This is the second installment in the three-part series “Stop the Madness: Manage Email to Grow Your Business”
Scenario
It’s 4 in the afternoon. You’re sitting at your desk for what seems like the 23rd hour in a row. You haven’t taken a lunch in three days. You’ve already been through your complete iTunes library — twice. And you’ve been tapping your toes for exercise.
And, yet, the email continues to pour in mercilessly. Another message about the minutiae of your business. Vital to the customer; the 32nd time you’ve addressed it today.
flickr user Jason Michael
But there’s always the catch: Those email messages are competing with a project proposal promised to a potential customer. How do you prioritize?
Are you pitting the customer satisfaction delivered through effective email management against opportunities to grow your business?
In yesterday’s post we discussed the importance of extending your brand through your email.
Now we’re going to talk about loosening the reins and letting go.
From the CEO, to the manager to the small business owner, there comes a point along the winding road of business when the many tasks associated with developing success will create a glass ceiling against which growth will headbutt. At the point when you see opportunities littering the ground like sparklers at a Fourth of July party, you know it’s time to do one of two things (both, if you’ve already done the first):
- Get some help
- Trust that help
At this point you might be saying two things to yourself. First, “Why are these things relevant to me?” And second, “How is this possibly related to email?”
Well, I’ve addressed the former above. And I’m going to address the latter now.
Email is especially good at living up to the whole “bane of my existence” label. And that’s why your end goal should be to offload as much of the email minutiae as possible. You can push it either to people or systems — the ideal solution lies somewhere in the middle.
- Virtual (or physical) assistant: Yes, this is an added expense. Yes, there’s a time commitment to get this person up to speed. Yes, the benefits you will reap will, most likely, far outweigh the financial obligation.For instance, email management will become one of this person’s most visible duties.
- Enhanced email management: If you’re still running your heavily trafficked email inboxes with a jerry-rigged collection of Outlook and Gmail rules (red flag for this, yellow flag for that) you’re stepping on your own productivity toes. Get your self a system that centralizes that operation and gives you cool tools, like, say, templates.
The pot at the end of the rainbow formed by these two bullet points is freedom to grow your business. And that’s built on trust. Here’s what I mean:
1. The ball leaves your court: Once you’ve ceded the bulk of your email management to a virtual (or physical) assistant, you’re going to discover time you thought you’d never see again. It was hiding under another order receipt confirmation. With that time, you’ll be permitted to explore the development of your business in ways you might never have known. Because we simply trust that gas is being delivered to the engine, we rightfully presume that the car will move when we push the pedal.
2. Cool tools facilitate trust building: Giving up blanket control over every email happens in stages. Ease that transition by using tools that keep you connected at your comfort level. Internal notes that you can drop alongside a message allow you to share wisdom at a moment’s notice. Using templates (canned responses) means that you can dictate the messages being sent from your business. And, as an added bonus, find yourself an analytics package that will give you deep insight into how your email system is running from a centralized location.
3. Drop in when it’s relevant: Once you give away the bulk of your messaging duties, you’ll increase the potency of your presence when you are involved. If you ever wanted to be arock star, this is your chance.
This final point is very important, which you’re going to read more about tomorrow in part three of this series, “Stop the Madness: Manage Email to Grow Your Business”.
