Did you know that emailing is a formal communication skill many do not learn unless they attend college? In this blog post we will unlock the full potential of email and solve any business challenge. Learn to master business communication through email.

How I use soft skills to grow my business. I have noticed more and more people in my inner circle have never attended college or university. And it inspired me to share a little of what I’ve come across that made me think twice about what I understand to be good professional communication. And is it really necessary?

I never learned to keyboard. As a 37 yo millennial who attended mostly private schools growing up, I missed the gap – and was never offered (nor required) to take a keyboarding course. Now why do I bring this up? Because I taught myself. And I’ve fumbled through 3 finger typing most of my adult professional life. And some might criticize me, saying you should learn to type with all your fingers, you would be much more efficient – less prone to errors. Well. I’ve taken typing tests online, and I can type about 58 words per minute with very minimal errors – which by typing standards is very good.

I say all this to highlight the fact that some people who do not know how to effectively and professionally email – prefer to be self taught. And it’s not that they don’t want to know – it’s just never been required of them to know.

So why is it important to learn how to master business communication through email? Well I’ll start by saying this. If you want to grow in your business, effective email communication is a must. Why? Because you can accomplish A LOT in one email.

What can you do with email?

• Set proper expectations with rates/value proposition – aka your boundaries!
• Attach deliverables – whether it’s a PDF or image to help you get more work done and key word here “faster”.
• Schedule meetings and events with clear dates/times, location and how you plan to reach out – this is very important.
• Send clear follow-ups – we’ll get into what a follow up is here in a minute.
• Get a response! – How many people ghost you on text. Well guess what? You can easily send another email with the words RESEND in the subject line. And voila. They get it and they respond.

In my career I’ve learned to communicate across many different industries, in many different jobs. The very first job I had out of college was a position as a site acquisition coordinator – someone who helped build cell phone towers. I was in charge of receiving photos and information from my remote team members (through email) about where the location was that they were scouting for construction. It was my job to help them stay organized by uploading photos and any outstanding information about the possible location.

My first year out of college I landed a more formal fashion career that fit my degree. As a product developer I communicated overseas with factory workers about how to design new products. This is where it gets good. I would literally spend hours late at night emailing people from across the globe. And boy – anyone who has worked in product development knows you must know how to use email to communicate what you want.

Fast forward to now – where I work as a Web Designer out of my studio office in downtown Salem. And I find it fascinating how much the world of communication has changed. Especially when it comes to social media.

Let me ask you this question. When you send a formal proposal to a lead or group of professional business people – do you prefer to use email? social media messenger? Or text?

I asked this question only to say what I’ve noticed and found is that the majority of people who did not attend college preferred social media over email. Even when it came to group scheduling communication.

Now I think social media is great for interacting. I think it’s a very creative space, perfect for first encounters and soft responses. When it comes to seeing if someone is truly interested we need to use email. Especially with the Follow-up.

What is a follow-up? When I researched the definition online I found this: to pursue or to continue maintaining contact with a person.

The key word I want to focus on here is “pursue”. Learning to master business communication through email takes confidence to pursue someone. It takes boldness. I think a lot of folks who have not attended college tend to hold on to some level of subconsciousness, an insecurity about their idea of what they see as “lack”. Lack of what though. Knowledge? Well maybe. Or is it really just a lack of learning a specific skill. The skill of following-up.

Have you ever heard of the One Touch rule? I didn’t either. But then I saw a TikTok that explained how sometimes the rule goes without notice. Truly. 

What is the one touch rule?

The one touch rule was conceived by Ann Gomez, a productivity consultant and the founding president for Toronto-based organization Clear Concept Inc.

While Gomez’s company specializes in business training and ways to improve productivity, her one touch rule can be applied to your home as well.

Her concept is deceivingly simple, right down to its self-explanatory name. The rule is: put away your things immediately and avoid handling them more than once after you’re done with them. That’s it.

Now I myself was taught in early preschool how to put things away after playing with them. This was my original one touch rule. At an early developmental stage I learned this rule. And it is nearly always subconscience for me to put things away in my home to reduce the clutter.

So how is a follow-up like the one touch rule? Well let me say this. Have you ever felt like you’ve been ghosted. Yup. It’s the awkward place that society has deemed socially acceptable in any communication instance. When what I think could be true is that people aren’t ghosting, they just don’t have enough confidence in themselves to follow-up and pursue communication. That’s it. It’s not that they don’t want to have good communication. It’s that they were never taught how to pursue someone via email.

If you don’t know about all the nuances of professional email communication, I encourage you to study. I always believe one should never stop learning. And one thing to remind yourself of is, we folks who did attend college, we had 2 or 4 or 5 years of just studying. Every night. That was what was expected of us. Was to study. And it was difficult – because a lot of times I felt stagnant. But there is beauty in the slower places of your life where you make time for learning.

So friends. How do you master business communication through email? I encourage you to look up examples of pursuing people in email communication. I also encourage you to practice following up in all the core communication areas of your life.