Manage Your Email. Grow Your Sales.

Do you turn your computer on each morning only to find a mountain of unread emails that need your attention?

Email overload is an epidemic in the workplace. Most salespeople that we poll tell us that they spend up to 40% of their day just managing email correspondence between clients and internal partners. If this sounds about right for you as well, imagine the number of sales you’re missing out on!

It’s time to realign your mindset. Email does not close business for you. You close sales based on your personal relationships. Stop working so hard behind your computer and go meet customers in person, or pick up the phone and call them.

In order to increase productivity (and sales) you must learn to manage your email inbox. <– Click To Tweet

Here are 5 tips for staying on top of your emails:

1. Keep It Simple

Send fewer emails out and you will receive fewer emails coming in. Yes, it’s that simple.

2. Get to The Point

Write shorter messages that are very specific and have a clear call to action. Unless absolutely necessary, make sure your email does not require scrolling.

3. Email Only During Designated Times

Answer emails only at specific times of the day. Turn off or close your inbox during prime selling time, and only respond to messages during your set designated periods. You will find many issues will resolve themselves during the day, leaving you with less to handle directly. Don’t worry about missing sales, in my many years of selling I have never seen a company lose a sale because the sales rep waited a few hours to return an email.

4. The Newer, The Better

Read your newest messages first. This is especially helpful on email threads. If you read the newest ones first, you will see whether messages have be responded to by others, reducing the number of messages that you must handle yourself.

5. What’s The Subject?

Create strong, descriptive subject lines. Weak subject lines confuse people and make emails more difficult to locate in the future. Use one word categories such as “request” or “confirmation” along with any relevant information such as times, dates and locations. You’ll add context and clarity for yourself and the recipient.

Finally, remember to stop, think and then send. You want to make sure that what you are sending is timely, topical and targeted. The last thing you want to be accused of is pushing out a lot of your own “email junk” that other people have to spend time managing!

Want more tips and strategies to help your sales team create success? Get a copy of my new book, Nonstop Sales Boom.