How to Write Effective Email (and other messages) Business Writing How to Write Effective Email (and other messages) 98% of top executives state that effective business writing is the skill most needed for professional recognition and success! Let’s face it: Exceptional writing skills are the mark of exceptional professionals. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder was a German General Field Marshall and Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army for 30 years. He is widely regarded as one of the great strategists of the latter half of the 1800s, and the creator of a new, more modern method, of directing armies in the field. His most famous quote, “An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.”, is the main reason this class was created. Quite simply, we must write more effectively to get things done. And more effective writing starts with being understood. All forms of communication occur for one reason and one reason only…persuasion. You may not realize it, but it’s true. Obviously, if you are a salesperson, you are trying to persuade your customer to buy what you are selling. When you share an idea with a business partner, you want to persuade them to understand that new idea. When you ask a colleague to work on a new project, you are using persuasion to make them join the cause willingly. Anytime you communicate, whether it is written, oral or otherwise, you are persuading the other person to understand what you are trying to say.

Today’s Lineup Plan for efficiency Plan for effectiveness Plan for understanding Plan for action Plan for less The purpose of this course is to teach new techniques that will make you more effective and efficient in your written communications. It is also my intention that these techniques give you the confidence to write more purposefully and correctly.

What’s in it for me? Less email means more time for you. Be calmer and more in control. Get your point across instantly. Improve your professional image. Get “buy in” and quicker results. There is a famous phrase that gives us a little perspective. “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” It has been attributed to Cicero, Voltaire, Ernest Hemmingway, Mark Twain, and Blaise Pascal. It doesn’t really matter who coined it, the point is that writing a concise letter or email requires thought and time. That extra effort you put in to write concisely will pay big dividends to your image and career.

Warm-up Email is different from other forms of communication Hard to convey emotions No tone or body language Email is asynchronous No shared context Ask these questions: Is it appropriate? Is it needed? Who is my audience? Email is different from other forms of communication. It doesn’t convey emotions nearly as well as face-to-face or even telephone conversations. It lacks vocal inflection, gestures, and a shared environment. Your correspondent may have difficulty telling if you are serious or kidding, happy or sad, frustrated or euphoric. Sarcasm is particularly dangerous to use in email. Another thing you have to realize is that email is asynchronous. Just because you send a message, does not mean that the reader is going to read it right away. They may be away from their desk or choose not to read it for hours. They may not read it at all. In any case, email should never be treated as a substitute for live conversation. In a conversation, there is some minimum of shared context. You might be in the same physical location, and even on the phone you have, at minimum, commonality of time. When you generate a document for paper, usually there is some context embedded in the medium: the text is in the proceedings of a conference, written on a birthday card, handed to your supervisor in the form of a report, or something similar. With email, you can't assume anything about a sender's location, time, frame of mind, profession, interests, or future value to you. This means, among other things, that you need to be very, very careful about giving your receivers some context. There is another difference between email and older media. What you see when composing a message might not look like what the reader sees. Your vocal cords make sound waves that are perceived basically the same by both your ears and your audience's. The paper that you write your love note on is the same paper that the object of your affection sees. But with email, the software and hardware that you use for composing, sending, storing, downloading, and reading may be completely different from what your correspondent uses. If they receive their email on a Blackberry, iPhone, or Treo Palm device, your message's visual qualities will be quite different from what you see on your screen. Thus your email compositions should be different from both your paper compositions and your speech. Not only do you have to recognize the difference between email and other forms of communication, you have to ask certain questions before you even start writing. Is it appropriate? Simply stated, would you want to read this on the front page of the local newspaper? If not, don’t send it. Don’t even write it. Is it needed? Do you really have to send this message? Are you sure this is the best medium? Just because you have email capabilities does not mean that you have to use it for every piece of communication. Sometimes a phone call or a face-to-face meeting is the best way to communicate. Who is my audience? Who really needs this information? Do you have to send this to the entire department or just your boss? Or maybe your boss doesn’t need to be bothered with every email. Not only do you have to consider whether to send or not, you have to make other considerations when addressing a diverse audience. Are there people from different departments going to receive this same email? Should they all get the same email? Or do you need write separate emails and tailor your message for each recipient? Writing email is much more than blasting everyone within shooting distance. It requires comprehensive thought and consideration of all potential recipients. Take the extra couple of minutes to craft a smart message that your entire audience will appreciate.

