
How to Email Busy People - jaf12duke
http://www.humbledmba.com/how-to-email-busy-people
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pg
Be brief and say what you want.

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SeoxyS
I think this should apply for any kind of email, not just for busy people.
Actually, this applies to most kinds of writing too.

It'll come off much better if it's well-worded but simple and to-the-point.
The more fluffy sentences you add to your email, blog post, internet comment
or product copy, the less professional it starts to sound.

~~~
Psyonic
True, but long copy sales letters have been shown to be effective. It all
depends on the audience.

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vaksel
long copy sales letters tend to be aimed at the bottom 1 percent.

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ErrantX
Here's something I learned: don't be wishy washy. Avoid pandering to the
person you're emailing - it takes up words and sounds pathetic.

I've done this in the past and been the recipient. It just goes bad.

Busy people work on short terse communication, unless they are actively in a
conversation with you. And, in general, they will appreciate the first few
emails you send them being of the same - condensed and full of content.

Never worry about being rude by not saying please every other word.

On another note, I mildly dislike this one:

 _Show your target respect by responding to everything immediately. Just
because the VC you're emailing might not get back to you immediately, doesn't
mean that you have the same privilege. Ron Conway famously makes immediately
email responses a pre-condition for investment._

I'm a busy guy, I get a LOT of work email each day. And yet the people we work
for seem to see slow response as an indication of laziness :S Even though it
takes them a week to respond. Yes, you're important to me, you are potentially
worth a lot of money to me and I really want to keep you happy. But give me a
fracking chance!

So, investors, cut founders a bit of slack :)

~~~
dasil003
I doubt Conway is that stupid to correlate email responsiveness with
entrepreneurial ability, but on the other hand he probably appreciates prompt
responses so he lets people believe that.

Also, there's a pecking order. If you are some unknown founder who really
needs Conway you _should_ respond as fast as humanly possible. On the other
hand, if Conway wants something from Steve Jobs he probably should respond
quickly.

~~~
ErrantX
It was a copy/paste error to include the reference to Conway; from what I have
read about him I very much doubt he expects instant, the next second, replies.
Just reasonably prompt replies.

Which is not really what that point was saying.

I just think that the time between sending and email and a reply is not a good
measure of how important you are to that person. Certainly, if someone replied
within a few seconds of my email to them I'd have to pause and question _why_
they responded so fast. Are they literally desperate for my input? Why? (of
course, usually being desperate for that input is fine, and part of being
excited to have a chance with someone who can really help you - but
occasionally it is a marker of someone dodgy).

Basically: it seems something of a shallow way to judge things.

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puredanger
I've had some success with sending email that has a short and long version (or
if you include the subject itself, 3 levels). Ask your main question in the
first sentence or two, enough to provide context, detail, and what you want.

At the end say "[more detail below if needed]". Draw a line in the email =====
and include more detail below that they can dip into if necessary.

~~~
sangfroid
It's nice to see that a journalism degree is universally applicable.

What you describe is basically an inverse pyramid news article.

Hook Lead Background News

Putting it into 5 sentences is where the art comes in...

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joshu
i get a ton of email from people who want stuff. i try to reply but it's a
barrage.

Some stuff that makes it easier:

\- understand that I am likely to read your email on an iPhone. keep it brief,
don't write an essay.

\- if i reply and say something like "interesting, please send an executive
summary" or "i'd love to see a demo" then do that or offer something
equivalent/better. i do not want to meet you to see your demo, etc etc etc.

\- don't ask for extremely unlikely things and expect a reply

\- it takes me a week or two to get to low-priority stuff. don't email me and
ask for a detailed response within an hour. if you do have a deadline, tell me
so, so i can prioritize appropriately. i'm looking at you, journalists.

\- if you are pitching a startup, don't pitch investors who have clear and
obvious conflicts.

\- if you are offering an advisory role, be up front about offering equity or
something.

that said, i try my best. that guy who had acquisition questions a few months
ago on Ask HN? i got him to someone who got the deal done.

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daniel_levine
As a former founder and now VC, I am thrilled about this post. It's so true.
There is nothing I like more than learning about startups and helping
entrepreneurs and founders. If that wasn't the case I would find some other
line of work.

That's why I'm so sad when people view my inability to get to email in a
timely fashion as a proxy for my interest or the type of person I am.

I just get a ton of email and it's impossible to respond to it all, much less
in a timely fashion. I'll try my best to get to it all, but if for some reason
you haven't heard back in awhile try again and again. If nothing else I'll
notice your determination and provide some feedback.

~~~
chmike
Could You please specify if there are undesirable mails in the ton of mails
you get or if you are just saturated of information ? Suggesting as a solution
to retry sending mail again and again will worsen the problem. You'll get
echos in addition to signal.

Maybe people in your situation should use a pull method (~on demand messages)
using a web service for this purpose. People who want to get in touch with you
see the number of messages in the queue and you may pushback (temporarily
suspending message submission) and provide priority to users. They'll see
their queue position and eventully some feedback once processed tldr, not
understood, contact me @xxx, ...

