Email A to Z: Email Made Easy

Articulate and respectful emails are relationship builders. To construct such emails, use your Grammar-Hammer.

No one is too busy to take the time to use correct grammar. Yesterday, I received an email that read, “do u have time to meet this pm”.

Immediately, I felt that the sender was not paying proper attention to our relationship, was lazy, and felt he had much more important things to do than to communicate with me.

No matter how you look at it, emails with poor grammar are poor personal branding. Neglect of grammar erodes relationships. Emails with poor grammar are inappropriate responses. They make the writer look stupid and frustrate the reader.

None of us want our colleagues and clients to think of us as stupid or careless. Careless grammar implies a careless person. I’ve noticed that email replies with poor grammar rarely respond thoughtfully to my original missive. Rather, I then need to try again to communicate with the sender, which wastes my time and weakens our relationship.

When we construct emails without our Grammar-Hammer, we put ourselves in the Grammar-Slammer. We shackle our own credibility and relevance in others’ eyes.

A few basic Grammar-Hammer pointers to boost your brand:

1. Slow down.
2. Use capital letters at the beginning of each sentence.
3. Capitalize proper nouns (names of people, companies and places, - along with months and days of the week)
4. Always end each statement with a period.
5. Always end each question with a question mark.
6. Spell correctly.
7. Proofread your email before you address and send it.

By the way, “Do you have time to meet this afternoon?”

Posted by Jennifer Gordon, Consultant at EmailAtoZ.com (contact her at Jennifer@EmailAtoZ.com to bring her expertise to your company.)