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Carson Tate

December 2013 - TD Magazine

Regular meetings with your employees should be made a priority.

Make SPACE for Coaching

Freedom From Business as Usual E-mail Can Send Sales Soaring or Delete OpportunitiesE-mail is great as a sales tool.E-mail isn’t great as a sales tool.The e-mailer determines whether e-mail is or isn’t effective. E-mail can be a sales person’s friend or foe – depending on how it is used.  To maximize sales results with e-mail, remember to:Say thank you.State what you need.Develop an e-follow-up system.When I worked outside sales for a drug company, we sales people always fought for prospect attention.  To differentiate myself from competitors I went back to a sales basic – say thank you.  After each sales call, I pulled out my stationery for a quick thank-you note.  I mailed it the same day.Today, use e-mail and your stationery to say thanks.  Many of you have a Blackberry; use it to your advantage.jim Golds at File Vault says, “I recently closed an account with a ‘triple-barrel post-call thank you.’”  Sent the e-mail and mailed the card before leaving the building so the client had a touch within minutes and another in the mail the next day.  When I phoned the day after that to set a meeting to review my proposal, it was the third touch within three days.”One of my bank clients is a power e-mail user, averaging more than 250 daily messages.  Each e-mail competes for consideration.  If you want her attention, the e-mail must have a clear title.  Subject lines that contain “re:re:fwd,” say “Old news here.”  Blank subject lines seem evasive and unhelpful.Make e-mail subject lines to-the-point.  For example, “Thank You – Proposal Attached,” or, “Confirmed Meeting 4/18.”To improve your communication more, say what you need in the first sentence of the e-mail.  Example: “The revised price schedule we discussed Thursday is attached and I can provide the 15 percent sales rate on orders before April 20.”An attorney client of mine mastered these first two steps of e-mail as a sales tool.  Follow-up was the next hurdle.  He sent e-mails and tried to remember if he ever heard back from the prospect. Our minds are not effective to-do lists.  So we devised an automated tracking system for outstanding e-mailed items.  Outlook users can write custom rules.  We wrote a rule called “Waiting For.”  Each time he sends a prospect e-mail that needs a response, he “cc’s” himself and a copy of the message automatically hits his “Waiting For” folder.  (Want the “Waiting For” instructions?  E-mail me.)Once a week he checks this “Waiting For” folder for outstanding items.  Why does he set aside one time a week?  Well, I’m out of column space this week and I’ll discuss that in my next column. If you'd like more, please consider attending ASTD 2012 where you can hear Jeannie Sullivan & Carson Tate at their session in Denver.

ICE 2012 Sales Enablement Zone Blog Series 4-5

Tired of dreading your inbox? TAME your inbox once and for all (Part 1)By Jeannie Sullivan & Carson TateEmail volume is growing at a rate of 66% per year. (E-Policy Institute)The average US worker spends 41% of their work day in their inbox (Rescue Time).It is no wonder we dread our inbox. The information never stops flowing in and we spend almost half of our day dealing with it. Email interruptions can make you less productive, effective and creative.It is time to retake control, halt the incessant interruption assault and TAME your inbox once and for all.T Take back control!At some point in time, we all assumed that we must start our day with email. WRONG! You do not have to start your day in your inbox. What would happen if you started your day on your highest value task? For example, prepare a proposal for a new client, draft your e-newsletter, call your top client and thank them. What would happen to your productivity, effectiveness and sense of control? I am giving you permission (in case you feel like you need permission which you do not) to stop starting your day with email.Many of our corporate climates dictate that you spend (read live) your day in your email inbox. Take back control. Check email at regular intervals morning, after lunch, mid-afternoon and then get out of email. Checking email every five minutes is a productivity drain and an ineffective use of your most valuable commodity time.Remember, we teach people how to treat us. So take back control of your inbox and establish some new email protocols and habits.A Act on your email messagesA colleague of mine, Barbara Hemphill, defines clutter as postponed decisions. All of the emails lurking in your inbox are clutter. They are clutter because we have not decided what to do with them.We read our emails while driving (scary!), walking, waiting in line and then come back to our offices and re-read them.Stop wasting your precious time and act on an email.Read it, decide what you need to do with it and act on it.If it is a task that requires more than a couple of minutes to complete, move it to your task list.If you do not want to move the email to the task list, open it, highlight the subject line and change the subject line to state your next action step.If it is a task that needs to be completed on a specific day and time, move it to your calendar.Heed the advice of Nike and Just Do It! Act on your email messages.M Make the subject line of your emails specificI dont know about you, but I dont know what re:re and fwd:fwd mean. Have you ever received one of these emails? It is frustrating isnt it. You do not know what the email is about, what you need to do and why you are receiving the email.Make the subject line of your emails specific. Here are a few suggestions:Change the subject line to reflect the current topic or subject of the email. The subject line of the email should tell me the subject or topic of the email that I am about to read.Use standard subject lines:No Action RequiredAction Required DateFYI then specifically tell the recipient EXACTLY what you want them to knowReply by DateNRN No Reply NeededEOM End of MessageE Effectively Use Outlooks ToolsOutlook can be a productivity powerhouse when properly leveraged. Outlook enables you to write rules to send messages to specific folders, color code incoming messages and create automatic tracking systems.Do you want to be able to quickly identify time sensitive messages color code them by sender or subject. Do you want to prevent all of your Amazon receipts from crowding your inbox? Write a rule and automatically send all Amazon receipts to your Amazon receipt folder.Effectively use Outlooks tools and save hours of productive time every day.Your time is your most valuable commodity. 41% of your day spent processing emails is probably NOT the best use of your time. It is time to retake control, halt the incessant interruption assault and TAME your inbox once and for all. We hope you will download the TAME Your Inbox Quick Reference Guide and take action today.If you'd like more, please consider attending ASTD 2013

Carson Tate

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