When reaching out to influential and busy people, it can be difficult to get the responses you need.
Executives, senior leaders, and mentors you admire receive hundreds of emails a day. If your post doesn’t grab users’ attention right away, it will be left behind for later and eventually be forgotten or deleted completely.
As the author of Managing Up: How to Get What You Need From the People in Charge and an executive coach to top performers at organizations like Microsoft, Apple, and NATO, I’ve spent nearly 15 years helping motivated professionals influence those above them.
Even the most articulate experts overlook one very important aspect of writing an email: the final call to action. Most people sign off with a phrase like:
“Please let us know your opinion.” “We look forward to hearing from you.” “Please feel free to contact us at any time.”
Although these phrases seem polite, they are ambiguous. They pass the work back to already busy leaders to understand what you want, when you need it, and why it’s important.
For example, when you say “Tell me what you think,” are you asking for approval, specific feedback, or a meeting? The more effort the person in authority puts into interpreting your request, the more likely you are to get no response at all.
Instead, try email closers like these that call your influencers to action.
1. Ask binary questions
Binary-choice questions are effective because they cover a wide range of possible answers and narrow them down to a simple choice.
“Do you prefer Tuesday or Wednesday?” “Do you prefer option A or option B?” “Do you want to continue or do you want to hold off for now?”
2. Add a deadline
This turns open-ended requests into tasks with timelines, making it much less likely that emails will be pushed permanently.
“Can you answer by Thursday so we can move forward?” “If you answer by the 15th, it will help us meet our quota.” “I’d like to make a decision by tomorrow. Can you weigh it in by then?”
3. Trigger a one-word reply
Leaders scan email between meetings. This approach allows you to start responding within seconds.
“Say yes and I’ll take care of the rest.” “Reply with your preferred date and I’ll send you a calendar invite.” “If you’d like to join, you can give me a thumbs up.”
Strong communication, even via email, can convey confidence, move the conversation forward, save time and energy waiting for the response you need, free up more productive time, provide value, and get attention for the right reasons.
Melody Wilding, LMSW, is an executive coach, professor of human behavior, and author of Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge. Get her free training “5 Steps to Speak Like a Senior Leader” here.
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