How many emails do you receive in a day? How many do you open? How many lead you to do something?

Like pointless PowerPoints, endless emails are time wasters and and a burden. Just as I spent years creating ineffective PowerPoint presentations before learning how to do better; I am working this spring to improve my emailing skills for my benefit and for my clients.

And so should you.

I write 10-20 emails per day. Since leaving HP/Agilent, I communicate more via email than through any other medium. Whether proposing a service to a potential client, asking for permission to proceed, or explaining what went wrong, emailing is a critical skill that I need to keep working on.

Geoffrey James gives six helpful tips for "How to Write a Convincing Email" in a recent Inc. magazine article.  Of his six tips, I am working on two of them this month.

Here is a tale of woe that can affect you - sent from John Schulz, a friend and past co-worker in Northern Colorado.  From the Greeley Tribune (note - payment required to read the whole article).

"Direct from England, the Boultons came to Greeley to enjoy retirement and run an inn.

In August 2010, they took over the long-struggling Sodbuster Inn at 1221 9th Ave . It got them to Colorado, which they loved; it gave them steady income, which they also loved — without the hassle of the corporate world, which they no longer loved.

And they did well. So well, the Sodbuster Inn quickly became everything they wanted. They had a good inn, a website and they had reservations. Guests were raving.

“We had the most phenomenal summer,” Stephanie Boulton said of 2012.

Then, Aug. 1, the phone stopped ringing. They thought nothing of it. It was the end of the summer traveling season, after all.

Then September. Still, no calls. Something was obviously wrong.

They learned they weren’t getting bookings from their website. So they Googled their site and found it buried at the bottom of page 7 of their search — the kiss of death."

“For us, the web is our shop window,” Stephanie said. “That’s our bricks and mortar.”