This is the opening sentence from an email caught by my junk filter: Sorry for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer as it is utterly hell confidential and genuine by virtue of its nature. “…utterly hell confidential” is a new construction for me. This example is anecdotal – the larger issue is the prevalence of email communication in selling. The days of cold calling are receding while initial email communication is advancing. This fact adds another factor to successful sales hiring. The ability to be effective on the phone will always be important in successful selling, but the email approach is replacing the… Read More
Continue ReadingNever Out Of Office
I’m traveling to Palm Springs, CA today for a trade show. Let me just say that a California trade show is a blessed thing to a Minnesotan in February. Anyway, I didn’t put an email message saying I will be out of the office. Why even use that feature in Outlook? Here’s my rationale, I receive all of my emails on my cell phone. They are pushed to me so I actually get notified the moment they arrive. I have my laptop with me and the hotel has wireless internet which is to be expected these days. I may be physically out of the office, but I am still connected.… Read More
Continue ReadingSurviving An Email Storm
Ok, the title is overly dramatic, but I did see a company encounter an email storm this week which was…well, laughable. This is a large company with thousands of employees. One gentleman sent out an email about a specific account with a Word attachment. What he didn’t know was that one of his distribution lists was wrong – it included everyone in the company. One person on his list replied to all about printing the document. That email started the storm. Person after person started replying to all to remove them from the email list. It gets better, the original author then sent out another email that simply stated “please… Read More
Continue ReadingPat
Don’t get me wrong, I love email. However, there is a downside to it. I am emailing with someone today and I have no idea what gender they are. The fact that it is -25 degrees F here today may be impacting my cognitive ability which is fine as long as my car starts.
Continue ReadingUsing Email In The Sales Process
Using email effectively is an absolute must in today’s business world. It is surprising to me how much email has started to dominate the selling landscape over the past 5 years. That being said, understanding email etiquette is vital to moving a deal through the pipeline. Eyesonsales.com has an article that gives some good guidelines to follow in using email: View email as the new prospecting tool. After you leave a voicemail, follow-up with an email, giving prospects 2 easy ways to respond. Remember, your goal is to connect with the person. Even if they respond “no”, you’ve connected and can respond to try to generate an interest. Keep the sales… Read More
Continue ReadingReturn To Thoughtful Communication
Here is an interesting article from Selling Power regarding predicting trends of the future. Specifically, this one caught my eye: We’ll return to real, thoughtful communications. In this era of text messaging, blogging, and email, we’ve become lazy in our communications. We tend to dash off notes without proofreading them. We tend to use generic catch phrases like “seamless solution” and “superior service” that sound good but don’t really mean anything. Why do we do it? Because it’s easier and quicker than taking the time to think, write, edit, and edit again until our message is clear, compelling, and precise. There’s going to be a backlash against today’s generic, rushed… Read More
Continue ReadingForwarding Failures
CareerJournal.com offers up this article – Avoid These Email Blunders To Prevent Career Derailment – that speaks to some simple-sounding errors. You know, email has been around for some time now, but I am still impressed by how many blunders are still made today. This particular graph grabbed my attention: Don’t spoil your boss’s image. If your boss asks you in an email to speak to a coworker about a problem he or she has with that individual, forwarding the message blindly (and the incriminating language in it) is like setting it in stone. It will not only offend the recipient of the email but could also get you in… Read More
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