SBI Reviewed Articles

When people think about email and the internet they often have a tendency to picture teenagers and younger people sending very unprofessional letters to their friends, which include slang, acronyms, and many misspellings. Unfortunately this connotation often carries on into business also. In today’s digital age, email is essential for every small business to utilize, however it is essential that you use proper formating to avoid looking sloppy, or unprofessional.

Here are 10 tips to make sure that your business emails are professional looking, and don’t look “spammy”.

1) DO NOT USE ALL CAPITALS: You should never use all capitals in your business emails. It’s true that they grab attention, however they also make your emails look very “spammy”. Think about what looks more professional:

a) CHEAP SALE ON WIDGETS
b) Cheap Sale on Widgets

Although the first one grabs attention, the second one looks much more professional.

2) Keep it short: You should try to send short emails if possible. People generally use email to make quick contacts, so it is best not to make your email many pages long, one page can usually do.

If however you do need to send a long email, make sure that you divide the email into multiple short paragraphs. Try to make each paragraph only 1 or 2 sentences long. People don’t like to read a lot, and if they see a long, huge paragraph they immediately get scared of it, and procrastinate from doing it. Long paragraphs make the email harder to read, and make it a lot more boring. If you send short emails, or ones with shorter paragraphs, you may notice that you receive a reply a lot quicker.

3) Never use emoticons: Emoticons are great. Use them for personal emails to your friends, but never for business. They’re just way to informal.

4) Don’t forget to proof read: This sounds fairly obvious, however it is amazing to find out how many people forget to do this step. They will just finish writing an email, and they immediately click send, without any proof reading. Many times the email doesn’t make sense, or it says something that the original sender didn’t really want to say. If possible you may even want someone else to proof read it, so that you have a second opinion.

5) Don’t procrastinate: When you get an email in your inbox, which requires a reply, read it quickly, and then write a reply immediately after. Don’t leave any room for procrastinating. The person who wants to receive the reply will greatly appreciate your prompt reply. This will help to build a strong relationships with your employee’s, and customers/clients.

6) Do it Quickly: When people check their email sometimes they have a tendency to go in, and take their time checking all of their emails and replying to all of them. While it is a good idea to reply quickly to emails, it is necessary to reply to every single email that you receive. Also you should try to read and reply to the emails quickly. Don’t try to avoid and dance around the real subject of your emails. If you have a question: ask it. If you have an answer: answer it. Just go into your inbox, and do what you need to do.

7) Remember your Reader: Write your email in a way that reflects your relationship with the person you are sending the email to. If you know the person well, you can use a more informal email, however, if it is the CEO of a billion dollar company, then you may want to be very formal. Remember when in doubt go for the more formal email.

Express your email quickly: Don’t get fancy using a bunch of words, and different writing techniques. Simply say, or ask, what you need to do in the simplest way possible. Remember Occam’s Razor: The simplest answer is usually the correct answer.

9) Don’t always use email: Try to use other forms of contact also. If you have something that will take a long time to explain, you may want to try face to face contact, or phone conversation instead. Since only a small percentage of conversation is expressed verbally, you can explain something a lot easier if you use your voice, facial expressions, and body poster.

10) Use Your Own Domain - If you are using a domain name that is something at yahoo DOT com, hotmail DOT com, etc., then you may be risking looking unprofessional. Instead make the ending your companies name by buying a domain name.

If you just make sure that you don’t send overly personal business emails, and you follow some basic guidelines for business emailing, you will be able to communicate much better, and look much more professional.

Good To Great is a classic business book, selling over 2 million copies, it has been on the best sellers list for years. Taking over 5 years of research by a group of 20 people, this book provides deffinitive answers for how to make a company Great.

The book essentially answers the question, “How Can I Make A Good Company Great?”.

It is written in an unbiased, expository format, which makes it slightly harder to understand how to apply it. There are still some applications however, on how you can use the principles from Good To Great in your small business.

- Hire Great Employees

If you want your business to succed you must hire only Great employees. Don’t settle for anything less. Make sure that all of your employees will be loyal, hard working, and above all honest.

- Make Yourself Great

If you want to make your employees great, you might as well be a good role model. The employees must know that you are a hard working employee, and that you care greatly about the companies success.

To become a Great leader you must develop the personality of being humble, having high will power, and you must learn to care more about the companies success than you do your own success.

- Make A Difference in the World

Make you and your employees love comming to work, because they know they are making a difference in the world. Provide some service to others, which you and your employees find valuable. This will make your employees enjoy work more, so that they work enthusiastically and thus get more accomplished.

- Don’t Settle for Good

Make your company the BEST at something. Find out what your company can do better than any other company, and do it. If you aren’t the best in your industry, people will stop buying from you, and they will go to the person who is the best. Just make sure that you can do something the best, whether it be your products quality, price, service, or any thing else, just become Great at it and do it.

If you want to make your company succesful I highly reccomend that you read the book Good To Great, and try to apply what you learned from it into your own small business.