Today’s post will analyze the psychology of why e-mails with all the right information get ignored, deleted, and un-answered and offer tips on how to avoid having this happen when e-mailing those A-listers who can help make your online efforts a success. Hint: It’s not just because they’re too long.
Why You Get Ignored
I’ve always been an incredibly detailed person. If you’ve read any other posts here, you know that. In technology, and most other areas of my life this seems to be an advantage, yet in my experience with CEO’s, business owners, and upper management, I have continually noticed that the less specific, less detailed, spelling error filled, bullet point style is not only how they respond, but how they prefer information.
Knowing this, and acting accordingly will grow your business.
I however ignored this, or explained it away for a long time, even discrediting how someone could get as far as they have with such horrible incomplete, un-specific, no-context, misspelled information. I may have known it, but I certainly didn’t act accordingly. The regular e-mails I exchange with successful company partners are 2 lines at most. Having an intimate look at several people’s e-mail, and their 500+ e-mail inbox, people don’t read past the first few lines. Yet, how this effects me never really sunk in.
I can’t ignore it any longer.
I’ve been ousted on Ramit Sethi’s blog in an e-mail I wrote to him years ago, and most recently in an e-mail conversation with Noah Kagan, (previously of Mint.com and Facebook, currently behind AppSumo.com). I was blatently confronted for a 2 page e-mail I wrote explaining all the details of where I’m at, and plans to improve, seeking guidance (he offered to help). I thought it was eloquent, specific and drew the whole picture. His response? Use less words, I can’t respond if you write like that.
For the first time it hit me square in the head, no one will ever e-mail me back anything useful if I give them a “64oz super size cup of me”, most especially in a first contact e-mail. But there’s more to it than that…everyone knows to keep e-mail short…
The Psychology
I wanted to know why it has to be like this, is every “important” person really so incredibly busy that they can’t put effort into an e-mail? How can I deal with technology, a very detailed oriented topic and move forward? I started to pick apart some of the people in leadership positions, either owning a business, or several businesses, or leading presentations, or in general making something happen…a certain personality type and set of characteristics presented themselves.
In the Myers Briggs personality breakdown it looked a lot like ENTJ, and because of my background with Insights, I know these to be very “Red Yellow”, but what does that mean?
I won’t bore you with the long details, you can look them up, but it basically means these people have an innate (or learned) preference to get to the point, then move on, and to be included when something is happening. They have an innate (or learned) disregard about the details, or emotional elements when they aren’t a necessity for action. Even if they are, they just want the gist from someone they trust. This makes for a great visionary, and provides action oriented behavior.
*The different “preferences” all have strengths and weaknesses but that’s not the point here.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure HOW they get things done or to their status sometimes, as my preference leads me down all the details to which they ignore, but the fact remains, the heads of companies operate in this manner. There are of course exceptions, but this seems to be the standard. They find others to be detailed or hold morale, or move past it however possible. The key fact is that they are able to create action consistently.
I’ve experienced this closely at my 9-5 where I not only work with the founders and several high powered consultants, but during our large conventions working with panel speakers and leaders from some of the worlds top companies. Even more closely I’ve noticed this in the A-listers I’ve had the privilege to exchange e-mails with over the last year or so of online business exploration.
This preference bleeds over into e-mail. It’s not that they can’t spell (although they’ll notice it if someone else can’t) or have very little attention span. They simply identify these things as unnecessary, more information is seen as useless or not action oriented and so they move on.
This is hard for me to swallow. I operate out of a systems oriented, the more details the smoother the whole operation will go, mindset. Always create as much context as possible, everywhere. Almost all the tech I work with requires high details. I’m baffled how people in certain positions operate in life when they don’t know how anything works.
Guess what, it’s not essential to be successful or happy, it may help, or it may even hurt, but it’s not essential. It takes more than just reading that to really understand it if you struggle with it like me.
I’ll admit, I get so enamored with the process, that sometimes by the end, the goal I wanted to accomplish has changed, and I have to start all over. What can I do?
Learning a New Preference
I will forever be detailed, it’s in my nature. I’ll be able to create context and cover all the tiny what if’s and’s or but’s. It’s my preference, but it doesn’t mean in any way, shape, or form that it’s the only way I can operate. Our characteristics can be molded, and adapted, our minds are quite capable of this. We need to master several ways of “being” to get where we want to be.
In order to get noticed, communicate and act with certain individuals (reaping their networking benefits and wisdom), you’re going to have to learn to cut out all the details, get to the point, still offer value, and leave it at that. If people want more details, they’ll ask for it. Salespages work similar to this. All people won’t be like this, you won’t write a pen pal like this, but for business and networking your way up it’s essential.
Hopefully hearing some of the psychology behind it, you’ll be able to shape your communication effectively, I know I’ve finally seen some light. I consider it a skill to master in interaction now. Here are some thoughts to help.
- Consider who you’re e-mailing before you start typing
- Use bullet points
- Try a service like Five Sentences which gives you a preset window with only 5 lines
- Attach “extra” details to a document, they can ignore it if they want. Leave essential information out
- Make it a game, how valuable can you make your words?
- Cut your e-mail into sections, a “short version” and “long version”
Do you identify with this? Or are you one of those 3 liner types? Did you have to adapt? Can you add any other tips?
photo credit: Robert S. Donovan