Email can be a consultant's best friend or their nightmare. The following guidelines help you write efficient emails that get results.
Why are you writing the Email
Before typing the first character, ask yourself
1) Why am I writing this?
2) What results do I want?
Make sure you can state this crisply before continuing. Some of us get hundreds of emails each day. Most of them are important. In order to quickly get a “useful” response, make sure your messages are efficient and well planned.
Think about your email from the receiver’s perspective. Make sure you write the email in a way that makes it simple for the recipient to take action.
What are you writing
There are really just three types of business email.
1. Provide information - “Bill Gates will be in the office Monday at 10.”
2. Requesting information - “Where did you put the ‘Bill Gates’ file?”
3. Requesting action - “Will you call Bill Gate’s admin to confirm our meeting on Monday?”
The first sentence should clearly reveal one of these three intentions. Don’t be afraid to write a topic sentence that states the intent of the email and what response or action is required from the recipient.
The Bill Gates meeting will be held in the main conference room. Please make sure the room:
* is reserved
* is clean
* has snacks on the back credenza
* has a working projector
IM me to confirm all of these have been completed.
Keep everything short and sweet. Save your lengthy diatribes for your marketing efforts.
Write a great Subject line
Make it simple for your recipient to understand the intent of your email and the appropriate response. Compose a subject line that summarizes the gist of the message. Avoid “Hi”, “FYI”, “one more thing”, etc. in favor of a short summary of the most important point of the message.
§ Lunch with Bill Gates rescheduled to Friday @ 1pm.
§ REMINDER: Monday is "Bill Gate’s Day"— everyone needs to dress business formal.
§ REQUEST: Resend Larry Tate zip file?
§ QUESTION: Can we use rolodex photos in our demonstration?
§ HELP: Can you defrag my C drive?
§ IMPORTANT: I have a client situation that needs your attention.
§ FYI: The client has called and wants to work with us again.
§ Thanks for the new liver—works great! [eom]
If you are stating a single fact or asking one question you can use only the subject line for your message. To clearly do this, add an [eom] or (eom) to the end of the subject line to signal end of message.
This lets the receiver see the whole message without opening the email. This is appreciated by people who receive a huge volume of email (me), since it lets them do a quick review of the message without opening the whole body. It is even more helpful since many of us review messages on our PDA and mobile phones.
If you are inviting someone to a conference call, remember many use cellphones and have a very short subject line to review. The location should include the minimal information needed to get on the call. Put the verbose description in the body of the meeting request. In the location, use something like this…
866-784-4549
2744 1920
Brevity and clarity is the key to getting a response
Most of us have received “War and Peace” in email form. In many cases, we have to spend 5-10 minutes reading to find the real message and take action. Alternately, we file the email with the intent of reviewing it later when we have time and it eventually gets lost.
While it is fine to include lots of details, a better approach is to write your summary so it fits on the first screen with no scrolling, then include the details below for those who enjoy knowing all the facts. This ensures the reader will see the key information and provides the supporting details for later consumption.
Expected Response
If you expect a response to your email, a meeting, a status report, a bowling rematch, put that near the top of the message and clearly state when you need it. Most of us are deadline driven and open-ended requests get ignored.
Minimize the work needed to take action on your email by thinking about them as friendly work requests. Ask for what you want, when you need it, and be specific. Include details about why you need it later in the email.
Use Bullets
If you are sending a list of action items, split them into bullets.
The Bill Gates meeting will be held in the main conference room. Please make sure the room is reserved, clean, includes snacks, and has a working credenza.
It is far easier to make sure nothing slips through the cracks when the same email is written this way:
The Bill Gates meeting will be held in the main conference room. Please make sure the room:
* is reserved
* is clean
* has snacks on the back credenza
* has a working projector
IM me to confirm all of these have been completed.
Make it clear why everyone got the message
If you sent the message to a large number of recipients and you expect action from several of them, break out the tasks:
TO: cast of thousands
SUBJECT: RESPONSE NEEDED by Friday COB – Bill Gates Visit
MJ, BVH: Clean your offices
JN: Purchase snacks for conference room
ST: Hide gags and embarrassing photos
XR: Move server to cubicle in the corner
Don’t forget the attachment[eom]
Enough said.
Return the favor in your Response
Respond Inline - Respond to individual requests inline. Use a different color when possible. Add a quick note at the top indicating “responses inline”.
KISS – Keep your response short and simple.
Email is NOT private
Courts have ruled that ALL email, IM, and other electronic messages are the property of the company. Make sure anything you send reflects well on the company and is something you don’t mind someone else in the company reading.
Other good ideas
§ Make it easy to quote - Power email users will quote and respond to specific sections or sentences of your message. You can facilitate this by keeping your paragraphs short, making them easy to slice and dice.
§ Minimize Noise – Don’t reply to an email unless you have something useful to add. Sending notes to an entire distribution list that say “I agree”, “Well done”, etc., are unnecessary and waste time, bandwidth, and sometimes create wrong impressions. If there is a thread starting, delay responding until you can make a useful contribution.
§ Provide Context - If you’re responding to an email that’s more than a few days old or if the recipient was not privy to the original discussion, provide context right at the opening. For example, "You wrote in February asking to be notified when the Bill Gates books are available; here’s a link to the items we’ve now made available on our site…."
§ One theme - Do not mix topics, projects, or jokes in a given email. Inform everyone of Baby Bill’s adorable antics in a different message than the one with the downsizing rumors and budget warnings.
§ We know you are grateful - it’s not necessary to respond with a “Thanks” email whenever someone does what you asked. Save your gratitude for the next time you pass in the hall; On the other hand, don’t hesitate to thank someone for their time if they’ve gone above and beyond and make sure you copy their supervisor.
§ RTFM - If you’re asking for help, make sure you’ve exhausted all the documentation and non-human resources you have at your disposal. When you do ask for help, be sure to quickly cover the solutions you’ve already tried and what the results were.
Use another medium
Sometimes email is the wrong vehicle to use for communications. If you have a message to deliver that is emotional, time sensitive, or could be misinterpreted, email is not the best tool. Often, it is better to pick up the phone or walk down the hall if there is a message that could be misinterpreted. The use of emoticons J, ALL CAPS, and other “cute” items in emails are not always received the way they were intended. Snide remarks followed by a wink ;-) are not always received well. In these cases, it is often better to deliver the message by voice.
Never write an email when you are angry, emotional, stressed, tired, hungry, stoned, or drunk. Once an email is sent, it cannot be retrieved. Often emails written this way can be used as the basis for firing or promotions. When in doubt, don’t sent the email. Sleep on it and reconsider your approach the next day.
References:
Trapani, Gina, Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day, 2007,
Wiley, Indianapolis, IN
