If so, you’re not alone. It’s a problem almost every entrepreneur we’ve worked with has encountered. Although we try to respond to every email we receive within a few hours, this isn’t always possible for everyone, including us, at times (although if you work with Lisa, you know that she answers everything really quickly).
Don’t not respond. It is NOT acceptable to not respond. Think of email as if you are having a real conversation with someone (because you are!). You wouldn’t end the conversation without saying “thank you” or “have a great day,” and you probably wouldn’t consider outright ignoring someone who has engaged with you – use the same courtesies when you email.
Make a good impression. How does it make you feel when someone takes forever to reply to you, or even worse, doesn’t reply at all? You probably start to judge them, so they are most likely going to judge you on your responses as well. It’s easy to make a good impression – be polite and do it with a grateful spirit.
Auto-respond. In the case that you know you won’t be able to reply to your messages in a timely manner (because you are at a yoga retreat, in all day meetings, or any other reason you need not justify), craft an auto-response that’s brief, friendly, and to the point. The receiving party should understand why you’re sending an auto-response, when to expect to hear back from you, and how to reach someone alternatively.
The key to this working successfully to help you build and maintain your professional relationships and business, is that you actually do follow through and reply as soon as you can.
Kindly note: We don’t like to refer to ourselves as “experts”, but we do take great pride in sharing our business advice, distilled down from our extensive research and (often) mind-blowingly frustrating experiences we’ve endured and learned from. We try our best to create a clear and humble approach to good business tactics that you and your teams can understand and turn into effective and productive revenue streams. We are actual, real people and look forward to supporting you in any way we can, whether it’s on the topic of this post, or other business development and marketing communications you may be involved in, or considering. We are proud of the services we provide; if you don’t see what you’re looking for, just ask us – we also take pride in being super responsive!
