CHAPTER 1

GETTING STARTED

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it,it is not all mixed up.

—A.A. MILNE, WINNIE-THE-POOH

I hate busywork. Drying dishes, for instance, is busywork. Why waste time dryingdishes when the air will dry them? I could be accomplishing a million otherthings instead of just standing there, drying.

"Sharing ideas" at a workshop is another example of busywork that drives menuts. When there is one right answer, don't make me waste time guessing whatthat answer is and discussing all the wrong ones. Just tell me the right answerand help me apply it.

Anything that doesn't help me move forward and get the job done, in my opinion,is busywork and should be eliminated. You can imagine my surprise, then, afterdespising being made to "outline" in school (busywork—why can't I justwrite the report?), when I realized that taking the time to organize my thoughtsbefore writing (not to be confused with outlining!) would actuallypropel me forward and help to accomplish the job more quickly.

Here's what I learned: by taking the time to focus on your sales strategy andwrite your goals before you write your e-mail, you save time!"Measure twice, cut once." It applies to e-mail writing too.

By taking the time to think through what you want your e-mail to accomplishbefore you start writing, you can save up to 80 percent of the time you spendwriting.

THE LIFE-CHANGING AND VERY COOL THREE-STEP WRITING PROCESS

The three-step process you're about to read about will change your life.Seriously. Not only will you save time (a CEO I worked with claimed that it hadtaken him as long as "2½ hours to get started" until he learned thisprocess), but the e-mails you write will be more concise, more persuasive, andmore likely to get read. And there's more. You'll save additional time becauseyour prospects will understand your intent and content the first time. They'llhave fewer questions for you, and those outrageously annoying time-sucking back-forth-back-forth e-mails will be eliminated. By knowing what you want to achieveand what matters to your buyer, you'll present yourself as an organized, smartsales professional, and that is, as they say, "priceless."

What are the three steps?

• Plan it.

• Do it.

• Check it.

Planning your sales purpose before you write enables you to focus both on yoursales goal (the outcome you'd like your e-mail to achieve) and the strategy touse to achieve that result. (Contrary to what many professionals think, the goalof an e-mail is rarely to close the business. Most selling messages are writtento excite the buyer and earn the right to advance.) With a plan firmly in place,you write more quickly, more cleverly, and more successfully, and your clarityof purpose makes it much easier for your customer to say yes to you instead ofto your competition.

PLANNING IS THE CATALYST FOR QUICK, CLEAR WRITING

Organizing before you write is the basis for clear, persuasive writing. All ittakes is answering five questions. (With practice, you'll be able to do this injust a few seconds.) The questions act as a guide to help you focus on thespecific outcome you'd like your e-mail to deliver, and the answers provide aclear path to successful writing and profitable selling. This planning, or"prewriting," step changes everything about the way you present your message,engage your buyer, and stand out from the crowd of competitors. Here are thefive planning questions:

1. Why am I writing?

2. What do I want to say?

3. What do I want to accomplish?

4. What is the next step?

5. Have I provided a reason why this person would be delighted to do what I askor say?

These (deceptively) simple questions will begin to transform the way you write.How?

Here is an example of a situation that screams for planning.

Situation: You're an experienced salesperson, but you're new with Company X. Youneed to start filling your sales funnel so that you can build business quickly.You're given a list of potential leads and know that you need to create acompelling e-mail to introduce yourself to these potential leads.

Without the prewriting step, you might create an e-mail similar to the one aworkshop attendee submitted, prior to attending the training:

Hi Name,

Greetings from sunny Scottsdale!

I'm writing to introduce myself as your new sales manager. I've recently takenover Sophie Spaniel's position, and I'm excited about working with you. Myexperience includes three years with a nonprofit and most recently as a nationalsales manager for a competitor, and I can say, I'm very glad to be here!

Our hotel has undergone an $XX million renovation in the last two years, and ourballroom space has expanded to 15,000 square feet! The spa also was enlarged,giving a total of 13,455 square feet of serenity.

I'd love to invite you to come down to see us and maybe have some lunch or aquick cup of coffee. It would be fun to meet you in person! I look forward tohearing from you soon.

Does this sound typical to you? Does it sound good? If you're wondering what iswrong with it or thinking, "That is exactly how I'd write it," your life isabout to change. Just about everything is wrong with this sales message!If the writer had taken the time to thoughtfully plan her message, she wouldhave realized that she shouldn't be writing to introduce herself, about thehotel features, or even about how much fun it would be to meet in person. We'llget to what she (and you) should be writing soon.

