Be aware of emails you get from your own business

Are you receiving emails that don’t seem to make sense because they are from accounts that don’t exist in your company? These are emails that you need to think about but not open and especially not reply to. Normally the display that is showing has nothing to do with your business and it is just away to try and get some credentials.

How many times have you received an email from an account that you don’t remember being part of the list of users that you have for your business. If you are a small business, you probably don’t have a bunch of accounts that maybe some larger business has such as:

• accounting@
• hr@
• helpdesk@
• invoices@
• finance@
• IT@ 

These are just a few examples of account addresses that you might receive an email from and those are probably not accounts that you use. So, if you are receiving an email from any of these accounts the first thing you need to do is not open the email and the second thing is if you happen to open the email, DO NOT REPLY to the message.

Even as a small business I have received emails from those accounts and I laugh because there are only two of us in our business and we definitely don’t have email accounts such as the ones listed above. Quite often when you dig a little deeper it is someone trying to get you to do something like provide them with personal information such as date of birth, address and even your social insurance number.

So, when you receive an email that looks odd make sure that you DON’T REPLY to it and if possible don’t open it at all. These emails need to be reported to IT when possible. If you are a small business and don’t have an IT department, make sure you report them to the individual that is responsible for the email account set up.

I can't find that email

How many times have you heard someone say “I can’t find that email you sent me” or “Can you resend me the email because I don’t seem to be able to find it”. In business this is something that I think we all deal with at some time.

If someone if looking for an email there are methods that can be used to assist them in locating that specific email. Of course there is the request for it to be resent because they just can’t take the time to check their email themselves and don’t know the other ways to try and find it. I have received a number of phone calls about someone not being able to locate an email and asking me to resent it. I do resent the email but what I normally do is find it in my sent items and forward it showing them the original date and subject line that I used.

Search – this is one of the methods that can be used to locate an email when you have a general idea about the subject of the email. It doesn’t have to be exact but at least a general idea by help. An example would be “staff meeting” if you are looking for minutes from a staff meeting that was sent earlier in the year. The search would then show just the emails that are in your email pertaining to staff meetings. The person would then be able to find the email that they were looking for without having to ask for it being resent.

Sort – here is a method that can also help you locate an email if you know who sent the message in the first place. Email can be sorted by name, date, size, subject and are all different methods of helping you locate that email that you are looking for in your email. By doing the sort in a couple of different ways you will probably locate the message you are looking for as long as you haven’t deleted it.

Folders – using folders within your email system is another way to assist in locating the various emails you are looking for. The only thing with folders is the volume of email in each of these folders can get out of hand very easy.

Saving the attachments – if the email has a file attached the first thing you should do after receiving the email is save the attachment somewhere else which would also make it easier to locate. We all deal with tons and tons of emails and yes they can get a little overwhelming sometimes but knowing how to sort and search your emails can make life so much easier. There will be times when you have to ask a person to resend something because you deleted it but at least it won’t be as often.

All of these methods will assist you in finding that email that you received or sent. It is also very important to remember to not keep everything in your email account because things can be deleted in error or your email system can get corrupted and you can lose everything. The rule that I always try and use is if the document is something that I may need in the future, save it outside of the email system when you receive it. Don’t think just because the message is in your email today it will be there tomorrow.

Email storage isn’t unlimited so in some cases emails can be lost if there are issues with the storage. Figure out how to manage your email account and don’t just leave everything there and not understand how to locate what you are looking for.

Respecting other people's time

Have you ever received an email with only part of a message and ended up having to reply asking for more detail? Well, I have been getting a lot of these types of messages in the last little while and it really bothers me.

If you are sending someone an email to ask a question or to ask for something be sure that you really do ask for what you are looking for instead of just being unclear. The reason I am saying this is it wastes a lot of time to have to continually email back and forth getting clarification.

Another part of emailing is if you are looking for a number of different things try and put them all in one email instead of an email every few minutes. If you are working on a few things try and delay sending the first email for a few minutes to see if you need anything else. The person that is receiving all these emails is continually being interrupted if they are notified of all messages that are received. The person you are sending to may change their notification so that they don't get the notification and in an emergency will miss something.

It is important when you send emails you make sure you give all the information that is necessary for the individual receiving the email to act quickly and effectively on it. The information you are looking for may be easy to send if the person understands what you are looking for and doesn't have to guess at some of it.

Sending numerous emails to one person is like picking up the phone and calling them with every little question instead of thinking things through and then making one contact. The person that is receiving this type of message would really appreciate the one message instead of tons of little messages.

Remember email is great in some ways but you also have to remember that you could be interfering with what someone is working on if you continually email them. They may be working on something for you and it will take them a lot longer to get you the stuff if you don't respect their time.

Communication

Nowadays, we all seem to have too many demands on our time.  It doesn't matter who you talk to, everyone says the same thing, "there isn't enough time to get everything done."  The computer was supposed to make life easier, but now with all the different ways to communicate, everyone wants their answer right away.

I know that we have had to set our mobile devices to automatically turn off at night and on in the morning, otherwise we would be woken up in the middle of the night by the notification of new messages.  Also, setting which accounts notify us of new messages has also made managing messages a little easier.  The other practice we have is if we are in meetings we are only notified when specific accounts get messages and this is done by setting our notification to silent mode, so it only vibrates.  Yes, we have more than one account that goes to our mobile device.

Being able to take some time away from constant contact can be so rewarding.  I think people understand that sometimes answers aren't going to be immediate no matter how hard they try.

Have you ever got a phone call from someone right after they have sent you can email?  Normally the call is a repeat of the email or a request for an answer immediately.  These normally are the emails that require some research before an answer can be given.

It is important to remember that one means of communication can fail, so if it is URGENT to communicate with someone, ensure you try to communicate with them in more than one method.  Emails sometimes don't get through due to technical issues same as texting or instant messages or the person is in an area with low or no reception.  So remember, if it's urgent, try multiple methods of communication.

So before I have everyone yelling, remember how we communicate before email and cell phones.  It did take a bit longer to get an answer, but we survived.

Make sure that you sometimes take a little bit of a break from being constantly reachable.  Everyone needs a break every once in a while, so respect others when they take a bit longer to reply to a message.  We don't know everyone's total schedule, so understand you aren't going to get immediate responses each time you send out some communication.


Modern communication has made things easier in a lot of ways because we can get the message anywhere, but remember we still need time to get other things done.  So maybe one day we won't be saying, "there isn't enough time to get everything done."  Until that time, understand the demands on everyone's time and remember you're not the only one asking for their attention.