8 Essential Tips to Effective Communication via e-mail With Teammates

TEAMMATES NOT PROSPECTS

These tips are for communicating with your team.  Not on how to write copy to prospects.  There seems to be so much information about writing to prospects, communicating with prospects that it’s bleed into the way many of us communicate with our team.  The truth is communication with your team is really more important than anything else because it’s the collective effort of your team that is going to drive your business.

If you are communicating via email with your teammates, affiliates or distributors put these 8 tips in play and you’ll love the difference they make.  By the way as a bonus benefit it’ll take you less time.

Tip 1 – Keep it to 1 screen or less. When readers see words running longer that the screen they tend to scan not read, potentially missing the key element of your message.

Edit ruthlessly.

Don’t say “boo-boo” when “boo” will do. 🙂

Tip 2 – Write in bullet points. Online usability tests have shown that when people read messages they find it easy to read and retain info broken into bullet points.  Paragraphs?  No way.

Tip 3 – Give the (meat) of the message in the subject line. The subject line needs to grab people and tell them exactly what the email is about.  Try this formula subject+active verb+object. Be specific as possible.  “Meeting rescheduled” is a bad subject line.  “Feb Marketing Meeting rescheduled to Feb 8th” is a good one.

Tip 4 – If you are sending emails from a wireless device let people know. We realize most phones do this now so double-check and make sure.  Otherwise you could come across a terse or rude.

Tip 5 – Spell check your emails – every time. It takes an additional 5 to 10 seconds so build a bridge and get over it 🙂   If you want to hurt your credibility send an email to your organization of 2-3-4000 people with a 1/2 dozen misspelled words in it.

Tip 6 – Encourage questions. It is a mistake to use email, even though you are the leader, as a 1 way medium.  The real strength of email is its interactive nature.  When sending out a blast to your group make sure you encourage them to ask questions or voice concerns.  Never a bad idea to ask for suggestions.

Tip 7 – Save smiley faces and emoticons for personal email. Ya, ya those silly little faces can help explain that you are being silly or funny but research shows, especially with large numbers that professionalism is far and away a better method of operation.

Tip 8 – Remember: You are not the only one sending emails to your team. There’s a great benefit in communicating with your other leaders so that newer people aren’t getting the same message from 5 or 6 people.  Do your best to email only when you need to. If you’re  thinking email is  building a relationship, think again.  Enhancer? yes…assistaint? yes…..relationship builder?  No.

A couple less emails a month and a couple of more phone calls to a few key people will do a lot more than just banging away everyday about something.

“Less is more”….. meaning less in the email and less total emails will increase the influence your emails have.

believe

mark januszewski

The World’s Laziest Networker