I love email. I love it so much that I even wrote a book about three go-to emails that have had a dramatic impact on my personal production. The problem is we tend to rely too much on email and over time it has become a crutch.
Several years ago I was an inside sales rep at a small software company. One day I was commiserating with a colleague who also happened to be the company’s top rep. My frustration de jour regarded a prospect who would not return my emails. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but I do recall telling him that I had sent them yet another email. He asked me when I had spoken to them last. I told him that we had been communicating via email over the last couple of weeks and it had been at least that long since we had last spoken. He was a little surprised that it had been so long and frankly, he didn’t get it. His style was all about building personal relationships over the phone. Email was not his primary mode of communicating with his prospects and his advice was to PUTDP. I followed his advice and got the sale very soon after that.
Blog continued below . . .
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That was a very valuable lesson that often surfaces when I find myself coaching sellers about the prudent use of email. I’ve become very sensitive when I see an over reliance on email. Email is a poor substitute for the phone and in-person meetings when it comes to building relationships. It’s not a bad thing to send emails, but it is a bad thing if it is your primary mode of communicating with prospects. Why?
- It lacks your innate ability to charm the prospect.
- Too often emails can “tailspin” because of an incorrect reading of tone and mood.
- It can’t laugh.
- It is absolutely unforgiving when it comes to your ability to write effectively.
- Rarely can you pull off creating real emphasis with email like you can in a live conversation.
- They are permanent and can be used against you.
- And on and on.
Even if email is your prospect/customer’s preferred method of communicating, pitfalls still await. I was an executive working with a very large customer and our project manager was assigned to the account full-time. Unfortunately, a problematic issue arose that required our president’s involvement. I showed her an email thread that demonstrated the escalation of the problem and how were handling it. Since the project manager had become very comfortable with her contact at the customer, her emails had become very informal, almost like text messages. When the president looked at the email thread, where do you think her immediate response was centered? On the problem? Nope, she lost her temper on the unprofessional and casual approach our project manager had been using with this very important customer. It was a very costly mistake.
The other issue with email is the typos and misspellings that curse an otherwise great message. Many of you wonderful sellers are horrible writers and your grammar is atrocious. Think I’m kidding? Here are some real gems from actual emails that are in my Inbox:
“I hope you took the Jeffery’s advice…”
“We could focus on the roll play…”
“…move forward with gather info on what…”
“…currently using a company that is allow them to…”
What a mess! As I typed this blog entry in MS Word, I noticed that it only caught the last example. Most email editors aren’t nearly as powerful, so don’t trust them. And spell-check has its own limitations. How is your grammar when it comes to the correct usage of your/you’re and their/there/they’re? Do you know the rules around who/whom? What about the correct use of which/that? When it comes to an important discussion with a prospect, why leave it to chance? PUTDP and have a conversation.
The issue of over relying on email is especially true when corresponding internally. “I sent her three emails yesterday and two today and she still has not responded!” says an exasperated seller. “Without her getting involved, my customer…” he continues. While his issue is valid – it is common courtesy to respond to emails – his approach leaves much to be desired. PUTDP I tell him. And you know what? It almost always works. As an effective sales professional, one of your most endearing gifts of is your ability to charm people and get your way. How effective are you doing that in email? Not nearly as effective as you could be on the phone. If your colleagues are not responding to your onslaught of urgent emails, PUTDP. It is amazing how far you can get and how quickly you can get there.
Don’t get me wrong. Tomorrow, Outlook is the first application that I’ll open and it will be the last one standing when I shut down my computer. That’s the way we work. But ask yourself if you’ve come to rely on email too much. If so, PUTDP!
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