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Write Better Email in Less Time

March 7, 2010 By

Every day there is a natural inclination for each of us to spend an inordinate time on email. We understand from experience that each client can read a lot into the emails they receive from you. Our tendency, then, is to make sure our communication is clear, accurate, and, well, pretty…

The trap is that it becomes easy to get locked in a sea of revisions instead of spending time on more productive activities. So in order to get better results in less time you have to focus on one underlying principal:

Eliminate redundancy.

A really easy (but rarely used) tool is email templates. When I first got turned on to this trick, I had it in my mind that email templates were for cold calls, marketing blasts and the like. But when I sat down and thought about all the emails I send, I realized there was far more redundancy than meets the eye.

Consider:

  • Meeting invites, follow up notes, action item assignments
  • Technical qualification emails sent to audience members before a presentation
  • Product or industry news/updates you may send to a group of your customers
  • Debrief emails to your extended sales team (even more beneficial if there are standard fields or data needed for your sales process/CRM)
  • Reminders of logistics for presentations, demos, etc.
  • Prep requests for on-site evaluations

If you’ve ever shown up on-site and wished you had a piece of information beforehand, simply think about what standard process you could use to make sure you captured it every time before you would need it.

Automate Process

For example, imagine there are 10 prerequisite pieces of data that you need to install your product in a lab. It’s easy to assume that the customer will have the needed data, but we know that is not always the case. Why not craft the ideal email you’d like to send to a prospect beforehand and save it for reuse (more on this in a minute).

Let’s take this a step further now and imagine that if you only ever had to craft this email once, how much time could you spend making sure it was absolutely perfect. A lot more than when you need to do it every time, certainly. Thus, templates are a dirt simple way to save time and is a great opportunity to perfect the style of your communications.

Creating Templates

Templates are available in every desktop email client I am aware of (even GMail too). Since 80% of us seem to be on Outlook I’ll start there.

  1. Craft the ideal message including any/all fields that might be reusable (CC, Subject, etc). Keep in mind that because you’re doing this once you can afford to get a little fancier with tables, shading, and fonts. There are also a plethora of free, pre-built templates on Office Online and various productivity websites
  2. Once you’ve filled out as much as you can for a generic email, go Save As > Outlook Template. You’ll likely have to scroll down to see the Template option
  3. It will be saved as an .oft file. I recommend you create a folder for them off your desktop or start menu so you can get to them in a hurry. Name it something logical since you may end up with a dozen of these or more.

The Perfect PoC

Once you’ve got the idea down, step back through your last few proof of concepts. You can start with reviewing past emails, but you will likely find there are new possibilities to automate or improve some aspects of communication you didn’t consider before. Systematically apply the approach to all of your email interactions and refine your templates over time as you start to use them and figure out what’s missing.

The next time you run a PoC, it may not be perfect, but you’re email communication certainly will be…

[EDIT: By request, I uploaded a generic template I've gotten a lot of milage from. Get it here.]

Filed Under: Productivity, Soft Skills, Time Management Tagged With: ,

The Roadwarrior

January 14, 2010 By

We recently completed a survey that showed each SE spending an average of 10% of their time traveling on the job. This is 4-5 hours per week! And some individuals were much higher. The smaller your company, the more likely you are to blow out that number as your territories are bigger.

Given that much down time, how much time do we spend planning to maximize it? After all it’s pretty easy to default back to slipping in a DVD or listening to some tunes. 

Correctly done, plane time can be some of your most productive time even without internet access. Here’s some activities to consider.

  1. Review training material – Download podcasts and training videos ahead of time so you can review later. Especially if you’ll be in the car, you may need to convert the format to something you can play over your speakers. Not all tools record in ipod format by default. There are plenty of freeware tools that can help.
  2. Fire up the lab – If you’re in the position of selling software, now is your chance to fire up your virtual machine and get some lab time in.
  3. Prepare for your meeting – Fine tune your presentation/demo/etc. You can rehearse to yourself, add some speaker notes, go over the key players in your account, plan for objections, etc.
  4. Update your CRM – I always found I got through this much easier if there weren’t other things pressing on my schedule. If you’re lucky enough to have an offline client even better. Even jotting down a text list of the weeks activities to copy/paste when you land is a good start.
  5. Write up a trip report or case study – If you’ve had a noteworthy customer visit that might be of interest to others, jot it down and share or publish in your company’s KM.
  6. Clear the inbox – For me having an empty inbox is a great stress reducer. Try the Outlook 3-step: Reply, file, or delete.
  7. Catch up on your feeds/books - I’ve got some excellent suggestions here. If you’re not already using a feedreader for the websites, now is a good time to start collecting some great reading material. Most have offline capabilities.
  8. Reassess your goals – You can be as general or specific as you like. Take some time to plan out your quarter with top opps and the like. Try some whitespace analysis, run your accounts through your sales methodology, make some to-call lists, etc.
  9. Update your standard deck(s) – This is important if you have a larger portfolio. Take some time to keep all your standard decks updated and fresh. You never want to be stuck off-guard with an interested prospect and a standard corporate deck when s/he asks to see more info on other product.
  10. Document your process – Larger SE organizations will provide a lot of standard demo/eval documentation you can use with your customers. Smaller ones may not have gotten that far. Either start documenting your approach (sharing your best practice) or adding back to the collective.
  11. Work on your “image” – I’ve talked before about the need to specialize and dominate your niche. Take some time to write that whitepaper, update your blog (or contribute toward others’),  or perform some research in your virtual lab.
  12. Clean up that digital rat’s nest – Your laptop is often your most valuable tool. Take some time to keep it “well oiled”. Delete some old files, add some encryption, defrag, reorganize your important files to keep them at close reach, use a registry cleaner, run a deep security/adware sweep, or add that software you’ve been meaning to try.