Recent Email Survey Email Survey 31% spend more than one hour on email each day. 20% spend more than two hours on email each day. 67% admit to not reading every single email. 6% admitted that they read “very little”. 31% claimed not to read email because the message had “no focus” or the “first line did not grab their attention”. Another 23% did not read email because the message was “too long”. 19% responded that 1 in 4 emails had to be re-read to understand the meaning. 67% express that their colleagues send more email than is necessary. Only 16% claim that they themselves send more email than is necessary. 15% said that more than ¼ of their email was truly junk.

Getting Started Salutation BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) Formal (Dear, Good morning) Informal (Hi, Hello) BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) Put your most important idea first Get attention immediately Set the tone Forget about the Subject line…for now Salutation – Brief, warm greeting You will find that some people don’t use a greeting line. That’s just impolite. You should always greet your reader. It’s common courtesy to address people when you encounter them. Just because you are writing business email does not mean that you do not have to be polite. Every email recipient should be greeted just as they would in a live encounter. You wouldn’t walk up to Bob and say, “I need you to get this box delivered by 5pm.” You would greet him and say, “Hi Bob. I need to you to get this box delivered by 5pm.” See the difference? This guidance applies to all emails initiated by you. There are other recommendations for message replies. As with any interaction, you want to work harmoniously with whom you are communicating. This means that you should pay attention to their behaviors and try to mimic them ever so slightly. This gives them the impressions that you are more like them or, at least, that you do business the same way. An easy way to accomplish this in an email message is to reply in the same fashion they wrote you. For instance, if they use a formal greeting, you reply with a similar greeting. If, on the other hand, they get right down to business without a salutation, you reply in kind. It is not your job to educate others on email etiquette. After all, your intended purpose is to persuade your business partner to your way of thinking, not to belittle them by correcting any of their shortcomings. BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) Business email is not the place to tell a story or build a case with logic. (Unless you are masterful storyteller and you can keep your audience riveted to the end. Actually, even then, it is not a good idea to tell a story in any business document.) The reason is that your audience will start to draw conclusions from the start and you don’t want that. You know where you are going when you write A, then B, then C. The problem is your audience does not. And so you need to start out with the Bottom Line Up Front. Let’s face it. People don’t read email. They skim it. Some people don’t even do that. Last week someone told me that they just read the first line of their email. So, what does that mean? You’d better make sure you are getting your point across in the first line. State it clearly and boldly. The greatest weakness in ineffective writing is that it doesn’t quickly transmit a focused message. Too much writing hides the main point. All business writers insist on the “bottom line” first. Change your mindset. Start each email as if you were permitted to write only one sentence. Write that sentence first. Write your Subject line after you have completed your message.

Exhibit A From: Jane Smith Sent: Monday, May 5, 2008 2:47 PM To: Tom Jones Subject: Notes from the budget meeting Good afternoon, I went to a meeting today about budgeting in anticipation of the upcoming review process. One of the things we were talking about was expenses. I think you know that there is new guidance coming down about expense processing. What I didn’t know is that the guidance isn’t so much about process as it is about cutting expenses. So the VP spent some time telling us that we might as well start watching expenses now. We batted about some ideas and agreed that 14-day advance airline tickets, professional book purchases and monthly birthday celebrations are places to look at. Regards, Jane Smith What’s wrong with this email? Some things have already been mentioned in this document. Others are yet to come. Try to write down all the ways that you could improve this message to be more effective and increase the possibility of understanding. How does this email make you feel as you read it?

Exhibit B From: Jane Smith Sent: Monday, May 5, 2008 2:47 PM To: Tom Jones Subject: Directive: Reduce Expenses To all staff members: Please start reducing expenses. Three areas we can hit right now are 14-day advance airline tickets, professional book purchases and monthly birthday celebrations. This came out of a discussion in the budget meeting. The new guidance will be more about expense reduction than we thought. I say we get started now. Regards, Jane Smith Accounts Manager 561.555.1234 Here you will see a much better email message. Notice some of the changes that make it more understandable and effective. An instructional Subject line – It directly relates to the message being delivered. The salutation indicates that all staff members were addressed. No one has to wonder if they should forward this information to the rest of the group. BLUF – Staff members know immediately what is expected of them and they know how to act. The message is short and sweet – It gets right to the point and does not bore them with unnecessary “diary-type” details. (i.e. I went to a meeting today…) Proper signature block – It has a title and phone number. Recipients do not need to look up this information if they need to make contact via phone or forward the information to a third party.

