| Today's business person will spend hours at the tailor | | | | go for clients you email on a frequent basis; that |
| crafting a fine business suit, hours at a power lunch | | | | way, much of the hard work is done before you |
| sweet talking their next big client and hours pouring | | | | even get started. |
| over proposals or negotiations to try to get every | | | | Avoid being overly casual |
| last penny they can, and then spend 30 seconds | | | | Since most people still view email as a casual way to |
| banging out an important email that will single | | | | communicate, the one problem that costs more |
| handedly cost them a dozen more potential clients. | | | | businesses clients more than any other is the urge to |
| While grammar and spelling aren't everyone's cup of | | | | be overly friendly and casual when communicating |
| tea, knowing basic email rules is an absolute must in | | | | with current clients or future clients. When writing a |
| this day and age where email has taken over as the | | | | professional email, it is always better to sound formal |
| primary form of communication used in today's | | | | and stilted than casual and overly friendly. If you |
| business world. Here are a few simple tips. | | | | have trouble coming up with the proper vocabulary, |
| Let your email utilities work for you | | | | have a dictionary and a thesaurus on your desk that |
| The world of email has come a long way since | | | | you can flip through to come up with better |
| Outlook Express. Today's email clients are quite | | | | verbiage. You can even use websites like or similar |
| sophisticated and come with all sorts of bells and | | | | sites to help increase your vocabulary so you don't |
| whistles that can make sending an email easier. It | | | | sound unprofessional in your correspondence. |
| used to be that email spell checkers were absolutely | | | | If all else fails, ask for help |
| horrible, but they have been vastly improved and | | | | We all know that many competitive office |
| most use the same spell check library as Microsoft | | | | environments will take asking for help as a sign of |
| Word. If your email client is old and doesn't have a | | | | weakness, but if you want to get the process of |
| grammar or spell checker, upgrade now, or simply | | | | writing compelling emails down, there is no shame in |
| type your emails in Microsoft Word and copy/paste. | | | | asking for an occasional email to be proofread by |
| Make sure you check how the format looks before | | | | someone else in the office who has an English |
| you do by sending yourself an email. | | | | background. Most bosses will take asking for help as |
| Use a template | | | | a sign of maturity, and before you know it, you'll be |
| If you have trouble setting up the formal date | | | | a master of the formal email. |
| address/body/signature form in every one of your | | | | Many people think that if you can write a compelling |
| emails, than simply write one and save it as a | | | | letter then you can automatically write a compelling |
| template that you can go back and use again and | | | | email. The truth is that writing a compelling email is a |
| again. You can even have multiple templates ready to | | | | learned skill that takes practice. |