: What Message Are You Sending?

Email messages often make up 90% of business communication (which lacks vocal inflection and facial gestures). So, when success depends so much on who you know, why is it that great people sometimes makes enemies and lose loyal clients even when they’ve landed their dream job and enjoy going to work?

There are a few things that are likely happening… and often it’s behaviour we’re exhibiting that we don’t recognize as being negatively interpreted. But, as I say in myEffective Email Writing Workshop “Whatever your reader understands and interprets is reality… (whether you meant it or not).” This is true for the spoken word and even more true for every email message. 

This blog post looks at aspects of email communication where ‘personality’ plays a major role. Some of these tips will help you improve your email etiquette and communication style a little – some will help you a lot.

Cause, Effect and Solution

There really are only a few common challenges people have. Think of these four D’s when you are speaking with your family and co-workers. It may be that your language is alienating you from the relationships that are most important to you:

• Demand: Unrealistically asking for more than we should expect
• Diagnosis, judgment, criticism:  Negativity alienating us from others and our actions.
• Denial of responsibility: The problem is never our fault
• Deserve: Reward or punishment that diminishes the value of the person or people we are engaging with

Consider these email etiquette rules:

1. Email vs. Instant Messaging
   Instant messaging (IM), is the closest text-based communications option to a real phone call. If decisions are made on IM, always use email to confirm what was decided and why.
2. New Generation, New Motivators
   Your clients and co-workers can be any age. An employee who is 25 might use slang and abbreviations – they are also motivated differently. People tend to write as though they writing to themselves. In the business world, you need to consider your audience.
3. Embracing Brevity/Seeking Structure
   Many emailers write lines and lines of text that coworkers have to wade through. Brevity is always best so be clear and get to the point fast. Also consider how your e-mail is laid out so that it is easy to read and understand.
4. Don’t Burn a Colleague or an Assistant
   Never burn a colleague or a colleague’s assistant. Email is easy to forward and undoubtedly you will lose twice by making an enemy of your colleague and hurt your reputation by looking like a tattle tale.
5. Jarring Jargon
   Using insider industry terms can alienate prospects who do not know what your terms mean. For the sake of clarity – in most cases it is best to keep in-house jargon out of email.

Conclusion:

Changing a lifetime of habits is not easy, but you also don’t want to put your personal and business relationships at risk because of the email message you send. Learn to identify your communication problems, solve them and then provide ongoing feedback and motivation.

Are you ready to empower the way you communicate with your customers, suppliers or co-workers?

Give us a call (or email). We’ll listen.

Happy communicating.

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Bruce Mayhew Consulting delivers business writing, email writing and email etiquette courses.

We are… Strategic   Branded   Relevant

bruce@brucemayhewconsulting.com

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LinkedIn: The Largest Professional Social Network

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social network having recently passed 100 million contacts worldwide. There are 7.5 million professionals in Canada and currently close to half are sharing their professional contacts and personal network on LinkedIn.

You may ask, “With volumes of contacts in the millions, will my profile be lost in the forest, or is there a chance that it can be found?” The answer is… your success depends on you.

Opening a profile and having your name and title appear is not enough. In fact I believe a poorly constructed, bare minimum and inactive account provides a poor personal and corporate brand image.

Google and other search engines evaluate LinkedIn content, so it’s also important to pay attention to keywords when you construct your profile. Why? Because when your profile is complete (100%), and active (which doesn’t take much to be active), then Google can use those keywords to index your account and promote your LinkedIn profile in searches. This is a very good thing.

Having a 100% completed profile

Just like anything in life, a 100% complete LinkedIn profile of value requires an initial investment of your time (and/or a small amount of money). Note: To rate well with search engines you need a completed profile.

The account itself doesn’t need to cost a dime. LinkedIn’s free listing (which is the most common), makes sense for most business people at all professional / executive levels.

Your investment is the time you’re willing to invest to learn what to do and how to do it. If your time is best used doing what you do best… experts can help you get your profile up and running quickly.

Example of how experts can help:

I recently worked with the president of an organization who didn’t have a profile. With a bit of pre-planning and pre-work we worked together to create an 80% published profile (with contacts), in just 45 minutes. And we have a plan to achieve the 100% goal within the next three weeks (the last 15% often takes one to four weeks).

Once your profile is launched, you can decide how often you’ll update your profile depending on your personal schedule, responsibilities and preferences. My recommendation is to have some activity at least one every week. 

Organizations use LinkedIn to find:

• Talent
• Suppliers / Trainers / Experts
• Market research and information (LinkedIn Today as example)

Individuals use LinkedIn to find:

• What jobs are available
• Who’s joining a company and other talent information
• Market information / Expertise (LinkedIn Today as example)

Additional ways you can use LinkedIn:

• Join groups and associations to network with clients / prospect clients
• Research high potential clients and prospects before contacting or meeting them
• Request LinkedIn recommendation from satisfied clients and suppliers
• Use LinkedIn Today to stay up-to-date on a topic or industry by customizing an information / news feed

Conclusion:

LinkedIn is a valuable resource and will be as powerful as you make. LinkedIn isn’t sexy, it is a bit trendy, and does take work to initially set it up. However, it is valuable and once you have your profile established it only takes just a few minutes every few days to:

• Find great new & existing clients
• Demonstrate your core competencies
• Added value to your network

LinkedIn isn’t sitting back – it’s consistently adding additional value. So should you.

Other Interesting BMC Article you might be interested in Email Is Great For This – Not Great For That.

Give us a call. We’ll listen.

Bruce Mayhew Consulting is  Strategic    Branded   Relevant.

www.brucemayhewconsulting.com