Email is Great - Or is it?

Like many people, I love using email. It makes many things quicker and easier. The key phrase there is "many things." Today sales trainer Adrian Miller reminds us that there are certain times where it is much easier to just pick up the phone!

You're trying to schedule an appointment and you email your contact with a suggested date or two.

They get back to you-a day or two later perhaps-and the dates that you had already suggested are now filled, or, they let you know that they're not free on those specific dates but could potentially meet on another date, which of course is not good for you and so you email them with some other alternatives and they respond immediately but, well, they're not free that day. Whew. And on and on it goes for days, sometimes weeks until you PICK UP THE PHONE.

You want to reconnect with a dormant account, one that you haven't worked with in quite awhile. Sure, you know that you've fallen off the grid but you think there might be some life in this business relationship. You send out an email and there's no reply. You're uncertain. Did they get it? Are they not replying because maybe that business relationship wasn't as good as you thought and maybe they don't want to hear from you again? You're curious but intimidated and in order to really find out what's going on you need to PICK UP THE PHONE.

Your prospecting funnel is pretty empty and you see a precipitous drop in business in the next few months. You start to panic and ratchet up your networking and jump further into the social media pool too. You peruse websites, look carefully at postings and send emails to all that seem like they have good potential. You don't hear back and keep prospecting like a demon sending email after email to prospects that you are certain would benefit from your product or service. Still nothing happens. You need to PICK UP THE PHONE.

You need to alert a client that there is a problem in their account. Something has gone awry but not to worry, you're going to fix it. You have a plan and carefully craft an email that explains the problem and what you are going to do to ameliorate it. Still you get a very curt reply and are left to think that the client was not appeased and is, in fact, annoyed at what you said in your email. You reread it and see that the tone and choice of words are not as politic as you originally thought. You need to make amends and think another email might not do it. YOU NEED TO PICK UP THE PHONE.

Geez do you get it? With smart phones, netbooks and laptops being at our fingertips we have wandered away from the telephone and have resorted to communicating almost exclusively by email. And in many circumstances email communication might not be the most convenient method of communication; additionally it might also undermine and weaken your position and desired outcome.

So yes there are scads of situations in which email is truly the BEST way to communicate but before your reach for that keyboard, take a moment to think if perhaps the dial pad might be even better.

You just might be surprised at how positive an experience you will have.

Adrian Miller is the President of Adrian Miller Sales Training, a training and business consulting firm delivering sales-level performance training and executive-level business development consulting. A nationally recognized lecturer, she is also author of "The Blatant Truth: 50 Ways to Sales Success".