6/6/2024-Email BPs, take #65.

While there’s no magic wand that can grant all of your wishes about email, it pays to be thoughtful and strategic about how you use it.

Consider these two rando but important scenarios:

1. Do you need to reply fast to incoming customer emails? Quality and accuracy are much more important than reply speed, right?

2. Email is a decent conversation tool. Eeesh…the back-n-forth-n-forth-n-back. Don’t assume you can’t get your prospect/client on the phone. (You know what happens when you "assume.") Email convos get soooooo tedious and almost always create confusion.

For every email today, practice this protocol: create, pause, edit, read aloud, pause, edit, send. (If acronyms help you… "CPERPES." Don’t worry, it’ll grow on ya.)

If the above protocol is too much for you, try stuffing each email you write in your drafts folder for a few minutes before you hit send. The time away is guaranteed to help you find ways to improve them.

Just because you’re constantly traveling in the fast lane doesn’t mean you can’t slow down and apply thought to your emailing.

No matter who you’re emailing – prospects, clients, or internal teammates – here are some basic email best practices (BPs) that should drive your approach.

1. Shorter is better. And even then, more shorter is best. (Yes… "more shorter.")

2. Re-read ’em THREE TIMES before sending. You’ll catch errors, for sure.

3. Have you made your intent and action request clear? Make it easy for the recipient to respond.

4. After a few back-and-forths, grow some you-know-whats and recommend that everyone jump on the phone. It may not always work, but ya gotta try. If you’re not writing, "Let’s get on a call to chat this out," at least ten times a day, you’re falling back into default email reaction mode and probably getting what you deserve. (Sure, you may only net 2 out of 10 phone calls, but that’s 100% more calls than if you don’t ask for a call.)

There are other important BPs, but focus only on the above, and you’ll see a change in how your prospects, clients, and teammates respond to you.

Mostly, stop writing long emails…you’re not only boring the recipient, you’re probably boring yourself. (Sorry, but true…no?)

Forget how you might feel about Louis C.K. (polarizing dude, for sure), but nobody else has nailed the absurdity of email like he does in this R-rated Short.