What Your Email Says About You…

You know how when people treat people who can do something for them really well, but treat people who seemingly can’t do anything for them, really not well, and you notice it, how you never think the same about the person. No matter how well they’re treating you, watching how they treat people they consider “unimportant” lets you know their true character. What was that quote about character shows when no one is around to watch (or something).

In my opinion, it’s the same with email. Lots of sales people – and their bosses – take pains to write to their customers in a way that makes the customer feel important. But they don’t bother to provide the same courtesy to the person in the next cube, the next department and especially not to the one in the cube one rung below. It amazes me how people within an organization treat each other in their emails.

Writing in a way that helps the other person feel valued and safe and smart taking the action that you’re requesting isn’t just smart business, it’s just smart. And insulting them can only lead to lower productivity, lower profitability and a rotten work day.

And there is more: Not taking the time to reread and at least try to write with proper grammar and punctuation and correct spelling (consider the above to be traffic signals that help the flow of communication) is simply disrespectful. Expecting the other person to try to figure out what you intended to say is expecting them to use their time to do your job. It doesn’t make great sense and absolutely no business sense.

Finally (for this rant), keep it as concise as possible. No one has time to wade through your thoughts before they get to your point.

The more you consider the other person the more they will consider you. I’m hopeful this makes sense and cents.

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