Over the past few months, I’ve been added to more Facebook groups than I can count on hands and feet. No one asked my permission mind you, they just added me. I’ve also been added to newsletter lists, mailing lists, affiliate lists and email groups.  Again, no one asked me.

Allow me to explain the beauty of the opt in…

When you add someone to a mailing list or a discussion group without their permission, it’s the equivalent of dragging them to a party or club meeting against their will, whether it’s a topic they care to discuss or not. It’s also the equivalent of sending them catalogs and junk mail they didn’t request in the first place. It’s totally not cool.

Opt in mailing lists and groups are when someone with a newsletter or discussion group says to his community, “Here is my list.  I don’t want to force it upon you, but feel free to sign up for it if it piques your interest. You’re under no obligation.”  The Community member signs up and receives a confirmation link to click just to make double sure he wants to receive said mailing or membership. Everyone is happy.

What happens when a group or mailing list doesn’t offer the aforementioned opt-in form and links?

What happens when you start such a gosh darn awesome private Facebook or other group and you want to invite all your friends? You do just that, you invite.  Blindly adding means you’re forcing someone to join your group without your permission. Chances are, your friends don’t really want to join this group, but they’re too polite to say no. They don’t want to hurt your feelings.  After time they start sneaking away, hoping you don’t notice.

If your group doesn’t offer an opt in or invite program, the onus is on you to do it manually. Say to your friends and followers, “Hey, I’m starting a group about collecting fireflies. Any other firefly enthusiasts who want to join, let me know or sign up here.” Now, everyone who wants to be in the group is in the group and not slinking away in the middle of the night. No one is annoyed at you (but not telling you) for adding them to yet another list.

Asking permission is good manners

It’s good manners to ask. Don’t assume everyone wants to be part of your club.

I don’t have a coat. Now, if you live in Central New Jersey, especially with a winter like we’re having, you might consider this to be very foolish. The thing is, I’m always in the car or inside, so I wear a heavy-ish jacket when I’m en route and it does the trick just fine. When I shovel the snow or do outside work, I borrow one of my husbands 800 ski jackets. This also does the trick just fine. But I don’t have a nice coat.

As I’m having to travel more and do business-y stuff away from home, I thought it appropriate to finally get myself a decent coat. I really need one for next week as I’m traveling into the city and doing a lot of walking around and a heavy-ish fleece or dirty ski jacket won’t work.

I found a decent coat online at a steal and the price for expedited shipping wasn’t terrible. So I ordered, for it to be delivered in one to three days, and the latest I would receive would be Friday – plenty of time since I didn’t have to travel until Monday.

Imagine my surprise when the tracking information for my order revealed that I would get my coat at the end of the day Monday, the same amount of days as it would have been if I paid standard shipping. This wasn’t acceptable to me. Granted, there’s some laziness involved here as I felt ordering a coat online was easier than digging out and de-icing my car to go coat shopping, but when I pay extra for shipping I expect delivery within a certain time frame.

So I contacted customer service.

Now, before I go on I want to tell you that I am not going to “out” this company. I don’t believe in using social media for bullying and blackmail and will only publicly gripe about a company if I have absolutely no other recourse. Haggling over expedited shipping and delivery isn’t worthy of a public callout, in my opinion. So please don’t ask.

So I contacted customer service.

I explained that I paid the highest shipping price in order to receive my coat before Monday.

The response surprised me.

I was told that, yes, I was right, I was supposed to have delivery before Monday. Oops. Their bad. Nothing they can do about it now. If I want to return it I can call them next week for assistance.

Excuse me?

Now, I’ve managed to work in a customer service capacity in several different locations and I can tell you that this sort of response would get me fired.  I would be allowed “my bads.” I’d have to make it right. In this case, I would either:

• Send out a new coat using overnight shipping, and include a prepaid shipping label in the package to return the extra coat.
• Try and contact the shipping company to see what I could do to get the package to the customer by Friday.
• Offer to, at the very least, refund the expedited shipping charge (and maybe even the cost of the coat.)