Planning Helps You Sell More Easily

Most salespeople are familiar with a sales goal planning process in which salesobjectives are determined, then tracked and reviewed. Knowing what they need toachieve to be successful (what their sales objectives are) guides their dailyactivities to ensure that those sales goals can be achieved (and exceeded).

Planning your e-mail messaging works similarly. An outcome is determined (forinstance, you want your e-mail to persuade your prospect to accept your phonecall next Tuesday), and that outcome guides how the e-mail is written. It'ssimple really. Knowing the purpose of your e-mail tells you what to leave in andwhat to leave out. Planning gives you a target to hit and eliminates wasted timeand effort.

Answering the questions takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes (none ofwhich is busywork), but that time saves you time. The few seconds that you spendplanning and organizing the sales strategy for your e-mail can save up to 80percent of the time you currently spend writing (and rewriting and writingagain).

Determine the sales strategy so that your e-mail will sell more, more easily.

Put Your Plan in Print

It's important that you actually type or write the answers to the five questionsrather than just think them through. There are several reasons for this:

1. Interruptions happen. Imagine that you're happily typing. You'vethought through your purpose, and while it's fresh in your mind, you're writingand you're in the zone. Then the phone rings. Or your counterpart walks intoyour office. Or your dog nudges you, reminding you that it's time for her walk.When you try to direct your attention back to the sales message you werewriting, your words have stopped flowing. Getting back on track often involvesfrustration and a Starbucks. If you've written the answers to the fivequestions, however, a quick review of your answers is all you'll need, andyou'll have that e-mail done in no time.

2. No tricks. The best thing you can do for yourself to improve both theeffectiveness and the efficiency of your writing is to have a plan—and nota half-thought-out one. It's possible to pretend that you're thinking yourmessage through when, in reality, you're splitting your mind (like when you'rein a meeting but thinking about what you can say to escape the meeting). Takethe time to type out the goal for your e-mail to eliminate the temptation tonot focus on your message thoroughly and thoughtfully. Bring focus andclarity to your thoughts.

3. New habits. Developing any new habit takes discipline and time. It'shuman nature and oh-so-much-easier to fall back into more comfortable andconvenient old patterns than to attempt something new. Just like skiing orplaying golf, the more you do it, the better you get (well, maybe golf is a badanalogy). Make answering the five questions as routine as flossing.

4. Time. The two minutes you spend answering the questions saves manytimes that. You eliminate

• The time-wasting write-delete-revise, write-delete-revise writing pattern

• Staring at a blank screen, not knowing how to start

• Starting your message with drivel (and possibly losing the opportunity to haveyour e-mail read)

• Wasting time writing another message to clarify the message that you just sent

• Sounding unprofessional and unprepared

Planning your message (prewriting) is smart because it prepares you to writemore powerfully and more persuasively. You begin with a clear understanding ofyour message's purpose.

Use your e-mail to achieve your goals. Set your target and take aim.

Once you are clear about your writing sales strategy, it's easy to write to makethe sale.

CHAPTER 2

PLAN IT: SAVE UP TO 80 PERCENT OF WRITING TIME

Preparation is everything. Noah did not start building the ark when it wasraining.

—WARREN BUFFETT

I may have led you astray. The five questions you learned in the last chapteraren't exactly right. In practice, the questions are actually simpler and can beabbreviated to

1. Why?

2. What?

3. Accomplish?

4. Next step?

5. Delighter?

Before we get to the shorthand version, however, we'll need to expand thequestions for full understanding and ease of application.

Looking at the prewriting questions, it would be easy to think that they focuson the writer. Additional verbiage clarifies the questions' intent.

The first question, "Why am I writing?" isn't so much about why you are writing,as the question seems to imply, but why you are writing that will matter tothe reader. (Notice how the emphasis has changed.) The more your writing isframed in terms of the reader, the more likely your reader is to actually readthe message (which, of course, is quite helpful).

By thinking about this first question from your customer's perspective—by,as much as possible, becoming your customer—you can move away fromwriting about your product and move toward writing about why or how yourprospect might benefit from the product. Whether your prospect already knowsthat he needs your service or has no clue that it even exists, when you focus onsolving challenges that he has and can make it clear that your intent is to helphim create greater success, you're more likely to have the chance to start ameaningful sales conversation.

Planning enables you to think through your sales strategy.

The second question, like the first, should also be about the reader. Thinkingthrough your response from the prospect's perspective requires you to considerthe difference between what you're selling (a drill bit) and what the prospectis buying (a hole). What do you want to say in your e-mail that will matterto the reader?

