Gets sales mails 'write'

ARTICULATE - Gets sales mails 'write'

“Here, please take a look at what hit my inbox last evening” said the Sales Director, waving a printout “I couldn’t believe my eyes” The sales team in the meeting exchanged puzzled glances. He went on “ And to imagine I got copied on the mail by mistake. This is simply not on! “. I want your mails to win clients for us and not send them away”

XYZ – Senior Relationship Manager, ABC Products Ltd

Hi PQR,

Our proposal to supply ACs is with you. We can do HVAC also for you. While our production hasn’t been lower in comparison to the previous year, due to slow down in housing and infrastructure sector and prolonged poor weather conditions and generally tight liquidity our H2 numbers haven’t been met.

We need your support Sir. No price discounts are being considered by Markiting. Promise to do better in the next FY,

Best regards, XYZ, Senior Relationship Manager, ABC Products Ltd

Best regards, XYZ, Senior Relationship Manager, ABC Products Ltd

(1) They don’t use jargon – Unless understood by both sides, they avoid jargon. For example, the RM in our story should have avoided writing “We can do HVAC also for you”. A Customer not knowing HVAC stands for ‘Heating, ventilation and air conditioning’ is likely to be put off.

(2) They use simple words – Instead of writing “…generally tight liquidity” XYZ in our story could have used a simpler word like ‘less than expected cash flows’ that any Customer can easily relate to

(3) They keep the sentences short– Our story mail begins well with a short, crisp sentence – “Our proposal to supply ACs is with you”. And then suddenly launches into that one humungous line beginning with “While our production….” It’s unfair to expect Customers to patiently muddle through such a wall of words

(4) They are not impulsive – Examples of impulsive mail writing include - (i) Careless typos (‘Markiting’ in our story) (ii) Copy/paste errors (iii) Forgetting to add attachments promised in the mail (This, in spite of the helpful alerts popped up by mail apps like Outlook) (iv) Saying things, you don’t mean (XYZ, writing the story mail, almost ends up making the Customer feel responsible for ABC Products not reaching its sales targets, though that may not have been the intention) (v) Hitting the 'send' button as soon as you finish composing the message. In the story, XYZ probably didn’t notice that the Director Sales was on cc and must have impulsively clicked on ‘Send’..

Mails are a critical component of sales communication. Top salespeople get them ‘write’ the first time. Every time