It’s not this company’s fault that I waited until the last minute to buy a coat. However, if a customer has to pay extra for “expedited” delivery, that’s exactly what said customer should receive. If a customer doesn’t receive the delivery in a timely manner,  the company should make things right and not issue a “My bad, you’re crap out of luck” response.

Sometimes good customer service means you’ll have to eat the cost of a product or service to make things right with the customer. Even if said customer doesn’t receive the product as planned, a good experience will instill faith in the company and she may be inclined to try the company again.

As of now I’m not so sure I’ll do that.

So tell us your thoughts. How would you make this customer service experience right? What would you do to make the customer happy?

“Please hold for an important message,” the recording said as I picked up the phone. “I don’t think so.” I responded to the no one on the other end as I hung up the phone.

Yes, I just received another canned  phone call from my credit card company.

I’m not sure what they wanted  and truly  I don’t care. You see, if a company wants me to do business with them or if they want to contact me to suggestive sell a new product or service, they better come at me with something a little more personal than a canned phone call.

The Impersonal Approach

It kind of makes me angry. I take the time to research brands and choose them as the best option for me, my family or my business. I pay my bills on time, rarely complain, refer new customers, and consider extra services when I receive information regarding upgrades. Yet, my time and money isn’t worthy of a live, human voice?

Consumers like to know their options

Here’s the thing about recorded messages. If I’m already paying for your product or service, you already have my attention. Now, I don’t want to be solicited on the phone all the time, but if a representative ever wants to make an appointment to discuss my account, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s as important for me to stay informed as it is for a brand to receive feedback from its customers. If yours is a service I’m not familiar with, the worst way to get my attention is to make me feel as if I’m not valuable enough to warrant personal service. So truly, for me, there is no situation (outside the school’s instant alert system) where a recorded message is going to get a reaction.

As someone who spends money for certain services, I certainly don’t mind knowing my options. If my cable company is Brand X and Brand Y wants to talk to me about a better package or cheaper service, I don’t mind scheduling a time to talk. I really don’t know of anyone who spends money who isn’t interested in receiving the most bang for his buck. So yes, we’re listening. We just want to know that we mean something to you too.

We like to feel as if you value our business

When you call me with a recording requesting I hold the line for an important message, without any details about why or who I’ll be speaking with, you’re telling me that you don’t value my time or business. You’re telling me that I’m not important enough to speak with a person. How can you possibly make me feel my business means something to you when I don’t even receive the courtesy of a having real, live, honest to God person reaching out to me? When this happens, I end up thinking twice about who I’m doing business with, because it means I’m putting my money behind someone who is making a poor judgment call. I lose the respect.

We don’t need you

Despite the rash of “the customer isn’t always right” posts that appear around the blogosphere, the truth is whether we’re right or wrong, you have to treat us as if we’re right and mean something to you or we’ll go elsewhere. I can find a billion other banks or cable companies or choose to watch my movies online, but if you lose enough customers you’re out of business. Also? I get budgets but it seems to me that it’s a better investment to splurge on an online community manager and a couple of live customer support reps than it is to do a whole lot of recording and calling. But that’s just me.  I don’t have a degree in marketing so what do I know anyway?

If you want my business you’re welcome to talk to me. No, I don’t like a lot of calls at home to discuss services, but if a rep from my cable or gas company reached out to me to ask if she could schedule a time to call and discuss my account and how to make a better experience for me, I’d take her up on it if only because she’s telling me she values my time and my business.

Businesses, it’s time to can the can. If you need to get in touch with us use your live voice to schedule a meeting. I bet you get fewer hangups and a better response.

But again, that’s just me.

The end of the year is kind of an interesting time. People are taking stock.They’re thinking about how to close the year on an upnote, while starting the new year with a clean slate. This can be true for sales, advertising, bloggers who want to bring in readers and television networks wishing to bring in ratings. They tug at our heartstrings, urge us with urgency and guilt us into submission.

