Your Inner CEO: Can we talk? Or shall we just email?

In any industry today there are two basic ways of opening a connection with potential clients or customers. One of them – cold calling – has been around for a long time. The other possibility, which is communicating by email, is obviously much newer. But it’s becoming the more widely used.

There’s a simple reason why email has become a key element in developing new business. It’s because most people hate to make cold calls. So they rely on email as an introduction to break the ice. But, although email may be easier, it’s often the less effective of the two techniques.

Still, if you’re going to use email you should learn to do it right. So let’s see exactly what that involves.

First and foremost, before you send an email to a potential customer you need to answer these questions:

Are you sending the email in order to avoid making a call?

Is e-mail your choice because it lets you avoid the rejection that you risk in cold calls?

Will you wait for a return e-mail before moving the process forward with a call?

There’s a basically defensive psychology that underlies these questions. Anticipating rejection makes people turn to e-mail to generate new connections. They think it will hurt less to never get a an email reply than to actually hear the word "no." That’s not a good mindset to have.

Another reason for “call reluctance” is the strong possibility of getting blocked by gatekeepers or voicemail. You might think, "Forget it -- it's not worth the aggravation and energy. I'll just e-mail instead."

But if use e-mail to offer your product or service to someone who doesn't know you, you can't establish a dialogue. You can’t build the trust that’s needed for a productive long-term relationship You can’t reach that crucial point of “Let’s keep talking” because you never start talking in the first place.

I suggest thinking of e-mail as your last resort. Trust me: you can learn to pick up the phone without fear, start a trusting conversation with a gatekeeper, learn how to go beyond voice mail, and reach the decision-maker. Go for it. As the late Vic Braden, the great tennis coach, used to say, “You’ll be famous by Friday!”