Build the Body Action summary Background Close Short sentences Short paragraphs Short messages Bullets are better Remember your ABCs Action summary Background Close Everyone says that they spend too much time on email. I wonder what they are doing with all of that time. It has been my experience (and that of many others) that people just don’t take the time to read their email. Go ahead. Ask around. I’ll bet you that more than 60% of the folks you survey will say that they don’t read all of their email. (Refer back to the survey on page 4.) So what is your best plan of attack? How do you get people to read your email? It’s easy. Keep it simple and keep it short. Good sentence structure is actually much easier to achieve if you use fewer words. Shorter sentences improve clarity and readability. Don’t try to appear “smart” by using long sentences and big words. They almost always create confusion (for the reader) and sometimes embarrassment (for the writer). If the reader has to re-read your message, you begin to lose credibility. Once that happens, you will find yourself in an uphill battle. You might even need to rewrite your message to get your point across. Don’t make your message so long that the reader has to use the scroll wheel to get through it. That is way too long and people will soon tire of reading your emails. Also, remember that some folks read almost all of their email on a Blackberry, iPhone, Treo or some other portable messaging device. Scrolling through long, drawn out messages can become quite a chore and no one likes chores. When in doubt, write less. If at all possible, keep paragraphs less than one inch deep. Any more than that starts to look like a book. When writing a list, it’s best to use bullet points. Bullets are better in three ways: 1. They draw the reader’s attention to each point 2. They are short and direct (you make a conscious effort to be concise when writing bullet points) 3. They increase the probability of retention Remember your ABCs A – Action summary (Specific action, purpose and response time) B – Background (Clear, concise and relevant – bullets) C – Close (Next steps and niceties) Your ultimate goal is to write every message so it can be understood in one quick read. Let’s look at some rules to help achieve that goal.

Write for the Reader Anticipate the reader’s questions Why are we meeting? Do I have to attend? Do I need to prepare? Imagine a conversation Who else is on the project? When is it due? What are the next steps? When you’re wondering what to cover in a message, it helps to imagine a conversation with your reader. For example, if you are writing to announce a meeting, imagine telling someone face-to-face about the meeting. That person would ask: · Why are we meeting? · When is it? Where is it? · What’s the agenda? · Do I have to attend? What if I can’t? · Do I need to prepare? How? There may be many other questions. Just remember, don’t think about what you want to say, think about what the reader would ask.

Obey the Rules 3 syllables or less Average 15 words per sentence (or less) Eliminate commas (break into 2 sentences) Common typeface (no script, no whimsy) No stationery (no backgrounds) Common language (no jargon) Use the Active Voice whenever possible Winston Churchill once said, “Short words are best, and the old ones, when short, are best of all.” Keep it simple. Don’t write to impress. Write for success. And success means getting your point across. Be concise – Writing concisely means saying exactly what you mean in the fewest words possible. Often when you rewrite a sentence to make it more concise, you will increase the clarity. Do your best to eliminate commas. If you see a comma, replace it with a period and make two sentences. Typically when you use a comma you are combining two separate thoughts or ideas. Just break the two ideas into two standalone sentences. Example: I would like you to send a letter to Mr. Smith explaining our situation, because we are going to need his help in order to get the money we need for the Neptune project, which will have a big impact on next month’s figures. Better: Please send a letter to Mr. Smith. Explain that we need his help to secure money for the Neptune project. The success of this project will have a big impact on next month’s figures. Notice that the second example is shorter and uses fewer words per sentence. It is also easier to understand. Short sentences seem to have more of an impact on readers. Admittedly, short sentences may sound terse and commanding, but that can be remedied with the word “please”. Don’t use jargon or abbreviations particular to your line of work unless everyone knows this language. Use common everyday language that everyone understands. If I were to send you a message concerning our DBA, you may be confused. If you work in Accounting, you might suppose that I am referring to the initialism (acronym) for Doing Business As. If you are a tax geek, you would assume that I am concerned about our Deductions, Benefits, and Accruals. But in the technology world most folks know that DBA refers to a Database Administrator. Equally confusing is the term POS. Some might presume that means Point of Sale. Others, like those in Finance and Legal, may think of a Public Offering Statement. And still others will assume that it is clearly a reference to a less than reliable piece of machinery. And now a word about active versus passive voice. Use of the passive voice is generally frowned upon. The reason is that passive construction usually leads to lack of clarity. When you use the passive voice you jumble the normal grammatical layout of a sentence. You take the object of an action and make it the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence. Passive voice does not imply incorrect grammar. It is simply less clear and leaves room for interpretation. Let’s look at a couple of examples. The first is a passive rephrasing of a familiar joke: Why was the road crossed by the chicken? Of course, we all know the more common phrasing and I think we agree that the original joke comes across much better when phrased in the active voice. Why did the chicken cross the road? Here is a good example of why you see the passive voice used in so many political offerings or when the writer aims to hide blame or obscure responsibility. Passive voice implies deceit or lack of knowledge: The Sullivan report was presented with numerous errors. Active voice conveys assertiveness, directness, and complete understanding: Bob presented the Sullivan report with numerous errors. Notice that the first sentence leaves you wondering who presented this unacceptable report. The second sentence squarely fingers Bob as the inept presenter.