Manipulation doesn’t have to be a negative thing, either. Sometimes it’s a strong, but positive sales pitch, or using pictures of emaciated children to guilt us into donating. Other times, some pretty pushy people use whatever means possible to get things to go their way, even if it’s not always legal. Everyone has their own methods of manipulation and if we’re not careful we can fall for some pretty dirty tricks.

What follows are some tried and true manipulation tactics.

Are you going to fall for them?

1. Expectation

Expectations are a funny thing. We’re disappointed when we don’t meet someone else’s expectations of us. We also worry about disappointing the people we work for, work with, and love. It’s one thing to set our bar on a high notch, it’s a whole other story when others set up that bar for us because they want us to follow a particular direction. It’s even worse when the failure to meet expectations is thrown back in our faces. Making sure expectations are realistic is one way to get around this. However, when other people set expectations for you, this is easier said than done.

2. Guilt

Guilt is what happens when folks want to make us feel bad about not doing what they want us to do. They pout. They cry. They let us know how disappointed they are in us. They show us pictures of the underprivileged and tell us to feel bad about our successes or they make us feel as if we’re bad people for not following a certain direction. Often times, it’s guilt that causes us to save the children or buy a certain brand of whatever will make us the best parents.  Understanding that guilt is a tactic, and only a tactic, and not falling for a guilt trip will enable you to make the decisions that are best for you and no one else. You may not feel good about it at first, but eventually you’ll come to realize you’re doing the right thing.

3. Bribery

If you do a good job in school, you’ll get a gold star. If you land an important campaign you’ll get a bonus. If you go to Aunt Martha’s house Mom will buy ice cream on the way home. Sometimes bribery is disguised as incentive, but it’s all in the same family. Incentives aren’t necessarily a bad thing. They get us discounts or put money in the bank. However, when someone offers you a perk to do the wrong thing, that’s when bribery goes beyond incentive into something that’s unethical and illegal. The problem with bribery, such as the aforementioned Aunt Martha scenario, is that when folks won’t do something unless they have incentive, it gets harder to get them to do things out of the goodness of their heart. They develop a “what’s in it for me” approach to life, and come to expect bribes or incentive for everything they do.

4. Blackmail

Blackmail is worse than bribery because it’s rarely ever positive. It’s when other make us follow the behaviors they want to follow or they will do something to embarrass us, ruin our lives or harm our careers. Threatening to expose someone to elevate your own career, is blackmail. Threatening to do damage if certain (undeserved) funds aren’t received is blackmail. The reason most people don’t report blackmail is because they don’t want their dirty laundry, the reason behind the blackmail, exposed to the public. Sometimes it’s worth it, though, in order to show the other party you won’t be bullied.

5. Anger

I used to work for a woman who was the worst kind of boss. Her way of getting things done to her satisfaction was to belittle, tease, insult and yell at the people who worked for her. Or, rather, the people who allowed for it to happen.  In the early days of my publishing career I allowed myself to be pushed around quite a bit. Eventually, though, I found my backbone and quit. People are afraid of anger. They don’t want to be the victim of someone else’s wrath. They don’t want to be embarrassed or humiliated in front of others, and they don’t deserve this type of treatment. No job or relationship is worth abuse and it’s best to nip it in the bud, and leave the toxic relationship before it truly gets out of hand.

6. Persuasion

Persuasion doesn’t have to be a negative form of manipulation. It can be the conveniently placed kiosk at the mall, the loss leaders in the supermarket flyer, a sale, the pretty accessories that are displayed with an outfit at the department store, or a television commercial. Persuasion can also be someone trying to talk you into something that doesn’t interest you by offering the finer points, or it can be the marketing newsletter sent out by your favorite social media guru, which is really a vehicle to get you to buy his course or ebook.

7. Enticement

The free appetizers and half priced drinks at happy hour entice patrons of a bar to stay and pay full price. Half priced kids tickets at a movie theater entice parents to come paying full price. A headlining star entices us into attending charity events and a fresh snowfall invites us to go sledding. Sales entice us into entering a store. Like persuasion, enticement isn’t a negative form of manipulation, unless used in a negative manner. It’s an incentive, an action to get a more lucrative reaction.

