Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc.
By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker
Have you ever wondered how many emails CEOs get and how they manage them? Apple’s Tim Cook says he receives 700 to 800 daily and that he reads each one and answers the majority. “I’m a workaholic,” Cook revealed in an ABC News Interview in January 2014.
The Radicati Group’s Email Statistic Report revealed that more than 190 billion emails are sent and received worldwide every day. The report also showed that the average office worker gets over 100 emails daily. That number is expected to grow by 4% per year. CEOs, however, receive even more.
Email Time Management Tips from Top CEOs
While many people complain about the deluge of emails, several top CEOs say that spending time on emails is not a waste of time. In fact, emails can become effective management tools.
- Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is known for reading emails from customers. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, said, “Jeff tells everyone that if you email him, you’ll get an answer either within 10 minutes, or never.” Bezos sometimes forwards customer emails to his managers within Amazon with a single question mark. A Bloomberg Businessweek article revealed, “When Amazon employees get a Bezos question mark email, they react as though they’ve discovered a ticking bomb. They’ve typically got a few hours to solve whatever issue the CEO has flagged and prepare a thorough explanation for how it occurred, a response that will be reviewed by a succession of managers before the answer is presented to Bezos himself.” This practice ensures that Bezos stays in touch with consumers and also with his employees.
- Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group, also does not let emails overwhelm him, although he receives up to 400 daily emails. He goes through them personally and will answer some himself. He uses his assistants to help him answer emails, while delegating the rest to the appropriate people in his organization.
- Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, has two acronyms he follows religiously for managing and sending email – O.H.I.O. and L.I.F.O.. H.I.O.stands for “Only Hold It Once.” In his book, How Google Works, Schmidt explains that if you see an email that takes less than two minutes to respond to, respond immediately. L.I.F.O. stands for “Last In First Out.” That means handling newer emails first. He says this works for him because the older stuff usually gets taken care of by someone else. More tips appear in this Time magazine article.
LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner’s Seven Laws of Email
Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, has a thorough list of email management tips that he calls “laws.” Weiner said that once he set up the laws and followed them that emails began to “play an essential role” in his daily routine. In an article on HubSpot’s Sidekick, Scout Tousley listed and expanded upon Weiner’s “Seven Laws of Email.”
- To get less email, send less email
- Mark as unread, to create an Inbox to-do list
- Establish a daily routine to avoid Inbox overload
- Be precise in your words to avoid multiple emails
- Know when to CC/BCC/To the recipients
- Acknowledge receipt of email
- Controversial conversations belong in person, not email
Lincoln and Email
Weiner’s 7th Law may be the most important: Take the controversial conversations off line. Discuss them in person. Tousley goes further and advises readers to never send an angry email. Rather do what Abraham Lincoln did when dealing with a particularly vexing situation. Sit down and write your angry letter. Then, do not send it. This practice let Lincoln vent without hurting anyone. He put his angry letters in a pile and instead sent encouragement. He is known as one of the most effective leaders we have ever had.
Have a Methodology
The key to handling email effectively and efficiently is to have a methodology, a routine, and discipline. As Weiner said, it just took setting up the rules and following them. What have you learned about managing emails? What is your favorite methodology? Please share your thoughts and your challenges with us via email: .
Ed Mclaughlin is currently co-writing the book, The Purpose Is Profit: The Truth about Starting and Building Your Own Business, with Wyn Lydecker and Paul McLaughlin.
They are currently offering a complimentary eCopy of The Startup Roadmap: 21 Steps to Profitability here.
Copyright © 2015 by Ed McLaughlin All rights reserved
When it comes to emailing your CEO or emailing the business owner, it makes no difference whether you work at a large or small agency. It can be a little intimidating.
Your CEO has a lot on his/her plate and when you send an email, you want it to get read, you’d like for your communication to somehow stand out, and best of all, you’d love to receive a response. Actually, the best response is if you received immediate praise and adulation in recognition of your email writing skills, but let’s be honest…thats probably not going to happen.
If you’re worried about sending an email to your CEO or to any important busy figure, you’ve come to the right place. This article will present 5 easy steps on writing an effective email to the busiest amongst us.
