Here’s a writing tip: Your sales emails don’t have to be lengthy.

Yes, you may have heard that longer is better, but that’s only when people aren’t your priority and algorithms are.

Our work lives are filled with influxes of sales and marketing messages: via social networks, email, conference calls, text messages, and even the posters on the back of the toilet stall door. The result? People no longer have the patience to sift through a mass of text to get to the nugget of your message.

They’re skeptical. Tired. Overloaded. And distracted by other things. Plus, most sales messages are unsolicited.

I don’t hope you are well.

Now, I value good manners as much as the next person. But opening sales email with “I hope this email finds you well” makes me want to cry, because it’s such a waste of valuable real estate.

And it leaves you with a mere few lines of text to unpack your actual sales message.

So, here’s the writing tip:

Use your opening line to ask a heated question, raise a problem you can solve, or quote a stat that the reader will find useful. When ending the sales email, a focused call to action and a genuine ‘Thank you’ will flatter the reader more convincingly than any “Hope you are well”.

Now watch this video. I’m in it. Or call me to chat.