Responding to emails can be a pain in the neck, especially when they prevent you from getting any of your work done. Avoiding emails is not an effective way to solve the problem because responding to emails will allow you to build connections with your potential customers. However, there are some ways to respond to emails faster so that you have more time to do your own work. Here are 5 ways to do that.
- Have a signature that automatically appears at the bottom at the bottom of all of your emails. Are you getting tired of writing sincerely and your name for hundreds of emails? I was getting tired of doing the same thing. I decided to find a way to automate that part of my email. I did some searching on Google and found out how to have an automated signature on the Mac. Now, this automated signature saves me more time.
- Choose the right emails to respond to. Some emails are more important than others. As you get more emails, you will not be able to respond to them all. On some days, I read over 100 emails, but I do not respond to all 100 of those emails. That is because some of them have the no-reply, but if I responded to 100 emails every day, I would not be able to write any of these blog posts. When responding to emails, respond to the most important emails first and work your way down.
- Give yourself a daily rate. For the most part, I respond to 3-5 emails every day and send out 2-4 emails every day (not including the blog posts). When I go above the daily rate, I know that I am losing valuable time to write blog posts, write my book, or work on a training course. For the most part, I avoid going above this daily rate, but as the amount of time I have increases (summer), and I am getting more emails, I will increase these rates. Instead of guessing how many emails you will send and respond to in a given day, you have a standard.
- Look for patterns. While sending out HARO queries for my book Lead The Stampede (which will be out this summer), I noticed a pattern in how I responded to emails. Instead of writing the same thing 50 times, I only wrote it once. Then, I simply copied and pasted what I would have typed into the 49 other emails with small changes (name of the person, the story, etc).
- Hire an assistant. When you start to make it big time, you should hire an assistant to respond to your emails for you. Not only will this make you look more professional, but you will also have more time to do your work. The assistant can tell you about important emails you got for the day so you can respond to the right ones instead of reading all of the individual emails that appear in your inbox.
Those are the five ways to respond to emails quicker. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips that you would like to mention? Please share your thoughts and tips below.
I set a time to answer email. The emails that are coming from guests who want to make a reservation, I answer right away, the others that want information, I respond at later time during the day or evening.
My HARO submissions, I do directly from my iPhone and I do that either very early in the morning ( this morning it was 2:30 am or as soon as I wake up 5-7am). I have that time completely undisturbed so I can gather my thoughts and write off the fly sort of speaking!!
I also have a virtual assistant and a student apprentice who I delegate work to. I feel that I’m being creative and working and playing at my business 24 hours a day!! Not a bad thing when what you love to do is also a passion.
Running and developing Businesses for me has been my passion since 1982.
Having two people to help you out with emails is a big advantage. Waking up early also gives you a big advantage. You are doing a nice job.