Sometimes relaxation or other hobby is the best use of your time. When you’re in the mood to get some work done and you find yourself in a lobby or airport without internet access, know that it doesn’t have to be unproductive.

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With:

Productivity Boost – Managing License Keys

August 7, 2009 By

Every so often an event happens that makes you realize you need to be better organized in a certain area. For me, wasting the better part of a morning dealing with license key headaches prompted some investigation. Since many SEs have to manage a suite of keys for themselves and the products they sell I thought I few pointers relevant.

1 – Gather existing keys
Since almost everyone deals with Windows and Office let me start there. Reader JS pointed me to a great little app called the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder. It can be used to extract MS license keys from your OS for later reference.

Many products allow you simply to go to Help>License/About/Activation/etc to view your key. For those that don’t, about.com put together a nice reference list of several key finding applications. If you still can’t get a specific key Google may be able to turn up someone who has solved that problem for your product.

2 – Storing keys
Since we’re basically talking about storing paired names (apps and keys) you can work in pretty much any solution to store your keys. I used to have a Google doc I could access from anywhere. You can even buy a special purpose application or freely download a slightly more robust Product Key Manager, though I don’t recommend it.

For the more security-minded, I recommend leveraging your existing password manager. Set up the name of the application and use the password field for you key. This keeps them secure and ensures you don’t need yet another single-purpose app.

3 – Keeping it updated
I sync my password app among multiple computers so I always have it with me when I travel. Depending on how your company manages demo/trial keys, you might be able to set a standard task in your calendar to get a new key set monthly (or whenever it makes sense). That way you never have to worry about showing up to a customer without a key or needing one for a different expiry timeframe, etc.

Filed Under: Productivity, Utilities Tagged With: ,

Creating Exceptional Relationships with Product Management – Poor Resource Utilization

April 29, 2009 By

Part 3 of 3 on Creating Exceptional Relationships with Product Management (part 1) (part 2)

Poor Resource Utilization

You would be hard pressed to find someone that disagreed with the notion that PM should be spending a lot of time with customers. The disconnect I find is that Sales believes those visits should predominately be alongside reps and tied to opportunities. PM believes that most visits should not be tied to specific opportunities.

Because of this inconsistency, you have reps and SEs that get fired up that a PM is never available to visit their customers. Compounding the issue is that many times we do get PM in front of the customer it is either as a crutch (you reached a sales cycle impasse) or as an accelerant (wanting to artificially increase velocity). While there is an exception to every rule, what this creates is very poor resource utilization and it’s very common because PM is technically a “free” resource to Sales (though some companies do in fact use charge backs).

Here is what I recommend.

  1. Only request sales assistance on opportunities where direct PM commitment is required to move or expand a high-value (on a company-wide basis) opportunity
  2. Do a little leg work to get PM some face time with other, existing customers in the area without your presence and without a specific sales objective.

Not only will PM appreciate your respect for their time, over time they will also respond to you first if you can get them access to customers that can help them with their market research.

Finally, when you get that really esoteric product question, don’t assume it hasn’t been answered and not check the documentation before sending it on to PM. I shake my head when I see SEs email questions to PM that are answered numerous places online. Not only do you ruin your reputation, but that of your peers. What you are basically saying is that you do not value the PM’s time. I can’t think of anything more insulting personally.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With:

Creating Exceptional Relationships with Product Management – A disregard for formal process

April 14, 2009 By

Part 2 of 3 on Creating Exceptional Relationships with Product Management (part 1)

A Disregard for Formal Process

Let’s assume our PMs have listened to the need to establish formal process in how they enable the SE force. In reality this will be hit or miss most of the time. What I have noticed is even in areas where PM has established a well-functioning, documented process, there will be a certain number of SEs that want to negate that process because they feel their deal warrants immediate attention.

