Make Sure It’s Letter Perfect Before You Let ‘Er Fly
If you’re in a sales slump, it may not be the product, prices, or the people that are the problem; it may be the paragraphing, punch lines, and parallelism—or lack thereof—in your emails or letters to customers.
Before hitting that email "Send" key to introduce yourself to a new client or to point out the benefits of a new service to an inactive account, consider these complaints from customers about the communication they receive from sales professionals:
• “Emails that start out with meaningless chit-chat rather than get to the point”
• “Long paragraphs that ramble on and on so that I have to dig for details that require action”
• “Typos and grammar errors that tell me how careless they are—how do I know they’ll handle my account any better?”
• “Vague subject lines”
• “Arrogant or blunt tone—they forget that I’m the customer”
To make sure that your writing doesn’t stand in the way of a good contact—and contract—keep these guidelines in mind when you write to your customers:
1) Summarize your message and action up front: Why are you writing? Do you have a new service or product? If so, what are the benefits? What problems can it solve? Do you want to meet with them? Do you want to invite them to lunch or a tradeshow event? When? Do you want them to see a demonstration? Say so. Don’t stammer and stutter in getting to the point.
2) Make the details easily accessible with an easy-to-skim layout: Use informative headings and white space. Pay attention to paragraphing. Use short paragraphs of no more than 7-10 lines maximum. Shorter is better. But don’t go to the other extreme with an email of one-sentence paragraphs—that will look like your grocery list.
3) Run the spellchecker and check the grammar. Bad grammar is like bad breath—even your best friends won’t tell you. If you fear you don’t understand grammar well enough to write an error-free document, have a trusted colleague proofread your important documents before they leave your screen. Better to be embarrassed in front of a friend than to lose a customer.
4) Allow yourself a cool-off period. Overnight is best; a couple of hours will do. What sounds “matter of fact” to you may sound offensive, blunt, in-your-face to the reader. And the best way to discover how you “come across” in writing is to ask someone else to read it and provide feedback. Many a customer relationship has been saved by plopping an email into the “Draft” folder for a few hours while the sales professional cools down and asks for a tone check.
5) Add an informative, actionable subject line. Think newspaper headlines. You don’t read a Washington Post headline that says “Weather.” Instead, you read “Unexpected Snow Storm Paralyzes the Capital.” Your clients should be able to skim their in-box, find your email, be tempted to open it and act immediately. Help them.
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