If youre like me, there are certain types of email that you send out regularly that follow a set form (client follow up notes, meeting notes, email article submission, etc). These can be irritating to have to recreate from scratch every time, but the tried and true method of creating a seperate document-file template, then sending that out as an attachment, may not always be appropriate. For example, email-based article submissions generally accept only plain text in-message formatting and require rigorous adherence to detailed submission guidelines involving the placement of bylines, the structure and length of the article body and the arrangement and length of bio-boxes and other inclusions - any deviation from which will result in a refusal of submission. Aggravatingly enough, these submission requirements are often so completely different from one submission site to another that it is difficult if not impossible to keep them straight without an entire set of templates.
To get around these and other problems, consider using the signature option in your emailer program to create individual email signatures templates for these commonly sent and repetitive emails. Using the above example of an email article submission email, I might create a signature template that looks something like this:
Title
BylineBody (single spaced, 60-65 characters per line, no html)
Bio-box (no more that 3 sentences, no more than 2 links)
For a client follow-up or team meeting follow-up email, it might look something like this:
Client (or team member) Name
Date of MeetingSummary of Meeting
Comments
Action Steps
Next Meeting Agenda
Once the signature template is complete, simply save it under a descriptive name (articles-to-go submission or client meeting) and its ready to use next time youre ready to send an email. Just insert the signature, then type around or over the contents as appropriate. Keep in mind, also, that you can add more than one signature to an email in most emailer programs, so using one of the above signature templates does not preclude your adding a standard business signature at the end of the email, as you would normal do.
Im sure that if you think creatively and look at the emails you send out on a regular basis, youll find many examples for which a simple signature template can save you time, trouble and annoyance. How many ways can you think of to use this time-saving trick
(c) Soni Pitts
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Soni Pitts is the Chief Visionary Butt-Kicker of . She specializes in helping others reclaim soul proprietorship in their lives and to begin living the life their Creator always intended for them.
She is the author of the free e-book 50 Ways To Reach Your Goals and over 100 self-help and inspirational articles, as well as other products and resources designed to facilitate this process of personal growth and spiritual development.
A few months into the job and Sabrinas cold calling sales prospecting techniques were getting her almost nowhere. She would call CIOs and CTOs all day, and speak to maybe one sales prospect if she was lucky. The gatekeepers and voicemail were screening her out. Sabrina was following up her calls with emails, but she rarely if ever heard anything back.
Sabrina asked for help to improve her sales prospecting skills. A salesperson for a silicon valley software company, Sabrina was tasked with calling on CIOs in Fortune 1000 companies. Her cold calling skills were a bit rusty, and she was under serious pressure from sales management to produce.
After a few weeks of working on these together, I got the following email from Sabrina:
My email script has gotten another F1000 appointment! I sent it to an admin who forwarded it to a Senior Director who had his admin respond in 5 minutes that he wanted an appointment. They are right in our sweet spot so this is a very good thing.
If youve done any sales prospecting to big corporations, then you know how great Sabrina felt when she got this appointment. Sabrina has secured numerous VP level appointments using her new email technique.
First she asked for help.
Upon working together, I coached Sabrina to sell only to the sales prospects that were most likely to buy. Sabrina developed a customer profile to guide her sales prospecting efforts. She determined what type of sales prospect would be most likely to buy her product.
Next she worked on identifying the pains that motivate her ideal sales prospect to want to buy her product. This took some research. She spoke to other sales reps, marketing management, and most importantly customers to figure out why people buy her product.
Sabrina used this to craft a short but specific email message to her best sales prospects. It was real-world due to all of her research and her prospects responded to it. The likely buyers were ones who could feel the pain that the email talked about. Those sales prospects jumped up and asked for an appointment.
1999-2004 Shamus Brown, All Rights Reserved.
Shamus Brown is a Professional Sales Coach and former high-tech sales pro who began his career selling for IBM. Shamus has written more than 50 articles on selling and is the creator of the popular Persuasive Selling Skills CD Audio Program. You can read more of Shamus Browns sales tips at and you can learn more about his persuasive sales skills training at