General Business

Tip for Processing Email

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A few months ago, I set a goal to empty my inbox. It all relates to Getting Things Done by David Allen and Inbox Zero.

To make a long story short, I had to process 10’s of thousands of emails. During this exciting work, I figured out something. When you are processing email it’s much easier if you sort by “from” instead of the default of sorting by date. This puts all of the messages from the same people together. This makes it easy to delete a block of spam all from one person (click on the first message, hold down shift, click on the last message, press delete). Additionally, it makes it much easier for reply’s because if someone has sent you multiple questions, you can read all and reply to all in one email.

To sort by from you simply click on the Column Name (in Thunderbird that’s ‘sender’, but I believe in Outlook Express it’s ‘from’).

Using this method I’m often able to process a couple hundred emails within 20-30 minutes, including answering several.

Free Dynamic Email Backup

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I’ve come to understand, as you may, that one of the worst set of data for me to lose would be my email. To that end, I’ve come up with a way to automatically backup all of my email.

I created a new Gmail account just for backups. I forward a copy of all of my email to this account. If I was ever to have a problem, even if I just accidently deleted an email, I can go back and search for it at that Gmail account.

Many hosting companies give you the ability to forward copies of your email to a secondary address. If you’re not sure how to do it, you’ll need to contact your hosting company.

Needless to say, if you host with me, you can ask me.

Squidoo Lense

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Squidoo is a very simple way for you to create a site. Since you have control of the page, you can make it about a niche subject and link it to your site. Additionally, you can create as many different pages (they call them lenses) as you want. Check out Squidoo.

Using FAQ’s

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Creating an FAQ page is a great way to build credibility into your site, make more sales, and save time.

Do’s

  • Include the most common questions you’re asked
  • Answer the questions directly
  • Add a form where people can ask you questions
  • Keep a positive tone

Do Not’s

  • Use FAQ’s just for sales, while some questions like, “how are you able to offer…” are acceptable, those questions should be in the minority
  • Create an FAQ page with fewer then 5 questions

All and all, an FAQ page is a great tool you can add to your website.

Speed Up for the Slow Down

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When the economy goes up, your marketing eforts should go up. Why? Two simple words, market share. If your competitors are cutting marketing dollars, that leaves the door open for you to capture market share.

“Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.” ~Warren Buffett

I can hear you now, “but I don’t have any money.” If you have no cash flow, you must not have much business, so that means you have an abundance of your greatest resource… Time. Invest some time using the free resources on this site.

One last note about marketing in a slow economy, make sure you are testing. Just because you need to market, doesn’t mean that you need to keep spending or start spending, a lot of money on marketing that doesn’t work. The simplest way to test is to ask a simple question, “how did you hear about us?”