Email: Toxic or Terrific?

Email can be your best friend—or it can be your worst enemy! It's a great tool to help maintain and build relationships but it's also an amazing tool to hide behind! We feel so much less rejected when a sales "call" doesn't turn in our favor when the communication has been entirely through email. We also feel (way too) emboldened to say what we think when we're "talking" to a screen. Each of us (and believe me, I include myself) have had that "oh no" moment; that moment just after we hit send that we realize that our reader may not take our message the way we intended it (or worse, will understand a negative and nasty message exactly the way we meant it!).

The trouble with email is that it's too easy and too quick. We've sacrificed effectiveness for efficiency.

Here are a 7 points to consider to determine if email is your best communication:

1. What conversation am I avoiding? Is there more that I need to talk about with this person and am choosing to ignore it/not go there and take the easy way out by emailing? What better results could I get by picking up the phone or scheduling a meeting?
2. Is any of this information confidential or sensitive? (As a joke, people used to say that a disclaimer was worth about as much as the paper it was printed on. Regardless of the number of disclaimers you add to the bottom of your email, your reader can easily either strategically or accidentally file and forward your message (or portions of it).
3. Is this message complicated or lengthy? You'll save a huge amount of time by phoning to discuss the issue. Use email to confirm, in bullet list format, your points.
4. Am I looking for consensus? Gaining consensus by email, according to research conducted by the authors of the book, "New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization," takes "significantly" longer than reaching consensus in a meeting. Additionally, the co-authors, Sproul and Keisler, show that readers perceive email to be 10 times more rude than a face to face conversation would be.
5. Am I trying to resolve a conflict? Pick up the phone or schedule a meeting.
6. Am I feeling defensive, angry or emotional about the issue? Schedule a meeting.
7. Am I trying to gain a commitment to action? (This is called sales and it rarely happens through emessaging.)
   

Are you using email appropriately or, do you, as the New York Times wrote (Dec. 7, 2004, "What America Can't Build: A Sentence"), "just let thoughts drool out onto the screen"? Save your career, help your customers do business with you, and make your life easier. Use email to get the results, respect and recognition you deserve.

Does your team write messages that are safe, smart and savvy? Do you and your sales associates sell or tell? Sue will teach your team how to create email messages that get the results you want, and the respect and recognition you deserve! Schedule Sue for your next sales meeting. She'll knock your socks off!

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