Power Sales Writing, Revised and Expanded Edition: Using Communication to Turn Prospects into Clients, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 15GET RESULTS, NOT RIDICULE

Good Manners: The noise you don’t make when you’re eating soup.

—BENNETT CERF

If you walked into the grocery store wearing clothing on only the top half of your body and just, ahem, “basics” on the bottom, two things would probably happen: you’d call attention to yourself (and not in a good way), and you’d be thrown out of the store without the milk you went there for. E-mailing without attending to the guidelines that others have come to expect gets the same poor results: you become a distraction to your own message, and you don’t get the result you want.

These suggestions will help your readers—customers, clients, prospects, colleagues, managers, staff, executives, associates, and more—like you better. ...