Time is Money

This posting is based on business communications etiquette for today. I'm shooting from the hip without my etiquette books of yesterday. I'm at work, and after coming across a few too many examples of bad manners in the professional sector this week, I felt that something needed to be said.

Let's talk email:

We know to beware of sarcasm and strong statements, as email and text carry no emotions with them. It is hard for readers to detect the tone intended for the message from the writer. Taking this into consideration, I want to take it one step further. FORMALIZE. Unless you are emailing someone with whom you have a strong personal rapport, leave the jokes, "yeahs", "sures", and slang terms out of your communication. This especially goes for sales efforts.

A quality greeting, introduction, and closing will take you far.

Here is an example of what to avoid. I believe it's supposed to be a pitch letter for this person's business. Having never spoken to him before, it unfortunately went straight into my deleted files.

Dear Carina;

Just wanted to give you a gentle nudge and let you know that even if you do not use us as your caterer, you do need to get your venue location booked. October is the prime time of the year for events and you do not want to procrastinate. Again call me and I can help. Yea yea, I know I don't get no respect.

JoseName Removed Catering

Bad grammar, unclear message, and jokes? No thank you. The beauty of email is you can take the time to review and edit your message before sending. In my book, this means no room for error.

Another sales email I received recently was from a publisher. After requesting a media kit, I received SIX attachments. This left me with having to take the time to go through each and every attachment, only to find that most of the information was useless to me, and what I had specifically requested was missing. Email is supposed to be about convenience. If you are creating more work for another, skip it. Either call them, or streamline to create ease (when I was applying for writing positions, the first lesson I learned was not to send my writing samples as attachments. Instead, I created a website and posted everything there. This way I could send one clean link with my cover letter).

My last tip in this post for the modern worker bee is to remember, at work, always put your best foot forward. My good friend Megan once said, "Treat everyday like an interview." Hard words to live by, yes, but something that will provide reward in the long run.