Soft Skills 101 - Mastering Emails

How to Get your Emails Read … and Responded to

Here are some Smart practices to follow…

  1. Keep them to 2 spaced sentences….3 if it’s really important.

  2. Make sure the subject line is relevant

  3. When responding to a string of emails - update the subject line as necessary

  4. Re-read your email before sending it - see where you can trim to be more succinct

  5. If you have a good deal of information to share - this is where layout and punctuation comes in - help yourself to the: colon, semi colon, bullet points and indentations, etc. 

  6. Keep your emails professional

    1. Be mindful of your ‘tone’

    2. Avoid language that’s accusing

    3. Stay positive - 

7.  Your email is a representation of you - how do you want to be viewed?

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How many times have you opened an email and knew you were not going to read the whole thing?

More than likely it’s because it looked like someone dumped the alphabet in a blender - like one of those ‘Lorem Ipsum’ place holders and carelessly sent it in your direction.

So what to do when you have much to say - take the time to structure the email so that it presents in a format where it’s quickly comprehended.

Titles don’t exempt one from creating long boring poorly constructed emails - nor do they ensure everyone will read it. To get your emails read and responded to - get to the point in as few words as possible.

Understand that we are wired to look for the quickest route with the least amount of effort - that includes getting to the purpose of an email.

I trust this was helpful.

To your Success!


One last thought to ponder…everyone wants to love and be loved, to know they matter. Keeping that in mind in all of your communications will make you that much more attractive to work with.

Debbie Peck