5 Reasons to avoid e-mail
Tags: building relationships, business development, communication, e-mail, growth, sales, technology
Technology has completely changed the way we communicate – particularly e-mail. Where are the days when we built solid business and personal relationships by meeting each other face to face and having a conversation? We’ve all fallen into the e-mail trap, so here are 5 reasons to avoid using e-mail when you can.
1. It’s time consuming – it takes much longer to type an e-mail than it does to have a quick conversation.
If you type like I do, and battle to formulate ideas and concepts into short, punchy concepts, sending the e-mail takes way longer than talking to the other person.
2. If you’re too creative with your title (to stand out from the other 200 mails your receiver will be getting) your message is likely to get caught in the spam filters.
Enough said. If you have to use e-mail, keep the title short and to the point. The up-side of calling, is that you can use words, mental images and “theatre” to attract the attention you require.
3. E-mails can be easily misread and misunderstood.
When you speak to someone, they have the benefit of immediately getting non-verbal cues as to your state of mind, the message you’re sending and the importance of the message. Over 85% of communication takes place beyond the words you use and all of this gets lost when you send the e-mail.
4. The vast amount of e-mail is creating problems for IT departments when it comes to bandwidth and data storage. Millions of e-mails are sent globally every second! There is no need to ever e-mail the person sitting next to you, or to copy in every manager in your company to cover your arse.
5. E-mails have a tendency to lie waiting in inboxes – particularly when it concerns a touchy issue, recipients can easily let them lie unopened. The immediacy of a phone call goes a long way to resolving issues in a timely manner.
Next time, rather pick up the phone!!