Why was the road crossed by the chicken? Read this Sentence Why was the road crossed by the chicken? And now a word about active versus passive voice. Use of the passive voice is generally frowned upon. The reason is that passive construction usually leads to lack of clarity. When you use the passive voice you jumble the normal grammatical layout of a sentence. You take the object of an action and make it the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence. Passive voice does not imply incorrect grammar. It is simply less clear and leaves room for interpretation. Let’s look at a couple of examples. The first is a passive rephrasing of a familiar joke: Why was the road crossed by the chicken? Of course, we all know the more common phrasing and I think we agree that the original joke comes across much better when phrased in the active voice. Why did the chicken cross the road? Was it hard to read? That’s because we expect it to be in the Active Voice.

The Sullivan Report was presented with numerous errors. Active v. Passive The Sullivan Report was presented with numerous errors. Sullivan Report Here is a good example of why you see the passive voice used in so many political offerings or when the writer aims to hide blame or obscure responsibility. Passive voice implies deceit or lack of knowledge: The Sullivan Report was presented with numerous errors. Active voice conveys assertiveness, directness, and complete understanding: Bob made numerous errors when presenting the Sullivan Report. Notice that the first sentence leaves you wondering if the report contained errors or if the presentation was unacceptable. The second sentence squarely fingers Bob as the inept presenter. Who’s to blame? Bob or the report?

Bob made numerous errors when presenting the Sullivan Report. Active v. Passive Bob made numerous errors when presenting the Sullivan Report. Here is a good example of why you see the passive voice used in so many political offerings or when the writer aims to hide blame or obscure responsibility. Passive voice implies deceit or lack of knowledge: The Sullivan Report was presented with numerous errors. Active voice conveys assertiveness, directness, and complete understanding: Bob made numerous errors when presenting the Sullivan Report. Notice that the first sentence leaves you wondering if the report contained errors or if the presentation was unacceptable. The second sentence squarely fingers Bob as the inept presenter. The Active Voice clears this up immediately.

Eliminate Empty Words The Writer’s Brief Handbook lists these words as the most common empty phrases. By means of Due to the fact that For the purpose of For the simple reason that In order to In spite of the fact that In this world today It is important that It is necessary that On the occasion of Prior to In anticipation of Until such time of With regard to In the neighborhood of Had an effect on

Eliminate Empty Words Use these instead. They are much shorter and convey more clarity. By Because For To Even though Today Must Must When Before Until About Of / About Influenced

