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Email Etiquette For Business: 5 Tips To Help You Present Yourself As A Professional

As the world becomes more and more hurried, it seems that email etiquette for business is falling by the wayside. However, keeping the rules of business letter writing alive and applying them to your email communications is a great way to present yourself in the most professional light possible and to make your clients and associates feel respected.

Here are 5 tips to help you write better, more professional, and polite email business letters.

1) Greetings and Salutations

Remember when you were in school and learned how to write a letter? The first thing you learned was the salutation – the “Dear so and so.” While “Dear sir,” isn’t likely to be the greeting you use in an email, you do still want to include a salutation. Common salutations, if you are communicating with this person for the first time include:

Dear,
Hello,
Thank you,

Proper email etiquette for business will include a comma after the salutation or a period at the end depending on the greeting. For example, “Dear Anne,” or “Thank you, Anne.”

2) Use Complete Words and Full Phrases

While it’s common to use acronyms or text speak like LOL and TTFN, just don’t do it. This is appropriate for friends and family, not for business associates. Even if you become friends with your customers, in general, keep the use of acronyms to a minimum and even then use them only after your customer or associate has.

3) Check Spelling and Punctuation

It takes five seconds to hit the spell check button on your email toolbar. If you have frequent misspellings and poor grammar you’re making an indelible impression on your associate or client that you may not be able to remove. Do your best to put your best foot forward in your email communications. A quick spell check and grammar check just tells your client you take the time to communicate effectively and correctly, you’re a professional and your communication with them is important to you.

4) Get To the Point

Respect the time of your business associates and clients. That doesn’t mean you jump right into the meat of your email though. Make sure you still include a friendly sentence or two to inquire about how the person is doing or to introduce yourself. This is courteous and expected of you. However, it’s also important to get to the point of your email as quickly as possible.

Time is our most precious and valuable commodity because we cannot get it back once it is gone. Show your associates you understand that.

5) Closing Remarks

Finally, once you’ve wrapped up what you have to say, it’s time for the good old-fashioned closing. Sincerely is considered a bit too old-fashioned in this day and age, but the following are quite acceptable:

Regards
Best
Best regards
Warm regards
Thank you

When writing an email to a client, prospect, or business associate, it is important to make sure you present yourself in the best light possible. That means spending a little extra time on your communications and following a few simple email etiquette for business rules.

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Finding Divine Gifts – Coming Fully Into the Present Moment

The divine is always with us and always waiting for US to recognize and welcome its presence. That is its gift to us. However, to receive this gift, we must be in the present. An important aspect for being fully in the present moment is “Completing Incompletions.” An incompletion is simply that – something that is not complete. It could be anything: unpaid bills; anger or resentment toward someone or thing; projects around the house; something you said you would do but then never did, etc.

Something in our lives that is not complete holds a portion of our energy until it is complete. At some level we are thinking about it, worrying about it, trying to figure out what to do about it. Even if you think you’ve forgotten about it and let it go, you haven’t. This is the body’s natural tendency toward integrity, toward being complete and free.

To the extent we have incompletions in our life we are being robbed of vital life force energy, energy we could be using to create an extremely fulfilling life. Incompletions also block us from receiving clear guidance from our higher selves. We’ve got part of ourselves holding the energy of these incompletions and therefore we cannot pay full attention to the divine messages trying to get through. Actually, the message that is trying to get through is “complete your incompletions.” That’s why we keep thinking and worrying about them.

When it comes to completing incompletions in relationships (whether with a mother, father, sibling, spouse, friend, or co-worker) a big part is forgiveness – forgiveness both for ourselves and others. Interestingly, forgiveness means to “give as before,” no longer withholding or holding back. (Side note: we all think forgiveness is a great thing, and I agree, however, have you ever noticed that forgiveness has judgment built into it? If you feel you must forgive someone, you have passed judgment on them that what they have done is bad, wrong, and should not have happened. Now who’s the bad guy? Interesting, yes?)

There are a couple of good metaphors that can help us better understand the importance of truly letting go of the supposed “wrongs” we believe another person has done to us. Being angry with, spiteful toward, or withholding from another person is like holding a hot coal in your own hand with the idea that you are going to throw it at them – but you never do. It just burns and burns YOU. Or, said another way, it’s like drinking poison expecting the other person to die. In these examples you can see it makes no sense. All you have to do is drop the hot coal and don’t take the poison.

Incompletions in relationships are some of the most detrimental and life-sucking ones we can experience. However, all the incompletions in our life, from the $10 you may still owe someone, to the book you borrowed and have yet to return, to the projects around the house you keep putting off. They all drain you each and every moment. For truly free and energized living you must complete these incompletions. Identifying and completing your incompletions is a key piece of my coaching system. You can experience the freedom accomplishing this can provide in your life.

Try this:

Look into all the areas of your life. What is obviously incomplete? Make a list of those things. Just making the list and getting these things out of your head and onto paper will restore some energy for you. Then look at the list and select one or two things to complete. Start with a couple of easy ones so you can build momentum, and then work up to the more challenging incompletions. As you complete things, one by one, cross them off the list with a big smile on your face, then take on the next one that feels right – until you’ve crossed them all off the list.

Notice the amazing energy restored at each step along the way, and the exponentially rising access to major good mojo!

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PowerPoint Notes – A Simple Tool to Improve Your Presentations

You probably already know that one of the cardinal rules of PowerPoint presentations is not to read from the slides as you make a presentation. If you do, your audience is soon lulled into turning their attention away from you and exclusively to the screen. Worse yet, they may be thinking, “Why didn’t she just give me a copy of the slides so I can leave?”

A great alternative to engage the audience but still have control of the material is to use the Notes tool in the software. Just in case you haven’t come across it, access it by going into the View menu and selecting “Note Page.” You then have a full-size page with the slide on top and room for–as you might have guessed by now–your own speaker notes that correspond to the slide on the bottom. You can resize the slide and notes sections, depending on the length of your notes.

Thus, you can have a minimal number of words on the slide, or perhaps just a table or other graphic, which you can explain or use as a jumping-off point, all the while with the security of having the notes in front of you. Your audience will only see the slides, not your notes. Present graphics or minimal information on the slides, then add value through your comments.

What’s more, you can make a template in the Notes section to organize your presentation and make the notes easy to scan. Here is one effective technique:

1. Write the main point of the slide first. What do you want to make sure you get across?

2. Add supporting information, perhaps a few examples or anecdotes that you will or will not draw upon, depending on the particular audience. Write a detailed script or talking points, whichever is more comfortable for you and the needs of the speaking engagement.

3. Estimate the amount of time you want to spend on the slide, and remind yourself in the notes. You don’t want to drag things out, but if you have a tendency to talk quickly, this will remind you that you have plenty of time.

4. Include your lead-in to the next slide. Remind yourself if you are beginning a new section, for example, or give yourself a cue such as “Let’s take a look at how that would work in practice.”

5. Include any other information that you want to have on hand that refers to that particular slide.

So how do you use it? Depending on the situation, print out a hard copy (select “Notes” when you go to the print menu) or have a copy of the presentation, in Notes Page view, running on a second laptop. Whatever you do, though, practice, practice, practice!

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