The answer to the second question is always an extension of the first.

Here is an example. Let's say you receive a request for information aboutavailability of your E-mail Ninja Kit. Before writing back, you'll want toanswer the five questions. If your answer to Question 1, "Why am I writing thatwill matter to my reader?" is, "To get her excited about how much time she cansave with the new E-mail Ninja Kit," you're already an expert sales strategist.(Notice that the answer to the question isn't about the E-mail Ninja Kit; it'sabout how much time the prospect can save with the kit.) Align your response toQuestion 2, "What do I want to say that will matter to the reader?" with yourfirst response; explain to her how she can save time with the kit.(Again, this isn't so much about the kit as it is about the specific benefitthat she receives from the kit.)

Planning your message from your reader's perspective is key.

It's not until the third question, "What do I want to accomplish?" that you getto think about what you, the writer, actually want. This is your chance to beself-focused. What is it that you want this e-mail to do for you? Be carefulhere, though. If you're going to become a sales writing expert, don't leap towhat you'd ultimately like to accomplish: closed business, a sale, acontract—12 million E-mail Ninja Kits sold! For this planning question togive you an edge, think more precisely and locally: "What do I want toaccomplish in this specific e-mail?" Do you want to start a trustingrelationship, earn the right to submit a proposal, learn more so that you areable to prepare a proposal, persuade her to complete the order form you'veattached, motivate her to call you, or influence her to accept your call? Thinkof the specific action you want as a result of sending this e-mail.

Now that you've determined what you want (Question 3), you get to ask for it inQuestion 4, "What is the next step in the buying process?" When you areanswering the fourth question, the two most important considerations are

• Who will take the next step?

• What precisely will that next step be?

You'll want to make both those points crystal clear to your prospect, and that'shard to do if you, the writer, aren't clear about them to start with.

Often, the next step seems so obvious to the person who is writing that heforgets to include it. A nonprofit I worked with had this incredibly emotionalletter about the dire straits of sick children. The "sales" message talked aboutthe urgent need for donations and appealed to "prospects" to donate. Yet theorganization never asked for what it wanted—money. It never defined thenext step by including exactly what should happen after the reader finishedreading. It missed a golden opportunity to increase its "sales" by not includingsomething like, "Please write your check for $25, $100, $1,000, or whatever youcan afford, and mail it today. Please don't delay. You have the power to helpright this very moment." If you want something, ask for it!

Thinking again about the E-mail Ninja Kits you're selling, if you respond to thelead request you received ("Do you have information on your E-mail Ninja Kits,and are they currently available?") with only, "Yes, we have the E-mail NinjaKits available for shipment, and I've attached the information you requested,"but what you really want (Question 3) is for the person to complete the formyou've attached and e-mail it back to you, you've neglected to make that nextstep clear. It may be implied, particularly if you add, "I've attached an orderform for you," but like the nonprofit, why simply imply when you can increasesales by clarifying exactly what the next step is? In this case, the next stepthat makes the most sense is to ask the prospect to take the action: "I'veattached a price list and an easy-to-complete order form for your convenience.Please e-mail or fax (555-555-5555) your completed form today. As soon as Ireceive the number of kits you would like, we will ship them immediately."

Another way to look at Question 4 is: "What is the next step in the prospect'sbuying process?"

Question 5, "Have I provided a reason why this person would be delighted to dowhat I ask or say?" reminds the buyer that there is a payoff for him if he does,or accepts, the next step. It's the motivation to do what you are suggesting.Glenn Kreighbaum, a workshop participant, called Question 5 "the delighter," andI've adopted that phrase here.

This last question increases the worth of Question 4. It elevates the next stepfrom being only an action step (do this now) to being a persuasive message (dothis now so that you can enchant customers with your E-mail Ninja skills andgrow more business). Question 5 transforms the self-focused answer to Question3, "What do I want to accomplish in this specific e-mail?" into acustomer-centric answer. Now you're asking, if I want to accomplish X, "Have Iprovided enough motivation for the prospect to accept or take that next step?The answer to Question 5 provides buying motivation. Have I provided a reasonwhy the prospect would be delighted to do what I ask?" This follow-up questionalso gives you your perfect closing line.

What might motivate your E-mail Ninja Kit lead to complete the order form in atimely manner? Here are three possible benefits to your buyer:

• She'll start saving time immediately.

• She'll have more time to accomplish her other important tasks.

• She can start using the kit immediately to enchant prospects and growbusiness.

(Continues...)