Email template for respectfully declining unsolicited requests to meet from vendors
In my career I have came across two types of vendors. Type A: Vendors who were recommendations from friends, family, co-workers and executives or they obtained your contacts from conference meet ups or well established public companies looking to add your company to their partner list. Type B: everyone else.
Its usually best just to ignore type B, as majority of these emails are from bulk account and your response is no different then responding to spam. For type A however, its best to respond politely, as you may run into them in future. Below is the email template taken from Rajiv Pant.
Eliminating backlog of tasks or emails.
Even the most religious inbox zero users experience a backlog. Here are a few tricks to help eliminate the backlog:
- Offline or Off-hours: Concentration is the key to success. Go through the backlog when you are offline or off-hours when you are less distracted. Another trick is to complete all responses as drafts and send them together once you are done to reduce distractions from replies.
- Sort/View by conversation: Viewing a entire conversation together can help you quickly see the entire picture. Same benefits can be applied when deleting or archiving.
- Attack by reverse chronological order: Older emails/conversations tend to have less movements.
- Take a break or many breaks: Batching process will keep you motivated and progress will build the momentum.
Don’t waste time waiting.
From waiting in line to riding the elevator, and from office meetings to doctors appointments, it’s impossible to avoid waiting for someone or something or other variations of delays. But you don’t need to twiddle your thumbs while waiting.
Equip your self with a smart phone or a tablet, and use this time to be productive. Its important to remember that anything in moderation is healthy. YES, this too can become an addiction. So ONLY do this at the time when human interaction is imposable. To maintain a healthy balance, along side work related tasks mix up personal and family related tasks in these windows as well.
Avoid multiple requests with one reply.
If you want things to get done, say so and say it very clearly. There’s nothing more frustrating as a reader than getting copied on an e-mail and finding out three weeks later that someone expected them to pick up the project and run with it.
When requesting from multiple recipients in one email, break them out as separate emails clearly targeted for one and ONLY ONE recipient. Leave the list of recipients intact to avoid misunderstanding and to provide transparency. You can type it together (to save time), but send each portion separately. This allows recipients to better focus on the task that is appropriate for them, rather then assuming its the other recipient’s responsibility.
When sending an email to identify multiple individuals and a personalized email to each recipient is not possible or appropriate. Summarize action items for each individual, and either use bold or italicize to highlight the individual’s name for quick and clear recognition.
One minute rule for email.
Immediate response or an acknowledgement accompanied with a followup is one of the most powerful and influential arrow in managers quiver when used persistently. Everyone appreciates instant response, even if it’s just to know the delay to their request.
Sneaky delivered and read confirmations
Delivery conformation for postal service makes sense, but in emails not so much. Although this feature is abused by many project mangers, in this features defense, it was designed to be used by senders to check if their messages were caught in a spam filters. Read responses on the other hand goes a little too far, specially as its a recording of a reader’s behavior without reader’s permission.
Filter what you write for public scrutiny
While this advice is beyond obvious, its most often over looked. When expressing or communicating through writing, we often forget, writing leaves a trail. While we would like to believe otherwise, written trails are publicly shared more often then their composers think.
Emails, instant messages, social statuses, comments and SMSs are not the place for confidential, serious or confrontational issues. Have the difficult, emotional and expressive conversations in-person rather then in writing.
Similar to spelling and grammar checks, review what you write from the perspective of others. Below are some generic perspectives to further illustrate this point:
- Current / past / future boss or employer: Be ready for your boss to forward your writing to rest of the organization to either promote you or to get you fired. Make sure, your writing is in compliance with your bosses expectation of your communication.
- Spouse, kids, and family: Be ethical and don’t go against your personal beliefs.
- Friends / future opponent: Do not trade confidential information. Be ready for your writing to be used against you.
- Opponent / future friends: Do not go beyond the point of no return. Give people the benefit of the doubt and a way out.
- Complete strangers: Have enough context to avoid dependencies in between conversations and to eliminate any misunderstanding in your point of view. While putting enough context, make sure to not over do it, and annoy people who were already aware of the context.
