Communication anxiety is a large facet of nearly every human being’s personality. Especially now with a majority of communication occurring online through email, text, and chats, it’s all too important to know how to effectively communicate with others through the web. This can be especially nerve-wracking in a professional environment when communicating with potential new clients.
It seems easy at first. Is this the first communication? Easy – just introduce yourself and state the reason for reaching out. Is this a follow up for the next steps in the onboarding process? No problem – you know what the next steps are, so it should be no big deal to type out a message and hit send.
Except sometimes, it feels like a big deal. It feels like a huge deal.
The worry starts to set in. What’s my tone in this email like? Is it conversational? Is it friendly? Is it too friendly? Too authoritative? What about my word choice? Should I keep it simple or break out some five-dollar words? It can get all too easy to spiral down the rabbit hole and then suddenly you’re hours into a two-paragraph email that should have only taken you 15-20 minutes.
The tone and the words chosen to express your message are important, and the final product should be a direct representation of how much effort and care you have for that message and its recipient.
For example, when writing an email to a prospective client, I want my correspondence to do two things: I want to provide them with plenty of value and knowledge, and I want to clearly set expectations for the next steps (all while doing so in a conversational, but not too casual, tone).
Well, that’s easier said than done. However, I’ve discovered how I can shorten my email writing process from unproductive hours to quicker and more effective minutes.
1. Make an Outline. In the interest of keeping everything short and concise, the outline should include:
Who the email is addressed to and their title (if applicable)
The reason/main topic of the email
Any additional points that need to be made
The overall tone that should be conveyed
Here is an example:
Who: Rosie Smith (CEO of Rosie’s Roses)
Topic: Onboarding
Additional Points:
Tone: Friendly, but certain and somewhat directive
2. Set a Timer. If I’m writing an email to a prospective client, I know it has a greater likelihood of taking longer to write. So, I set a timer for 10 minutes. The timer forces me to get my thoughts out and not to overthink each word and phrase before the thoughts are even complete. I have a time limit, so I know I don’t have time to decide if the word “glorious” is better than the word “stupendous”. I just have to keep moving through the communication.
3. Read Through It. Once everything is typed out, I run through the email twice looking for any grammatical issues and to ensure that I have hit all of the points I had intended to hit; also cropping any areas where I may have gone off-topic and adjusting areas where I could have been more clear.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Did you separate the people from the problem?
Did you focus on interests, not positions?
Did you generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do?
Did you insist the result be based on some objective standard?
4. Send it to a Team Member. If the correspondence is super important, it’s always a good idea to send it to a team member to read it and react to it. Their reaction will be most important as they are not reading the message like the creator of the email would in their own head, but are rather taking the message for what it is – words, tone, and all. Any edits they have will be most beneficial.
And then you’re done! Congratulations, you have successfully written an email!