The Case for Employee Emails [E047] - Speak Up! Effective Communication

About this episode

Thank You To Our Partners, The Institute, AutoFlow, AutoLeap, Shop Dog Marketing, In-BoundWatch Full Video EpisodeEmail-Seriously!In many business conversations the first correspondence is often by email and it is NOT going away anytime soon. While YES email in general has MANY problems there are still professionals who are more responsive to emails than texts or phone calls.We’ll be talking about email in terms of impressions, practicality, and interactions.I’ll lay a few ideas out and then we’ll discuss some best practices for team ownership so email correspondence doesn’t result in dropped balls.Today’s WOTD is: EloquentWe’ll define our word - after we hear a word from our sponsors who make this show possible!adjective: marked by forceful and fluent expression, an eloquent preacher: vividly or movingly expressive or revealing, an eloquent monumentOn Making an Impression:In the aftermarket - and countless other small businesses - it is very common to see email interaction with people using public domain email addresses.  This can be the casual:  .gmail.com / .icloud.com / .yahoo.com  | The older… @aol.com / @hotmail.com / @netscape.com.Or - what I will simply call “serious” emails - those that use their own custom domain names.While we ALL use some casual and older email suffix - I want to raise a few points to help you consider moving yourself or your organization to owning, maintaining, or providing your own email domain.There is just no denying the casual nature of the suffix, and it feels like an afterthought in business settings if you’re still relying on .gmail… Sending an email with a link from your shop?  Best if it is not from rando@gmail.com.If you’re networking, applying for a job, or running a transaction - a more “serious” email suffix does appear more professional, stands out, and builds trust.Is it a game changer?  Not always - but like any other feature of a business, it is a factor in how you are being perceived.Communication goes far beyond the words we use - and absolutely involves our outward appearances - even our digital appearance.  With most every inbox - before every subject -is the address the email is from.On the older suffixes, it’s commonly joked about, but there are strong assumptions that if you have an AOL email address today in 2025 - you most likely no long care that “you’ve got mail” and you probably won’t check it either.  Is it fair?  No maybe not - but I can speak from experience on this.  If you are working with a client using older emails like AOL - and you must email them - I’m a big fan of calling to let those individuals know to check their email… in most cases. If you’re offended by this and you use an AOL email - go ahead and send an email to speakup@craigoneill.net and… be sure to leave me your number!    In all seriousness - if we are engaging via email - it is almost always for a transaction or in some form of a professional capacity and less likely for personal correspondence…Which leads me to a best practice I’ve encouraged for nearly a decade.Create standardized company emails for EVERY employee.I came across a shop doing this just this morning. It is RARE to see this.EVERY employee in the shop that had a user in the system they all had an email address from the organization.Advisors and Techs!I’ve seen many shops that have communication specialists who are given a business email - but almost always the service specialists are using a generic email - often with some inappropriate names…Follow me on this.This goes well beyond appearance -staff that have a need to correspond with a vendor or partner are best to be doing so with an email that proves their employment.Why?Think about it.If you have individuals with their own emails functioning as established employees - do your vendors know when they are no longer employees?  Businesses that provide employees with emails have 100% control over that email being disabled if the employee is no longer with the business.In our ever increasingly technological field- this has ramifications on a wide variety of partnerships, tool access, and security credentials.  The sheer volume of applications and software platforms that you may need to manage logins with can be managed much easier if you know automatically - the email that they were granted access with.Which leads me to practicality:When I am working with people - they typically have to administrate users in some form.It is rare that a file is on hand with the proper contact records for an employee.  In a recent example - there were some decent human resource records - and the owner used those to start logins.  When the email verification (a necessary security measure today) went out - it was revealed that many of the people on the list no longer had access to the personal emails they had once upon a time provided to the organization.In all businesses - there is a need to communicate things to entire teams.While group texts can suffice - larger organizations cannot send mass texts out to employees.They can however email employees to addresses that the organization provides.  This is more secure - and more structured to go along with expectations.Working in software - all my team members are expected to receive and respond to emails, and high volumes of professional correspondence are done through that channel.  Professional emails can get cluttered - but the clutter is manageable.Personal emails are almost always cluttered - and important things can get buried far easier.The last thing I want you to consider is how our team manages inbound emails that are to a generic email.  I.e. Service@yourshop.com.I was recently at a shop that had an old computer still plugged in and running so they could still access the email on that computer.  I probed - and learned that the email application “Thunderbird” was logged in with the shop email - but no one knew the password or could access the password.  The shop had been sold and was under new ownership - and the owner didn’t remember the password either.I genuinely didn’t have a solution for them - but knew that they will soon be getting a new email.The thing is- I’ve struggled with this too.  In the late 90s through the 00’s - I was still doing a terrible job with emails.  It was a total afterthought - and it seemed like the passwords were always getting changed.  You know the feeling.  You get a phone call and someone says something like “I emailed you two weeks ago and never got a response.”This is no longer an option today - as people are all giddy over AI phone assistants that will answer questions after hours… missing an email was a moment that mattered.The problem at the root of these scenarios is that a bunch of people are owning one email.  You have heard it said - if everyone owns it, no one owns it?  Well this creates a real mess.The best practice out of this is simple.#1 - Create emails for all of your team members in your own domain.#2 - Create a workspace - i.e. google#3 - Create a group email - group emails are different than a user - for example - we have “Sales@autoflow.com - I see that email as well as many of our team members - #4 - Make a standard policy for responses.  I.e. For us a Sales@autoflow.com email gets replied to by Chan - and he makes the reply to the sender and the group - so all members of the group know it’s been handled.  (or he’ll email the group and say he’s got it - and reach out directly to the individual)There are other ways to accomplish this - i.e. .icloud from Apple has simple domain custimizability- but I wouldn’t know about that due to my eagerness to avoid throwing money at apple.  Google isn’t much better -but it’s the devil I know!For myself - I purchased my domain from “Iwantmyname” - and chose to use that domain with Google Workspace.  The domain I use cost $20 a year.The users in workspace cost $14 per month.  (going up soon…)It’s NOT serious money.For an organization - it’s a small cost - and ought to be...