KISS Emails
Keep It Short and Simple! The quintessence of qualitative and efficient business emailing. Qualitative, that is the word because when you shorten your text to an absolute minimum — all that remains is quality.
Do you know what KISS means? Besides the direct meaning, of course?
Keep It Short and Simple! The quintessence of qualitative and efficient business emailing. Qualitative, that is the word because when you shorten your text to an absolute minimum — all that remains is quality.
But it’s a pretty tough task, though nothing is impossible. And the starting point here is to employ two logical elements — constituents of KISS, that is shortness and simplicity.
And the critical here is for both elements to be present, as they are equally important and constitute good RX (Reader eXperience). Your text will sound primitive if you apply only shortness. And if you concentrate merely on simplicity, you are unlikely to compose concise emails.
Both elements should work in concert!
Keep it short
Once Blaise Pascal wrote to his friend,
“Sorry, friend, for writing such a long letter, I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
Surprisingly as it may seem, it is much harder and longer to compose brief emails. Long and complicated — it is easy. Open your laptop, create a new message in Gmail, let’s say, and spit out the chaos of your thoughts on the screen. But when each letter counts and matters, you weigh every word, rephrase it hundreds of times, change its form/tense, replace it with a synonym, and so on.
Therefore, it is much easier not to balance the words and to materialize your stream of consciousness into the characters, than make each word meaningful, and each phrase valuable to your reader. And that’s why by far not everyone is ready for this.
It was calculated that on average, it takes 15–20 seconds to read an email. This means that anything that does not fit into this reading time frame passes by the reader. Therefore, your task is to word your opinion so it will fit into the time limit.
And don’t say it’s impossible. Twitter proved that practically any idea can be conveyed with 140 characters.
I do not campaign for symbols counting. No, it is like with calories, most likely there will be little sense and much stress. Just follow the rule of thumb, make your emails easier to respond to than coming back to them later.
Keep it simple
With simple emails, one can face a different challenge. Many people decided if they start writing simply, they will sound:
- Primitive and/or
- Unprofessional and/or
- Impolite/snobbish and/or
- Uninformative
if nothing else :).
No! Not at all. It all depends on your phrasing and word choice.
- Simple is not primitive.
This is an email, not a piece of fiction. You do not need to impress your university teacher with the eccentricity of the plot, the freshness of the composition or the knowledge of artistic means. So even your excellent command of English vocabulary is not the best way to impress a business partner. When I urge to write simply, I do not mean to degrade to a 5-year-old level. On the contrary, if you try to write so that each word is used with specific intent and purpose, impacts the text and works for you, you will just not get a chance to write primitively. You will automatically pick words that convey the essence of your thought/need, rather than explain it all round by typical cliches. Compare:
- She pitched her idea to me over the business lunch. (10 words)
- She tried to persuade me to choose her idea to invest over the business lunch. (14 words)
Or
- Please, examine the document. (4 words)
- Please, look through the document carefully. (6 words)
Yes, perhaps sentence-wide the difference in the number of words is insignificant. But email-wide, you will feel it: both when you write and when you read. And in terms of word selection, it makes a world of difference!
The most effective emails that require only “yes” or “no” answer!
2. Simple is not unprofessional.
Weirdly some people believe that if they do not pile up a large quantity of sophisticated grammatical constructions and do not use the 'facepalm' herewith and beforementioned, and instead of familiar start will not use commence, then their reputation/image of a proficient English speaker will be damaged.
Do you know what will really prove your competency? An email written in such a way that requires ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer that is the genuine respect of the reader’s time and efforts. Remember, the best closing lines of an email is not “Looking forward to your reply” but “No action needed./No response required”.
The previous examples also perfectly demonstrate that with the selection of words that you can demonstrate your level and professionalism.
3. Simple is not impolite.
Business communication has changed. We communicate with our colleagues, partners and stakeholders in a more friendly and welcoming style than ever before. We feel relatively free and relaxed during these conversations. At least try to.
But emails seem to remain XIX century-born. If the business is much more personalized and oral communication is less formal (with all its implications), why not to apply this change to emails? Why not to replace formalisms and cliched one-size-fits-all templates with something more personalized and sincere? Yes, easy and primitive copy-paste will not work here. You need to roll up your sleeves, gather wits and pick up the "right" words, which is difficult and time-consuming, but worth it. I always emphasize that polite words are not yet politeness. For example, as with thanks in advance. The whole approach should be polite.
4. Simple is not uninformative.
To make it informative, again, you need to take word selection utmost thoughtfully and carefully. Every word should work for you, so delete all the words that do not add any semantic value, aren’t meaningful. At every turn, question yourself whether the word is needed there or is at the right place? Will the meaning and tone of the sentence change if I pick up the word? If not, delete it — less is new more.
So, wishing you short&simple emails!
Read this article in Ukrainian on UPPR.com.ua