~~~
daniel_levine
if it's undesirable email that keeps getting sent then I'll either ignore it
forever (unlikely) or more likely respond with a reason I'd rather not get
your email.

If someone repeatedly puts effort into emails to me then I will respond
because they deserve that much for taking the time.

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angdis
I agree this advice does not only apply to emailing VC's. It applies to
emailing ANYONE in the course of doing your job: interns to CEO's.

5 sentences often is too much. If you can get it down to 3 sentences (or even
1 or 2 with judicious subject line) that is better. Just state the situation
and what action you request.

For christ's sake, above all, don't resort to voicemail.

~~~
silverbax88
I agree on the voice mail, although I've come to realize that some people
avoid email and online communication altogether and if you don't call them,
you won't talk to them.

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bricestacey
Many people do this to avoid a papertrail. Sometimes its a good idea to
followup with an email summarizing the conversation when working with these
types.

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jrockway
_Include a Short, Professional Signature My standard signature includes my
name, company, blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn. If I want a phone call or fax or
meeting, it'll include phone number, fax, address._

Four lines is not short. Nobody cares about your blog, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

I sign my emails either "--Jon" or "Regards, Jonathan Rockway" depending on
who the intended recipient is. If you want to read my blog, just type my name
into the nearest search engine.

~~~
tallanvor
This is an example of where the person who came up with a term screwed up.
You're talking about how you sign your email, but the post is talking about
the signature line (or lines), which are not a substitute for signing your
message.

For personal emails I don't use a signature, I just sign it. For business
emails I sign the email and have a signature line with my name, title,
business group, phone numbers, and group website. --This information fits on
one line and is easy to refer to or ignore as per the recipient's needs.

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kenjackson
Question, relating to email etiquette.

Do people send "thanks" emails at the end of a discussion? Sometimes I'll have
a discussion with someone online. Sometimes there's no more to say, and I
always wonder if I should send a "thanks" email. No content, but just
something to close the loop and a minor show of gratitude. But it seems
wasteful. In a verbal converation it's a no-brainer to just say, "thanks for
the time", but in email its not clear if its better to do it or to just end
the convo by not sending another.

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chriscoyier
I just weighed in on this in a slightly different way... how to email people
for the first time: [http://chriscoyier.net/2011/05/04/how-to-write-an-email-
to-s...](http://chriscoyier.net/2011/05/04/how-to-write-an-email-to-someone-
for-the-first-time/)

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danilocampos
As I said in the comments, isn't there a little irony in an essay on concise
communication that opens with _seven_ mostly content-free paragraphs? Much
more effective, I suspect, would be to rely on the title as a hook, launch
right into the prescribed methods, and argue the case in each one.

As it is, how to actually email busy people is an entire window scroll away.

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p4bl0
These are some good advices, and they're not limited to VC. In the academic
domain researchers and professors also have a lots of email to deal with,
maybe not as much but we also have to consider that reading email is even less
their job than a VC (and they have enough freakin administrative tasks that
take on their working time). As a matter of fact, I've _always_ had quicker
(and often better) responses when I wrote email that more or less follow the
rules described in the linked post, for instance when looking for an
internship, or requesting a specific paper.

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SeoxyS
>If you can fit the entire question into the header, just do it and include
#eom at the end, which means 'end of message'. Yes, it feels weird. Do it
anyways.

This I cannot agree with, however. I receive a fair amount of email, and I
just cannot stand when people do this. It annoys me to no end and will most
likely earn an instant-delete to the email.

~~~
mattraibert
Any reason? Or just a pet-peeve?

~~~
SeoxyS
Mostly a pet peeve, I guess. The subject should describe what the message is
about, the body _is_ the message. After opening the message, I automatically
look down to read or skim the body. When there's nothing there, it annoys me
to no end.

Worst case… at least repeat the subject in the body. Also it annoys me to no
end when messages aren't formulated in correct english. (Text-speak is a big
no-no.)

