How to write effective E-Mails at Work

Learn how to write effective e-mails at work with this video. Professional E-Mail writing is key in a professional services job working in consulting at McKinsey, BCG, Bain or a similar firm. Learning how to write a business E-Mail in English is an important skill in management consulting. Improve your professional communication by learning how to write effective E-Mails at work. Writing good professional E-Mails will accelerate your career in Industry and strategy consulting. Improve your top-down communication skills and learn about the MECE principle, write informative subject lines for your e-mails and communicate well.

Chapters
00:00 How to write effective E-Mails
01:34 Writing informative subject lines
01:58 Top-down communication for E-Mails
02:45 Creating a strong structure (MECE principle)
04:58 Structuring Next Steps and To-Do's
05:42 Keep this in mind when writing E-Mails
06:52 Reducing your E-Mail load

#communication #emails #consulting

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[FirmLearning]

Access my course on how to create Consulting-style slide presentations:

[jameszhu]

“Good news in writing, bad news in person.” How insightful :)

[judyl.]

2:00 subject line: more precise.
2 things: context and summarize what you want. (top-down communication)
2:50 the structure of e-mail.
a new opportunity: spain for a pilot.
3:35 the logical group: focus initiative, meeting schedule, next steps. which is from MECE principle.
4:15 use bullet point whenever possible and also sub-header as possible.
5:00 distributing to-do's:
5:30 bold the name.
5:50 2 additional tips: 1. Avoid e-mail ping-pong, especially for scheduling the meeting. 2. Push for action in emails, for example, mix emails with little deadline.
7:00 3 tips to avoid emails:
1. leverage messaging services: nothing to be forwarded to, then use this.
2. thoughts on email escalations: when you're angry to put cc and political games.
3. good news in writing vs. bad news in person: because you can give the potential to share around the good news.

[praveenkumaryadav]

I learned "good news in writing, bad news in person" and i think this will definetely make life easier

[stNY]

1:30 Nice poster in your background Heinrich 😂

[martinsjrslevkhamphoukeo]

Hi Heinrich, great video again 👍
In addition to your video and good comments from the floor I use the following guidelines
1) Be specific in the call to action in the subject line E.g. [Person A to review] Minutes of Meeting, project x, 22 March
2) Start the email with the action required and then in the next paragraph write Context in bold and write the context. E.g. Person A may I trouble you to prepare the financial report.
CONTEXT: The company is preparing the audit of…..
3) Always mention in the beginning of the email if someone has been included or removed from the email
4) stick to the same email trail. Makes it easier to understand the context if new people are included.
5) Avoid adding url and make hyperlink in words instead.

[fulviocatto]

As always, your videos are full of precious tips.
Let me share a couple of tricks that I use to save recipient's time (they work only if the receiver too knows them):

1. I try to condense as much info as possible in the first two lines of the email so that the simple preview of the message is enough for the recipient to decide if s/he must open the full message.
2. The subject field is a precious extra line for messages and it can be used for very short responses (again, without the need to open the email unless necessary).
For example, if a colleague asks me a confirmation on something via email, I tipically reply prepending the answer with a closed bracket, right in the subject like:
Subject: Ok for me] - Proposal for kick-off

Of course, it is not advisable to use them in formal communications, especially with clients; but with colleagues they might be worth a try.

[aleksanderwiniarczyk]

Great video and helpful tips!
My tip would be:
Use delay delivery wisely if working with other time zones. You can avoid disturbing colleagues on the evening or weekend, if you don’t need their answer before they become available again.

[TheShyam]

Very helpful, an idea for a next video “how to organise your inbox (folders etc.)”? Been practising the suggested for almost a year now. Initially started applying this based on the MECE video. I see the trusted thinkpad is still the tool of choice ;)

[joaonogueirasantos]

Spectacular how the email changed and looked so much more professional! Thanks Heirich!

[gustavklint]

As always, very good tips. Not writing in affect is very useful.

Another tip is thinking keywords when writing emails. So you may add things that are unique to this very message.

In this case. If the kickoff was in Munich, you may add that in the subject already. Or any other words that makes it easy to find later.

Another powerful thing are links (CTRL+k). Put in links that help the reader find stuff you’re referring to with one click. This can of course also make your mail end up in the junkmail so not recommended for first time you write someone.

On the same topic. Let’s say you’re writing an important document that you don’t have time to check thoroughly before sending. Create a special folder for that document and send the link to the folder instead as attachment. In this way, you may correct/update the document in spite of having sent it already (without anyone ever finding out that the first version contained a horrible error ;)

Keep up the good work 🙂

[yuzaf]

I was searching for a content just for this topic and couldn't find anything onpoint. Now I see Firm Learning has uploaded it! Thanks for your all valuable work : ) Best wishes

[ajb]

I’ve written many thousand so any tips gratefully received. One day I’d like to be in a workplace where email isn’t a thing.

[Ismahelps]

Happy to see you've posted! Always looking forward to your weekly insights - greatly appreciated Heinrich

[nolanxander]

thank you, writing my first email to associate director right now

[FerencziAron]

Love this video! Emails are SO important yet so little training is provided

[adityagoyal]

Valuable information! While at career start, one starts to understand these principles gradually ( atleast an year i think) - but having your resources can really boost the learning curve!

[carljonascords]

Einer meiner 3 Projekt Credos, den ich immer wieder in meinen Projekten neben dem Bildschirm kleben hatte:
"Never talk when you can nod and never nod when you can nod and never write anything in an e-mail, " Eliot Spitzer

[marcotroster]

Great suggestions. But it's very unlikely that anyone will ever read messages with more than 2 short sentences. People don't value the time you put in writing a great email, simply won't happen.

In this case of a meeting summary, I'd strongly suggest to put the content as a PDF file. It's a little psychological trick. Your readers need to open the file in another window. So once they cross the boundary, you can be sure they're listening to you.

[thomasreiter]

Wow! What a beautiful and elegant house you are in!