8. Shame

When a child doesn’t produce good grades, a parent might shame him into doing better work. When a salesperson doesn’t produce, the head of his department might shame him by rewarding all the other sales people but him. When a third world country experiences a catastrophe, charitable organizations might shame us into giving by making us feel bad for what we have. When an office worker or school mate doesn’t dress in the latest fashion or act in a hip manner, those around him might shame him with gossip and ridicule. No one likes to be teased, bullied or made fun of. No one likes to be made an example of.

9. Encouragement

We encourage our children to get good grades with praise and the promise of a successful life. We encourage folks to buy our products with the promise of a positive result. We encourage our favorite sporting teams with with cheers and colors. Most people don’t need physical rewards, they need to hear that they’re doing the right thing or that they’re on the right track. A few positive words go a long way.

10. Blame

It’s easier to put off a bad result on someone else than to look within ourselves. An argument is always the other party’s fault. People aren’t buying because they don’t have money, not because it’s the wrong product at the wrong time. We didn’t get good grades or a raise or promotion because our teacher or boss just doesn’t like us. We use blame into manipulating others to take up our side. We also use blame to avoid our own responsibility.

11. Criticism

Criticism can be a bad grade or status report. It can be hearing that your blog design is ugly or that you need more singing lessons. Most criticism is polite and constructive though there are plenty of people who are purposely negative and mean when they criticize. There’s no such thing as bad feedback, however. As much as we don’t like to hear it, use constructive criticism as an opportunity for improvement.

12. Playing the Victim

Poor me. No one likes me. No one understands me. Sigh. Will I ever get it right? Why do bad things only happen to me? He doesn’t like me. He’s out to get me. I’m so sick. I’m so tired.

The problem with playing the victim all the time is that eventually people stop coming to your rescue. Eventually, people will write you off as a whiner, even when you truly do have an emergency.

What are some of the manipulation tactics you notice – and how do you get around them?

Images via stock xchnge

I make no secret of my daily battle with email. Every morning when I wake up I stare at the pile of requests and comments in my personal inbox, then I stare at the pile of requests in my work inbox. And then I bang my head on the desk for a while.

Here’s the thing…

I don’t always have time to respond to email right away. Ok, I rarely  have time to answer email right away. I have a child to get ready for school, work to get done, car pools, karate practice and more. So I save the emails to respond to later. Except I don’t respond to them later because they lost in the flood of even more incoming email. So I either have to respond immediately or risk losing email forever.

That leads to people saying I ignore email or don’t respond promptly to the folks who are writing to me.

This isn’t my intention at all. I set out to answer all the emails that come in but it’s hard. At one point in my career, when I owned my blog network, I received about a thousand pieces of email each day. My options were to hire an assistant, ignore email, or get to it when I get to it. There’s no way to manage all that.

An organization specialist suggested I deal with email directly. As soon as I log on I should respond to the email that needs an immediate response and put the rest in folders specifying the urgency of each task. Accept that when I move email in to folders it’s even more likely to fall through the cracks. Plus, taking the time to sort 1,000 bits of email in the morning takes up even more of my time.

When it comes to email, I’m out of sight, out of mind and that’s not a good thing.

The thing is, I have good intentions. I want to respond to everyone who writes to me. I don’t want to sweep questions under the rug or act like folks are unimportant. Truthfully, if I don’t respond to email the second I see it, it will be sitting for a long time. I know I’m not the only one with this problem, either.

There are a couple of things I do to help ease the influx of email…

For example, for stuff that’s important I request a phone call or skype chat over email exchange. I find phone calls deal with the matter quicker and there’s none of the back and forth and miscommunication that happens with email.

When things get really backlogged I might put an autoresponder on my personal email apologizing in advance for the time it will take to respond. I’ll let folks know I’m over my head and it will probably take a while to get to their question, but I will get to it. When they know it’ll be a while, they’re less likely to complain about how I don’t care about my community because I don’t respond to their emails in a timely manner.

