So lets get straight into this after the nice introduction the other day.
You want to follow as many of the bullet points below as you can.
Why you might ask?
Because this is what is going to cut down confused and unnecessary replies to your nice and newly corrected correctly expressed messages. Its going to highlight you actually know what you are talking about. Making your authority on the subject valued and respected and people are going to believe you know what you are talking about (whether that is true or not it doesn't mater), more people will value your interacts and come back to you as reliable source of thorough and complete knowledge and not try and waste your time when they do.
A few common simple rules you should try and follow:
- Like I said the other day, we want an introduction, a middle and an end
- From that you want 3 distinct paragraph's as a minimum. For example, you should not be writing your text in one big combined block. Separate subjects into paragraphs to make it easy to read and re-read/reference again. It makes it easier to follow.
- To help in your easy to read format use bullet points or numbering like I'm currently writing within the actual subject matter of your reply (not the whole email from beginning to end), within the middle section of your email to help identify several subjects. Allowing the reader to pick out a section to easily re-read or get clarifications on.
- Take a moment to re-read your email for spelling, grammar corrections and implement sufficient spacing for easy of understanding. I quickly type out my emails in a messy format immediately to capture my ideas and then go back through it and try and clean it up for ease of reading and to make sense in a flowing way and with polite wording (sometimes a subject gets heated, you want to delete your emotions you just slammed down in the first draft and get to the point-leaving the useful information inside there without the fight, it will also help remove the emotions from the other side when you get to this stage). You may say, I don't have time to mess around like this with ever communication... but how much time will you spend to have to reply 2-3 times to clarifications? Will the benefit be now or in the long run?
- Be Specific = reducing replies from confusion you have caused. Dont say "Wednesday coming" - for example use, "This will happen on Wednesday 15th May at 2PM in the location or (telephone number)." Just by doing this you will already get some questions of your own, like what time do I want to run this meeting? 2PM is now the time because you had to stop and check your calendar. You had to book a meeting room now you know that or setup a dial in number where you will be at that time and date. This just helped you remove 2-3 simple replies from external sources.
- Get to the point first! Don't waffle along on the subjects then make your point. Some people might have already gave up reading if they have already been confused on your reasoning and logic before they know what they are reading about. This means put your subject up front and in plain sight, the hook in the mouth so to speak.
- You want people to sign up and work with you on something? Try and re-write the message to sell it. Use positive wording, get them involved already in the reading stage. Use the words "You" or "for your benefit" or "especially for you and your team/friends/family", make them feel they are the focus of what they are already reading. Reduce your third person wording like "they" and "others" - try instead "your colleagues", "popular with the team of..." as examples
These are some basics which should already help you in clearing up your approach if practiced and used regularly you will only get better at them with time.
Especially for the last bullet point, I hear you saying to the points above "I like that, but I don't get how to use it?" - so in my next update, I'm going to give some examples I have saved from real life and then show you how to change it to feel and read better... right on your screen to get out of the theory and into practice mode... as the popular saying goes, practice makes perfect.
Stay tuned for the next installment coming soon.
Take care until then
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