If You Only Remember One Thing… After you have finished writing the body of the message… Read it out loud! I can’t make this point strongly enough to have the impact it deserves without shouting. If you remember only one thing from this class, let this be it. Everything you ever write must be required reading: for you, that is. If you write a letter, an email, a business report of any kind, READ IT OUT LOUD before you send it. If you stumble on your own words, you can be assured that your reader will do the same. Rewrite it until it reads smoothly. You may have to write your message more than once or twice, but isn’t that better than sending less than your very best work? Reading out loud is a great way to find typos and grammatical errors. Spell checker does not pick up all bad grammar. It will not find words that many writers misspell due to typos. Words like “form” and “from”, ”filed” and “field”, “for” and “fro”, “own” and “won”. You might also find words that are missing a letter that still are found in the dictionary. Words like “the” (instead of “they” or “then” or “them”), ‘to” (instead of “two” or ‘too”), “you” (instead of “your”). Other common typos are phrases like “it is” or “to do”. You may find that reading your message backwards (begin at the end and work your way up) will help you realize typos or grammatical errors. While scientific research suggests no reliable links to this method, many people swear by it. Reading backwards does seem quite awkward and it does make you slow down to read each word, but you should not rely on the backward method alone. Always read your message out loud and forward. When you read your message, listen carefully, so you hear it in your own voice. Or even better, the voice of your reader. You will hear things that did not seem to exist when you first wrote your message. You will also be able to pick up on the tone of your message. This allows you to really make it read the way you want it to sound. When you set the right tone you will get your point across and not leave so much to interpretation. Reading your messages out loud is the most rewarding thing you can do for your professional image that won’t cost you a cent.

Strengthen the Subject Be Direct and Descriptive Action Required:… Info:… Request:… EOM:… End of Message Do not reply NEVER use the Subject line as your message Finally, we get to the Subject. The single most important aspect of an email subject line is that the recipient chooses to read the message attached to it. Once you have their attention and they want to read your message, you have won the battle of the overloaded Inbox. Since you have already written your message, the subject line should be fairly easy to assemble. You should be able to figure out if you are requesting information, directing a subordinate, sending a status report, or just suggesting a place to have lunch. Knowing this allows you to select a catchy opening word or phrase. Use subject starters like Action:, Request:, FYI:, and Update:. After the starter, summarize your message. You know, BLUF. It’s perfectly acceptable to restate your BLUF line in the subject if that is the best way to entice your reader. If you are having trouble coming up with a concise, informative subject, read your message once more and pick out the theme just like you did back in grade school. Another way to start a message is to give instruction to “not reply” to the message. Many writers use the initialism EOM to denote “End of Message”. This is a good way to encourage others not to reply to every single message that comes across their desktop. I am not suggesting that you never reply to messages. There will be times when it is appropriate and necessary. For instance, if you are corresponding with a remote sender who enlists your help, you may want to reply to inform them that you are on the case. Of course, if you can assist immediately, do so in that reply. Your department may also have certain protocols regarding emails and replies to emails. Always follow these guidelines. One last point about subject lines: Never use the Subject line as a replacement for your message. It is confusing to readers when there is no message to an email. It is like opening an email that supposedly has an attachment, only to find that it is missing. The purpose of the subject line is to inform and entice the reader to open your email and read your message, so make sure there is a message. I do realize that not all email is designed to carry a message. There will be occasions where the message can be placed in the Subject line. A good example would be, “Fire out of control in the break room.” This type of email serves only as an alert. There is no real body to the message. All that is necessary is to inform recipients of the danger. In this case, just send the subject-only email, so when it shows up in the email alert window in the lower right, users can quickly read and react.

Address for Success Who is my audience? Do they really need this message? Address recipients properly. To: need to know/act Cc: FYI Bcc: secret audience Send Less to Get Less! Here is that same question again? Who is my audience? You’ve written a clear, concise message relative to your potential recipients. Now you need to address it to that audience. Add the people you intend to read your message then ask more questions. Have I included everyone that needs this information? Do all of these folks need the same information? Or should I customize my message for different audiences? Is there anyone who would find this message a waste of their time? Am I filling their Inbox with my priorities? Could this message get forwarded by some of the people in the address list? Do I need to remove them and write them a separate email? Make sure that you use the Address lines appropriately. If the recipient is required to read or act on the message, they belong in the To line. If the recipient is receiving this message as an FYI put them in the Cc line. (or maybe not at all) If the recipient should remain anonymous use the Bcc line. This is also a very good way to help avoid Reply To All responses. If they see that they are the only one in the To line, they will more likely hit Reply, instead of Reply To All. The main idea here is to plan for economy of email. You want to send less to get less.

Send Less to Get Less 60% return rate – send 5, get 3 back Reduce email time by 20% in 3 weeks! Same 3 questions: Is it appropriate? Is it needed? Who is my audience?

Final Stretch BLUF to inform immediately Use bullets to grab attention Write with conciseness to keep interest Write with clarity to increase understanding Activate your Subject line to prepare the reader Send Less to Get Less!