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imcdowell
If it doesn't all fit in the subject line, put what you're asking for in the
first sentence. This makes the purpose of your email immediately clear, and if
the recipient is interested in the details they can read the next four lines.
A busy person will appreciate you getting to the point and not beating around
the bush.

~~~
qjz
The message body should stand on its own, even if it means repeating
information from the subject line. I hate long, rambling subjects only to find
something like "So how about it?" in the message itself. Like the contents,
the subject line should be short, concise and to the point, only _moreso_.
This is especially important if I'm reading the email on my phone, where a
long subject will be mercilessly truncated.

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bane
I've found that sending emails when you know they'll be at work (so they'll
notice it) is tremendously useful -- say 9am, 2pm, 5pm. People will tend to
answer immediately incoming messages before a long queue of messages from the
previous day that need attention.

A little shameless self-promotion, that's exactly one of the use-cases we
envisioned for our company's product, Momentomail (
<http://www.momentomail.com> ).

My co-founder and I actually do this with each other, schedule messages so
they'll be received sometime in the morning when we're both likely to be
working through our mail queue from the end of the day and night before.

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hunvreus
I actually almost invariably use the same template for all my communications;
3 straight to the point paragraphs, leaving the details to further discussion
(if need there is). Start with the context, followed by the matter at hand and
finally the expose the solution, proposal or action required by the recipient.
Work in most cases.

I also use the Boomerang plugin for Gmail to schedule my emails to be sent at
9:30 AM, local time of the recipient (you want to be at the top of the inbox
when he grabbed his coffee and starts going through his emails).

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kadavy
Sometimes, if you've recently met the person, it's just good to send a "nice
to meet you" follow-up with no ask at all. You're very likely to get a
response, and once the response has been made, you can make the simple ask
(once they've responded once, they're probably more likely to respond again).

This is akin to the "one-line hook" in online dating:
<http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/>

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localtalent
I'm trying to work out emailing for sponsorships for projects that we're
running. It's generally cold-calling, but not a shotgun approach - we work
pretty hard to come up with companies who would have something to gain from
the project.

I'm going to try some of these tips, but would an email with 'Seeking
Sponsorship' in the subject get caught in your personal spam filter?

~~~
jggube
I suggest being as specific as possible. Seeking Sponsorship for [whatever].
Otherwise, it seems to comes off as an impersonal, mass-bcc'ed email, spammed
to like a thousand email addresses.

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petercooper
Here's my tip: give me something actionable. The e-mails that sit around
unanswered are those with wishy-washy requests that require me to think about
what the person _really_ wants. The ones that get fast, useful answers are
direct and obvious. The "five sentences or fewer" item will get you most of
the way there.

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hammock
People often ask me for writing advice. The number-one tip is always brevity.
Cut, cut, cut!

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rglover
For someone just getting involved with this space, these tips definitely seem
helpful. Seems like this is a bit contingent on prior contact and not first-
time intro. Should it be in person > then e-mail? A bit confused...

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drallison
I find it works best to keep each email short and direct. Provide a title
which has real content. Keep on topic. NEVER mix two topics in an email;
inevitably all but one of the topics will be ignored.

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goombastic
One of the reasons i keep it to 5 lines mails is that most of the top shots I
know are reading their emails on devices like the blackberry. Short and
simple, even telegraphic gets you responses.

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uast23
How do you pitch someone while seeking a job/project in 5-6 lines of email?
Especially when you are going in as a team rather than sending individual
resumes!

~~~
Sukotto
The same way you pitch your company in a 60 second elevator ride. Pare it down
to the simplest possible (and most compelling) idea.

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Goladus
This advice more or less matches my experience with busy people, although
there are some people who just won't read your email no matter how you write
it.

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fedd
i used to use <http://five.sentenc.es/> as a guideline.

i tried to use <http://three.sentenc.es/>, but as i am not a native english
speaker, it's hard for me to be compact AND understandable at the same time.

~~~
gavingmiller
I'm curious what your experience has been using the
(two|three|four|five).sentenc.es guides? Do people respond better/worse when
you've got that in your email? My thought is most people receiving this
message would view it negatively...

~~~
fedd
i can't say.

i noticed that busy people themselves tend to write very short letters: a pair
of questions, no hello/goodbye, nothing personal. seeing that, i started to
think that writing five sentences is a respect for their attention and time; i
include the disclaimer (signature) to the bottom to indicate that i am not
just a dumb, but trying to be short for the recipient's sake.

if they ask specific questions, i elaborate in many sentences (just like i do
now :), and then they sometimes don't respond (if we didn't met) or respond
after a month (if a person knows me personally). i right imagine how they see
the Tolstoy's War and Peace novel, get upset, but as they generally like me,
move my lame english masterpiece to some Later folder and move on.

the initial cold emails of any number of sentences stay 90% unanswered.

thrice i shot messages on facebook to the complete strangers that i read about
in press (3 sentences: "cograts with new post, would you consider project like
ours, if would, i'd be glad to blah blah blah"). and once i got a respond,
which forced me to write a long letter which was also answered...

so i dont know if it really works (cold emails are unlucky by nature), but i
like to think that being short is a new form of politeness.

(i even tend not to write cold emails at all now! zero sentences, hehe)

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erikb
I think most of the points are important for every way of communicating. You
can exercise them every day.

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vaksel
the shortness is very important...before I used to spell everything out
thinking it'd help them make their decision...and my response rate was
horrible.

now it's just a simple...would your company be interested in X...and if they
say yes...thats when I send the rest of the details

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chriswoodford
in cases like this, i always tell people to write like a news article: open
with your conclusion!

nobody wants to read through as you try to explain all the reasons for your
conclusion. if you can't draw them in in the first line, you've lost them

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agaton
My best advice: read "Made to stick". Not just once - at least once per year.

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known
You can't explain it in 30 seconds, so they'll ignore it

