10 steps to a killer business email

From: The Monstress
To: Blog readers
Subject: How to write a killer business email – for your information and action

Hi all,

I suggest you read the ten tips for writing a killer email (outlined below) and use them in all future emails.

These steps will help you write emails that recipients will:
• actually read
• understand
• act on.

1. WHY
Before you type anything into a new message, ask yourself: ‘why am I writing this?’ and ‘what do I want the result of this message to be?’

If you can’t answer these two questions, rethink sending your message.

2. ADRESSING
Mass mailing? Don’t publicise all the email addresses by putting them in the ‘To’ field. Use the ‘Bcc’ field or, better still, do a mail merge in Word.

3. SUBJECT
Recipients scan the subject to decide whether to open, forward, file or trash a message. So, write a great subject line.

‘Hi’, ‘FYI’ or ‘Forgot to mention…’ are rubbish.

Summarise the main point or highlight the important info: ‘Today’s team meeting moved to conference room 3’.

If you’re saying or asking only one thing in your email, use just the subject line.

4. WHAT
There are three main types of business email:
• providing information
• asking for information
• asking for action.

Make it clear to your reader straight up which type of email yours is. Skip long introductions, background, compliments and details.

Your first sentence can usually say:
• what the email is about
• what you need them to do
• when you need them to do it by.

(I generally assume that no one will ever read more than the first two sentences of anything I write – but thanks for proving me wrong!)

If they don’t need to take action, say that! ‘No reply necessary.’ It’ll be music to their ears.

5. HOW
Email is much less formal than a letter. If you’re writing to someone you don’t know, starting with ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’ is fine.

Use simple English and be conversational:
• why would you write ‘at this point in time’ when you mean ‘now’?
• don’t use jargon or corporate buzzwords – ‘going forward’, ‘low hanging fruit’ and ‘hit the ground running’ grate
• it’s fine to use contractions like ‘can’t’ and ‘she’d’.

On the other hand, don’t use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laughs out loud). The reader might not know the meanings. The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-).

6. PERSONALISE
Email can be a bit chilly. Personalise email – put in a quick comment about their website, product or work. Address the person by name, sign with your own name and a friendly comment like ‘Have a brilliant day!’

7. THE LOOK
Use a helpful font – four-point neon yellow Anarchy mono doesn’t work.

Don’t write in capitals – IT’S LIKE SHOUTING.

Use bullet points and numbered lists. Keep paragraphs short.

Emphasise keywords (bold or italic) without overdoing it.

8. DON’T
First, the big ones:
• don’t email confidential info. It’s too easy for people to forward it to others (by accident or design). Think: would you really want those files or comments to appear on A Current Affair?
• don’t tackle sensitive issues via email alone – there’s too much room for misinterpretation.

Now, the annoying ones:
• don’t just write ‘See email history below’ and expect them to wade through 17 replies – instead:
   • only leave the email history there if it is necessary
   • summarise the main points and conclusions
   • list next steps
• don’t hit ‘reply all’ without a very good reason
• don’t send chain letters or emails that may offend – not everyone shares your sense of humour
• don’t send big attachments unless necessary – they can clog up the recipient’s inbox
• don’t overuse the high priority option – we all know the story of the boy who cried wolf.

9. ENDING
Make it easy for people to get back to you. In your signature, include your contact details plus links to your website, blog, portfolio or product.

10. SENDING
Check your spelling and grammar before you hit ‘send’.

More importantly, read your email through the eyes of the recipient – this will help you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings.

Thanks for looking these ten tips over. I hope they are helpful in your work!

Have a brilliant day!

Cheers,
The Monstress

Image: Francesco Marino

A contrast in the news this week

On one hand…

Fashion house Givenchy caused a stir when it announced a transsexual model is working for the brand.

Lea T, 28, was a backroom assistant at the prestigious house of Givenchy - but now the Brazilian bombshell is appearing in its autumn/winter advertising campaign. She’s also modelling for Italian Vanity Fair and posing naked for French Vogue (see photos here) ‘in the name of all my transsexual friends’.

The leggy brunette, born Leandro Cerezo, said her ongoing transition from man to woman angered her Catholic family and brought her extreme loneliness. But despite the hurdles, she said the ‘war in her head’ was worth fighting.

‘The choice,’ she said in an interview in Vanity Fair, ‘is between being unhappy forever or trying to be happy.’

On the other hand…

A Sudanese court ordered 19 Muslim youths flogged in public for dressing up like women. They were convicted under laws that forbid ‘indecent clothing’. The men were homosexuals attending a same sex marriage. Northern Sudan is governed by Islamic law, which forbids homosexuality.

The punishment of 30 lashes was carried out immediately after the sentencing while hundreds of people looked on. The youths must also pay fines ranging between 500 and 1,000 Sudanese pounds (about AUD$230 to AUD$460).

Need I say more?

