I’ve gone over this before but I was talking to a friend the other day who I really respect and something came out of our conversation that stuck with me. In the same conversation he said two things. Something to the effect, so and so never returns my emails. It’s hard to work with them because they never get back to me. At the same time he said, “I’m bad about reading all my emails. I get so many I don’t have time to read them all” I know this person WANTS to read and respond to all the emails and truly doesn’t have time to respond because he works so hard but he also is pointing out the results of poor email response. Bad business.
I realize all of our emails are full of junk and spam but amongst those emails are genuine emails that require timely response and offer an opportunity to make some money. Sure they might not immediately lead to sales or revenue but every friend you make, every positive response you leave with someone, the better your chance of connecting later. Most people assume a no response is the same as “not interested”. I personally think a “not interested” is a nice gesture that is overlooked. People truly appreciate a timely response because of the problems above and a no is better that no response at all. Lack of response often makes people feel belittled or non important even if it’s not true and you simply forgot. Whether it be time management or establishing certain emails for certain priorities, bad communication takes money out of your pocket in the long run.
In many cases I’m no better. Since this blog has gone up, my email has gone up tremendously and I’ve had to add a little time to each evening try to sort them out. Timely response and “that can wait”. Unfortunately the “that can wait” pile gets pushed out too far. “That can wait” doesn’t mean don’t write back. My friend means well and has built a great business by being well liked, I can only imagine what he could do if he got back to all his emails and the people he emailed responded in a timely manner.