People hate emails, and some people love them, or do they? For most, the term email, when its mentioned just brings up every negative thought in your head.
When you think of emails, you think spam, hassle, time suck, everything associated with it, and you think, “I couldn’t deal with emails.”
So can you ever love them? I would say, YES! Emails can be your friend. They may be a kind of love hate relationship, but it still can be your friend.
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Now first of all, there are many email providers. I know when I speak to a lot of people that many don’t quite understand the concept of the email system, so a lot of people use what they are given.
For example, if you sign up for your internet with AT&T, you use their email system. If you sign up for internet with British Telecom BT or Sky in UK, you just use their email system.
However, I would challenge you first of all to change it. Do not accept what you’re given. Now the reason for that, is that these people are not email specialists.
Pick an email specialist. My choice and everything we base things on is Gmail, which is owned by Google. Let me explain why.
First of all, it’s free. It’s not only free, but Google has put a lot of effort in and they develop it continuously, you don’t even notice, in the background.
Secondly, Google hates spam more than you do. It clogs up their internet filters and their search terms. So google knows how to remove spam.
Now I have used Hotmail, which is now Live. I have also used Outlook, and I’ve used Webmail. I’ve used BT and I’ve used all sorts.
We have also used special email software from specialists, but none of them do what Gmail does.
There are things like Spam Assassin and all kinds of software that you can use but you have to whitelist people, you have to check stuff, to say ‘Yes, this is okay. No, that isn’t.’
And let the system learn. Gmail just knows. It’s very rare that stuff gets through. I mean, a lot of people will be saying, ‘Oh, yeah I have spam. I get spam in my inbox still in Gmail.’
But if you do, you obviously get a lot of emails and you look at your spam, and it is choker with this stuff.
It’s a massive weight off. When we changed at my business, (and by the way, it it’s a business you tend to use Google Apps, which is the paid version because it has controls), so if you’ve got like 15 or 20 staff, you don’t want them all running around personal accounts.
You want a simple system, a systemized approach and it runs $5 a month or $50 a year or 3 pounds, 30 a month in UK.
I think you can afford it for the hassle. Our admin person, she used to organize, looking after the software and spam and keeping everything up to date. It just removed her biggest headache.
That’s why we got the software. It has removed her one job from her, she just didn’t have to do it. She was absolutely amazed. She just didn’t have to do that anymore.
Gmail also comes with lots of other things called Google docs.
Its gives you free Google Drive Storage. It also gives you free online spreadsheets, docs, PowerPoints and forms that are just synced in the cloud everywhere.
This is great to use. I’ve been doing this stuff for years. We put it all through Gmail.
When you do Lead Generation, you can use something like Aweber or Mail Chimp, or other email hosting services.
There’s loads of them. But those, the ones I mentioned are the better known ones and the ones that we use.
When you are collecting email addresses use these programs. That way you avoid ending up in a Spam mailbox.
They save the emails in a database. They have people on their staff who work with people like Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft or Hotmail, and they are there to make sure that your stuff is getting white listed and getting through their spam stuff.
They have certain controls as to what gets in so use those. This makes it easier.
Now once you start using an email marketing system, say like Mail Chimp, and I say Mail Chimp because the basic one is free for up to 2000 names.
You can test it without spending any money. You can send out a newsletter to your customers and it just does it, it just works. It has templates.
It’s going to look professional. When your customers get it, they can unsubscribe with one click. You are not breaking any laws. So this makes emailing out a lot easier.
Aweber, Mail Chimp, etc. are not for sending email messages and replies like that. This is an email marketing system for keeping a database of all your customers.
You use it to send them messages such as offers or newsletters or updates or information or things like that. So that is different. You should not be doing that on your own email system.
But once you use one of these and you find these templates, you’ll start to love it. It’s not a chore, it’s easy.
It’s really easy and the information is fabulous because they want everyone to use their system, and they use it themselves. They are brilliant.
Once you start with those couple of things, you can love emails again because emails get your message across. They are the fastest way. They are free. It much easier than phoning people.
However, if people need to be phoned, emailing them for once may not work. They may prefer the telephones, so remember that.
But for most, email is simple. When you go on holiday, you can put a message on, that says, ‘Hey, I am away until ‘x’ date. In the meantime, please contact my colleague ____ by phone or email.’
It is all automated. If you don’t want people emailing you all day, you can put message in there that says, ‘Thanks for your message. We respond to emails between ____ each day. If it’s more urgent, please phone us.’
That’s a good way of getting peoples expectations up. People say, ‘Oh, gosh! That’s a good idea.’
Another great way to save message templates in your Gmail. They are what I call canned responses.
If you are a blogger, you get pitches from PR companies saying ‘Do this, do that.’ You can just reply to them with a canned response, a one click that has a message.
It might say. ‘Thank you for the inquiry, however we don’t actually do ____’, or something like that.
You can love email again, but what I say, don’t accept what you are given. Don’t use your ISP email. Use Gmail and for your marketing, mail chimp, Aweber, Convert Kit.
You don’t need to really bother, I haven’t used the others. You don’t need to bother with any others because they do it. Start with Mail Chimp.
Monday Book Recommendation
It’s Monday which means it is time for ‘Book for the Week’. Today we’re going to cover, Virtual Freedom Chris Ducker.
Chris is an English guy, who now lives in the Philippines. He’s lived in Philippines for a number of years. And he knows the system inside out.
He’s got a call center and a business there, and he employs a lot of people. He’s developed a virtual staff finder system where you can find staff.
If you are looking for skilled labor in the Philippines his system is great.
But his book, with his experience and all this, his books explain how as an early entrepreneur, he burned himself out and ended up in a hospital.
He had to figure out how to delegate, yes and how to hire. And he figured it out. He explains his entire journey. Chris is great. His website can be found at www.chrisdukker.com and it is great.
His periscopes are good. His podcast is good. He is a very likeable guy. He is very well connected but the book is excellent.
If you don’t get value and learn about delegating some task and how to delegate them from there, I’ll eat my hat. I haven’t got a hat but you know what I mean. Go read it. Let me know what you think. I’ll see you tomorrow.
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Do you love or hate emails?