5 weird but good words used in sentences

1. Mesonoxian – to do with midnight
It had been a long time since Rachel had enjoyed a mesonoxian feast but the Diazapam went down a treat – almost like lollies.

2. Pogonotrophy – beard-growing
When Robert tried pogonotrophy, he felt almost manly, but Rachel summoned up a convenient funeral – he shaved and the feeling evaporated.

3. Erinaceous - like a hedgehog
Ever since Rachel discovered Robert’s love of Victoria’s Secret, she’s been a bit erinaceous.

4. Nudiustertian – the day before yesterday
Nudiustertian, Robert realised he was really a woman.

5. Abacinate - to blind by holding a red-hot metal plate before someone’s eyes.
When Rachel found Robert had worn her brand new Blahniks, she wanted to abacinate him.

Frankly, I don't think they'll take off. But go ahead and use them in the tea room. Let me know how you go.

The long tail

Why are people suddenly travelling to 'off the beaten track' destinations like the monasteries of Serbia and the unseen tribes of north east India?

It’s all because of the ‘long tail’. (Swoosh, swish, slap.)

The long tail is about statistics. (Stay with me here.) The tail theory works on the basis that more people are in the ‘tail’ of a probability distribution than you’d see under a normal distribution (a bell curve).

So, in retail, the long tail describes the niche strategy of selling lots of unique items in relatively small quantities (usually as well as selling fewer popular items in large quantities). Examples include Amazon and Netflix. (Only two people in the history of the world have bought The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War - Volume XV - Statistics - Part 2 - Medical and Casualty Statistics in hardcover and no one has bought the movie.*)

The total number of sales of this large number of ‘non-hit items’, is called the long tail.

It’s not just the book and movie markets that have been slapped, swished and swooshed by the long tail. Wired invites us to consider the changing shape of travel.

Low-cost carriers, online travel information and social-media driven word of mouth have democratised the industry. These things together take tourists beyond the usual top 10 destinations.

You see more diversity and demand spreads over more products. In the case of travel, this is driven by:
• lowered flight costs = more travel, more risk-taking
• lower search costs = broader vistas, more willingness to go off the beaten track
• better word-of-mouth tools = ‘bottoms-up hits’
• peer ratings, reviews reinforce authentic success and punish ‘manufactured experience’.

Did all this happen? It did.

Top 10 destinations have decreased in popularity and there’s a growing spread of travellers visiting the coffee plantations of Columbia and the ancient heritage of Jordan.

And now you know why.

Swoosh.

*Just kidding - about the movie, that is.

Match the stars with their fav foods

Here's a list of celebs and a list of foods. Which stars go with which foods?

Nicole Kidman	Chinese food
Justin Bieber	Entirely indifferent to food - don’t really care
Katy Perry	Fried peanut butter, banana, and mayonnaise sandwiches
Queen Elizabeth II	Grapes and smoked haddock
Barack Obama	Grilled shrimp with mangoes and chilli
Lee Child	His wife’s cooking
Madonna	Mushrooms
Elvis	Pasta
Serena Williams	Spaghetti
Vidal Sassoon	Sugar
Buffalo Bob Smith	Sweet potato pie

                                                                                                              

Mushrooms
Katy Perry says: ‘I love mushrooms. I could eat a ton of them. I really love truffles but I hardly ever get them. Mushrooms in general though are so healthy and good for you. I can’t get enough.’

Grilled shrimp with mangoes and chilli
‘A fresh seafood platter with Sydney rock oysters, tiger prawns, mud-crab and lobster.’ Don’t hold back on the spice or the mangos, says Nicole.

Grapes and smoked haddock
As a child, Lizzie loved ‘crisp chocolate-coated peppermint creams’, barley sugar sweets and other treats (which were kept in a big glass jar on a side table in the living room). These days, for breaky she has tea and wheat toast with some light marmalade. But her fav? From among other foods, she is said to be especially partial to grapes and to smoked haddock.

Sweet potato pie
In October 2008, the Prez gave a speech that contained the word ‘pie’ 15 times (13 sweet potato, one coconut cream, one lemon meringue). Thanks, Barack.

Entirely indifferent to food
Lee Child says he doesn't really care what, when or if he eats. His favourite drink is black coffee, no sugar. Second would be champagne. But food isn't important.

Sugar
Madonna loves ‘anything with sugar in it'.

Fried peanut butter, banana, and mayonnaise sandwiches
Elvis. No wonder he got so chunky! (Btw, gross!)

Chinese food
Serena Williams is used to eating up and spitting out her opponents on the tennis court, but her favourite meal off the court is Chinese food.

His wife’s cooking
Vidal Sassoon loves his wife Ronnie’s cooking and says she ‘cooks in 21 tongues’. (Sounds kinky.)

Pasta
Who the hell is Buffalo Bob Smith? His real name is Robert Emil Schmidt and he created the (allegedly) famous TV puppet, Howdy Doody. (Guess I'm not that old.)

