In Part I of the Email Etiquette for Real Estate Pros blog, we covered some of the fundamental things that can reflect poorly on your message and even affect how well your message gets across.
Here, we cover how you can be sure that your message hits the right tone and gets the results you need!
5. Know the limits of the medium: Time.
Despite the fact that a majority of Canadians in business have a cell phone, email is not instant messaging /SMS. The minute you hit send, your respondent has up to 48 hours to reply before you can call or visit to follow up. If you want to send a follow-up email, always include the original email. No exceptions.
6. Write. Leave. Look. Send.
These 4 words have saved my life, my relationships, my marriage, my job and my sense of not having to clean up some self-induced mess. When you write an email about a difficult subject, it gets easy to pour your personal/emotional self into it. It’s natural for people to do this. In fact, we are hard-wired to.
But don’t do it. No easier mess has been made than that of a heated email being inappropriately sent. Here are the steps to save your life/relationships/business
Write.
Write it out. Spare nothing and know that this is totally okay. You need to get it out, whether it’s good news, bad news or neither.
Leave.
Walk away from it (or hide it from access on your computer/mobile) for at least 5-10 minutes or until you know you can come back to it fresh.
Look.
Take a last look at it with a balanced view. Are you over extending? Under extending? Could this be edited to help the solution along?
Send.
Press the button and let it out. You’ve done the right thing.
7. Emoticons, smileys and animations have been annoying for 20 years…
It’s simple. If you have to add a cartoon to show how you feel, you’ve found the wrong medium. Send a text message. “1994 called… (and they want their email back)”
And despite what benefits used to exist for putting jpegs in your signatures, mobile phones are making those images useless. If you put an image of your business card at the bottom of your email signature, there is no way for someone on a cell phone to click your number and call you. A definite lead loser.
8. Reply as soon as possible within 24-48 hours.
Back in sales training (in the late ‘90s, too) I was once told that 24 hours was the longest I could take to reply to anyone, colleague, prospect, lead, mother, priest or brother. Today, I still stand by that rule, and it hasn’t failed me. Some other people prefer less, but a day to 2 days is safe to reply to anyone without looking neglectful. Remember, everyone judges everyone else differently. but when it comes to email everyone is judging you somehow.
So now you have the top 8 behaviours that will save your email messages, and ensure that your professional and personal character is exactly what you want it to be.
For more information, check out my favourite book on the topic, SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better
Can you think of any tips that we didn’t cover? We’d love to hear from you.
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