{"id":1780,"date":"2008-11-07T08:49:33","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T14:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2008-11-07T06:46:50","modified_gmt":"2008-11-07T12:46:50","slug":"using-email-in-the-sales-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/11\/using-email-in-the-sales-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Email In The Sales Process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Using email effectively is an absolute must in today&#8217;s business world.\u00a0 It is surprising to me how much email has started to dominate the selling landscape over the past 5 years.\u00a0 That being said,\u00a0understanding email etiquette is vital to moving a deal through the pipeline.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eyesonsales.com\/archives\/blog\/email_is_the_new_phone\" target=\"_blank\">Eyesonsales.com<\/a> has an article that gives some good guidelines to follow in using email:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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 \u201cno\u201d, you\u2019ve connected and can respond to try to generate an interest.<\/li>\n<li>Keep the sales process moving forward. Use emails to ask requirement gathering questions, get referrals, make recommendations, and provide updates.<\/li>\n<li>Respond to all emails with action items promptly. You return phone calls within 1-24 hours. The expectation now is that you\u2019ll return emails within 30 minutes \u2013 12 hours. If you can\u2019t respond completely, send an email setting expectations about when you will send a full response.<\/li>\n<li>Think \u2013 and proof \u2013 before you send. Sometimes it\u2019s best to draft a response, then wait 30 minutes before sending. You may choose to soften, shorten, or otherwise change your response.<\/li>\n<li>You may need a hand-held device such as a Blackberry to keep up. Consider what tools you need to stay on top of your emails.<\/li>\n<li>Schedule daily time on your calendar to respond to emails.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One tip I would add &#8211; Don&#8217;t treat email like a text message.\u00a0\u00a0Email messages should be treated as a relatively formal means of communication &#8211; far more than a text message.\u00a0 There is nothing as shockingly inappropriate as an email that reads like a text message.\u00a0 Avoid this approach like the plague!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using email effectively is an absolute must in today&#8217;s business world.\u00a0 It is surprising to me how much email has started to dominate the selling landscape over the past 5 years.\u00a0 That being said,\u00a0understanding 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 \u201cno\u201d, you\u2019ve connected and can respond to try to generate an interest. Keep the sales&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/11\/using-email-in-the-sales-process\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,9],"tags":[1074,241,1078,1076,1077,1075],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-sI","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1783,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions\/1783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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