For example, say PM has a web form for submitting feature requests. A big customer says to us in the middle of a sales call they would buy if only it had this certain feature. What do you and your rep do? I know many that would go straight to the PM via email, phone, and door knocking if possible. “To hell with process, this is million dollar opportunity” they say.

I’ll stop short of saying process always needs to be followed, but I do recommend you commit yourself to a short thought experiment before you do attempt to circumvent established channels.

The concept is based on moral universalism. Simply put: Take your intended course of action and imagine if everyone else did the exact same thing. Would it lead to a net benefit for your company or not?

In our example, what if every time a SE went to PM directly with a feature request of in this situation instead of using the submission form? If you can unbiasedly say that this deal really is worth breaking the rules for the benefit of the company then go for it. If you hesitate, it probably isn’t.

Of course this rule not only applies to PM but to other internal groups and customers as well. Give this a try next time you’re thinking about making a request of someones time and energy.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With:

Creating Exceptional Relationships with Product Management – A Vague Understanding

April 3, 2009 By

I just recently published an article in the Pragmatic Marketer magazine for product managers entitled How to Turn Sales Engineers into Your Biggest Fans. I thought it fitting to write the corollary article for how we can best interact with PM.

Having been a student of both professions for quite some time I have observed many points of contention between the two roles—beautifully illustrated at The Cranky PM here and here. There are three areas in particular that I feel cause the most frustration:

  1. Vague understanding of the PM role
  2. Lack of and/or disregard for formal process
  3. Poor resource utilization

Because these are lengthy topics I will address each area one post at a time.

Understanding

It wasn’t until I began reading PM blogs, books, and even attending a few training sessions, that I developed a keen appreciation of PMs as I had come to for SEs. In this case I am as guilty as the rest of us in what I describe…

Let me begin directly and work back from there: as an SE you are not responsible for setting or determining product direction, product quality, or product marketing. Yet that never seems to stop us from getting frustrated, stressing out, and trying our best to influence product direction based on feedback from OUR ultra-important customers. I wrote about this at length here for additional detail.

We do have a crucial responsibility, however. We have the responsibility of providing customer/market feedback to the company in an unbiased manner. That means we have an obligation to do those things we dislike even if it is not demanded of us. This includes trip reports, honest win (and loss!) reports, and forwarding on the 150 feature suggestions we hear every day.

The critical difference (and source of so much stress) is that we have the incestuous need to expect a direct response and action based on that feedback. Shouldn’t we get something back?—we think to ourselves. Yes, but that doesn’t mean we need to expect it. Our responsibility ends when we have provided our feedback to the appropriate location. We get paid enough to worry about our sales cycles, let someone else worry about the roadmap!

Finally, if you’re reading this blog you’re already a few steps ahead of your competition as my anecdotal research suggests less than 30% of SEs actively subscribe to blogs/feeds. Do yourself a favor and read a couple of books and subscribe to some PM blogs to round out your knowledge. I guarantee not only will it make you a better SE but it will begin to lead to some great relationships with your product managers. Here’s a few sources to get you started:

Books

Blogs

Courses

After you’ve had a chance to do a little digging at the links above I’ll continue on with part II next week. If you have strong feelings or feedback on the subject I encourage you to weigh in over in the comments section on the site.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With:

You can’t afford to suck at design

March 31, 2009 By

Usually I don’t insert entire outside posts but I think this one from Seth Godin is exceptionally relevant to our industry:

—
Why aren’t you (really) good at graphic design?
Ten years ago, you had a wide range of excuses for being a lousy visuals person. Starting with no talent, leading to no skill and going from there.

But now, in a world where it is expected that professionals will be able to make beautiful powerpoint slides, handsome business cards, clever bio photos and a decent website, it’s as important as driving. And easier to learn and do, and requiring less talent.

No, you and I will never be gifted designers or breakthrough designers. But there’s really no reason not to be really good.

I put together a page with some blogs, books and sites you can check out. An hour a day for a month and you won’t have to hide your face in shame. Sure, hire the very best in the world when you need a breakthrough. But you don’t have to pay for better-than-mediocre design. You can do it yourself.
—

I have heard more than once that you should leave marketing materials to marketing. I disagree. It is your responsibility to develop your own keen sense of design. Too often you need to create custom material for your customers. If you show slides like the one below to your customers, I guarantee you’re leaving a hell of a lot of money on the table. I know I’d have a tough time buying from you.

ppt-image

You can see a short list of my design resources here and here.

Filed Under: Demo, Marketing, Presentation, Soft Skills Tagged With: , , ,
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