Spaghetti
Any self-respecting Bieber fan knows his fav foods is spag…wait? How can you be a Bieber fan and have self-respect?

How did you go?

Image: Carlos Porto

The Salvador Dali guide to cooking

If Salvador Dali were a chef, I’m sure these would be his top five culinary tips.

1. Give dishes long names
Dali’s full name was Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol, so he was probably missing the succinct gene. Why name a dessert Chocolate cheesecake when you could call it Creamy delicious, dark bittersweet chocolate cheesecake with tart raspberry coulis and ethereal crème Anglaise?

2. Use lots of Spanish ingredients
Dali was born in Spain, so I’ll bet he was a strong supporter of all things Spanish. For a Dali-esque dinner, your shopping list should include the following basics: olive oil, fresh garlic, capsicum, paprika, eggs, potatoes, parsley, tomatoes and tomato sauce, Spanish wine, rosemary, thyme, oregano, saffron, bread and milk.

3. Mix it up
In the interests of surrealism, there is no reason why you can’t use the garlic and saffron in the crème Anglaise and the capsicum and paprika in the raspberry coulis.

4. Consider carefully your cooking garb
I suggest wearing a kimono, every bit of bling in your jewellery box, and a tea towel on your head. Dalí developed a self-styled ‘Arab lineage’, claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors. This heritage, he said, gave him his love of everything gilded and excessive, his passion for luxury and his love of oriental clothes.

Dali also had a flamboyant moustache, so if you’re serious about getting in to the Dali cooking groove, get busy with the whisker cultivation.

For a completely authentic cooking outfit, consider a wetsuit. In 1936, Dalí took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. He delivered his lecture wearing one of those old-fashioned (though probably modern at that time) deep-sea diving suits and a helmet (incidentally, he nearly asphyxiated). He arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds but replicating the whole kit and caboodle might be a little over-the-top and you’ll need your hands free to beat the eggs and melt the watches.

5. Be flexible about cooking times
Dalí’s hallmark ‘soft watches’ suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. The idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to Dalí when he was staring at a runny piece of Camembert cheese on a hot day. So, cooking times may vary…or even progress indefinitely.

Image: Carlos Porto

20 people who shouldn’t have inflicted themselves on the world

1. Carlton Cole ‘Carl’ Magee – he invented the parking meter in 1935.

2. Justin Bieber.

3. Whoever the hell invented automated phone answering (press one to…) and IVR (where you have to actually talk to a synthesised voice).

4. Justin Bieber.

5. Kyle Sandilands – anyone who says ‘Have you had any other experiences?’ when a teen confesses on live radio she was raped when she was 12 is lower than an amoeba on the evolutionary scale.

6. 14-year-old radio lie detector girl's mum who put her on Kyle’s lie detector show in the first place.

7. Nero – the first named player of the bagpipes. While he was fiddling, he could have chucked them in with the rest of the Roman bonfire and we could have been rid of their agonised whines forever.
8. Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO who, after the Gulf oil spill, said he had been made a villain ‘for doing the right thing.’ Yeah, right.

9. Dean Robbins – the idiot who came up with the name Vegemite iSnack2.0. Other entries suggested were Ruddymite, Wow Chow and 2ritemite. It’s official, we are a nation of twits.

10. Lindsay Lohan – it’s hard to recall that she is famous for being anything other than a drugged up brat. Ditto Britney, Paris and Nicole Ritchie. Come to think of it, have Paris and Nicole ever done anything other than that?

11. The person who came up with electronic article surveillance – half the time when the annoying alarm sounds at the store exit, even the security guard looks bored. (Ditto car alarms.)

12. Pauline ‘I’m not racist’ Hanson.

13. The person who created Sections 1011-1016 of the Corporations Act – the act that means every time you make an investment, update your insurance or even hire/purchase a washing machine, you get reams of paper in the form of a product disclosure statement. Nobody ever actually reads these and they’re generally on glossy paper that doesn’t burn too well or soak up budgie droppings.

14. Michael Aldrich, who invented teleshopping (aka infomercials) in 1979 in England. I wonder if he envisaged that the average household would wind up with a cardio cruiser, an ab-revolutionizer, three gut-busters, two thigh-trainers and a partridge in a pear tree gathering dust under its spare bed.

15. Mark Jamieson – Tassie professional cyclist busted for child sex offenses.

16. The guy (had to be a guy) who invented Japanese love pillows, a subset of dakimakura (literally ‘hugging pillow’). They have anime pictures of prepubescent girls on them. Grown men ‘date’ them. This is wrong on so many levels.

17. Guy Sebastian – self-confessed cheesy little chubber. His music sucks the very light out of my day and after looking at him I feel like washing my eyes out with Ajax Professional.

18. Mel Gibson – has he lost the plot or what?

19. Justin Bieber.

20. Justin Bieber.