1. Write a short, yet descriptive subject line
If you’re in marketing or if you’ve ever spent any amount of time evaluating marketing emails as a consumer, then you’re probably familiar with the importance of crafting the perfect subject line for a client’s subscriber list. 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone. Its ironic that many marketers for large businesses skip the process of subject line ideation when its one of the core principles to email marketing or blogging in general.
It’s should be no different for CEOs. If you want to catch their attention amid a mass of communications and during a busy day, your subject line is the place to do it.
- Get straight to the point
- Your subject line should act like a mini-email containing the most important info
- Does your email contain a report with vital metrics? Say so. Are you writing with a specific proposal? Mention it in the subject line.
- The more concrete, short, and to the point you can be with the subject line, the higher your chances of the CEO opening your email are.
As a general rule of thumb, avoid using spammy buzzwords and/or marking your message as high priority. Every email a CEO looks at is probably in the high priority category. The biggest thing to remember is that an email is equivalent to you popping your head into someone’s office without any concern for what they might be doing and demanding 2 minutes of their time to listen to you.
Do everything you can to minimize the amount of time it takes to understand what you need while maximizing the amount of information communicated.
2. Keep it short
Besides the fact that your CEO doesn’t have a lot of extra time for an email that reads more like a novel, it’s important to remember most CEOs read emails on the go. In other words, they read emails on mobile devices. In fact, 35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device.
Aim to get your point across in as few words as possible. If you’re having a hard time gauging how long your email is, write it out on your own mobile device. That way, you can conceptualize exactly how long your email is and how it will look on your CEOs mobile device.
Bear in mind, when emails are short, it’s easier for CEOs to read and understand, which increases your chances that you’ll get a response.
3. Check for grammar spelling mistakes
This particular suggestion has some irony to it. If you’ve ever interacted with many CEOs and business owners, you’ll probably notice that the majority of their email communications (internally) have spelling mistakes. I’ve personally seen CEOs voice dictate emails or type with blazing fast speed to produce messages that revert to middle-English.
Just like doctors that sign prescriptions sloppily, its a signifier of their business. If you are communicating with a business owner or CEO, you are not to copy this habit. Clear. Concise. Well-spoken.
The unfortunate thing about email is once you’ve pressed “send,” it’s rare you can actually recall the message (due to my own recent unfortunate experience with this I found a way to undo Gmail messages within 30 seconds of sending). That means you need to have your email proofread and polished before even thinking about pressing send.
Of course, you will want to re-read your email a few times and check it yourself. If you’re not a grammar buff, it’s okay. There are several tools on the market to help you clean up your writing. Run your email through spell check and/or use a tool like Grammarly.
When in doubt, or for good measure, ask one of your colleagues to give your email a quick read-through before pressing send.
4. Provide context for your question
If you are emailing the business owner or CEO because you have some sort of issue that needs to be resolved, then provide context to the issue. Tim Ferriss is both a CEO and serial entrepreneur. He’s given his own take on emailing busy people, which goes into this particular step in more detail.
The goal of providing context is to:
- State your problem clearly
- Mention what you’ve done to solve the problem (or attempt to solve the problem)
- Provide your recommendations for fixing the problem based on your own understanding
If you follow these three simple steps, you’ve basically enabled the CEO to just say “yes, do __, and add this.” No need for a back and forth. Honestly, this principle should be followed in all email correspondence, but CEOs should especially be receiving this style of email.
5. Include important reporting details
There are some emails that your CEO requires you to send them each week. For example, it’s common for marketing and digital advertising agencies to send a weekly executive report to the CEO.
The best news is with the right analytics and reporting tool (like TapClicks), you can set up an automated email. With direction from your CEO, you’ll learn exactly what type of information you need to include in the report. This can include a specific set of metrics, important milestones, and/or drawbacks you experienced during the week.
A tool like TapClicks will allow you to preset reporting parameters. This ensures you are pulling and sending the right data to your CEO each week.
Some CEOs will ask for a report if metrics fall below/above a certain level. With TapClicks, you can set up automatic alert notifications if this happens.
Sometimes the best way to impress your CEO in your emails is to automate them with the information they ask from you each week.
Conclusion
Remember, 86% of professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes. It’s not out of line to send your CEO an email. Just remember when you follow the best practices listed above, you have a higher chance of eliciting a response.
Did we miss anything? Is there anything you would include in the list that helps you write effective emails to your leadership team? We would love to hear from you in the comments.