Yes, I do try to answer every email I receive but it does get hard to manage. What are some of the ways you deal with a flood of email without letting everything slip through the cracks?

You might also enjoy reading:

• Phone v. Email: Why Voice is Better than Words
• Business Cards: How Important Are They?
• Are You Accessible
• Tones and Inferences: 10 Tips for Carefully Choosing Words
• Avoiding Email But Getting the Job Done

Part of being successful in any endeavor is to respond positively to negativity. That may sound as if it doesn’t make sense, but it works. Consider the honey/flies thing. People respond better to positivity, even during situations that aren’t, well, so positive.

The online world brings its share of nastiness and negativity and how we deal with it makes a big difference among the people we consider our community. I can tell you from experience that if we take things the hard way and respond in anger or in a snide manner, the majority of our friends and followers get turned off. If we handle it all in a positive, productive manner, it could end up being beneficial for all involved.

Address the Issue

If you receive negative feedback, respond as soon as possible. You might not like what you hear, but it’s a valuable opportunity to fix things that need fixing. Acknowledge the problem and apologize. It’s not necessary to make excuses or point fingers. Simply address the issue and do what needs to be done to make things right again. Many times this can be handled privately, sometimes it has to be taken public. Handling the situation immediately will help to diffuse a snowball effect.

Don’t Minimize the Situation

If a person took time to offer feedback, it means something touched a nerve. It may not seem like a big thing to you, but obviously the person giving the feedback felt it was important. Don’t minimize the issue. Make sure the other party knows you understand how significant this is to him. Your attention will go a long way in getting the relationship back on a positive note.

Don’t Get Angry

Reacting negatively to negativity is like putting out a fire with kerosene.  Take time if you need to. Count to ten. Walk away and come back again. What ever method works to keep you calm and cool, use it. Address the situation with a cool head and calm demeanor and you’ll find you can not only have a better look at the bigger picture, but all parties involved are more likely to positively resolve things.

Knowing when to address and when to walk away

Negative people thrive on drama and attention. Give it to them and expect more of the same. Ignore obvious attempts to bait you and they’ll eventually go away. Sometimes people aren’t interested in making things right as much as they’re out to make you look bad. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

When it comes to negativity, a little positivity can go a long way. Good nature is infectious and people want to share good experiences. Keep calm and don’t lose your cool and you’ll find you’re coming out on top.

You might also like:

• Why I Stopped Making Excuses and Owned Up to My Own Mistakes
• 5 Things Learned from Ramon De Leon at BlogWorld
• Is Social Media Causing Us to Lose Our Professionalism?
• Community Forum Personalities Part 1: The Chronic Malcontent
• How to Burn a Bridge in Three Easy Steps
• Social Media Blackmail

If you live in Chicago, you probably know Ramon De Leon. He’s the hugely successful owner of a half dozen Dominos Pizza franchises, in what is considered by many to be the pizza capital of the world. So how does a pizza chain compete with some of the best deep dish pizzas in the world? Ramon shared his tips and stories at BlogWorld last weekend and made such a big impression, I wanted to share with you in return.

Ramon’s social media campaigns are not half-hearted attempts. He embraces the space and uses it to not only engage his customers, he truly makes them part of the experience.

If you want to succeed in business, take lessons from Ramon.

1. If you’re going to invite folks to your party, make sure you give them an address

Ramon showed examples taken from signs in Las Vegas and other parts of the world where businesses invited folks to follow them on Twitter and Facebook. The only problem is that they didn’t put an address. Really, you have to be pretty darn important for me to want to look up your Twitter to follow you. Don’t assume everyone can find your social media accounts. If you’re going to  pay the expense of an ad to direct friends and fans to your social media accounts, provide an address.

2. If you give your customers a reason to come back for more, they’ll come back for more

Ramon’s pizza boxes are famous. Instead of having logos or ads from local businesses, Ramon’s boxes feature tweets from his customers. Some folks tweet to Ramon because they want to be on those boxes so bad. Many people frame their be-tweeted pizza boxes. Ramon found a way to reward his customers for their loyalty in a fun way. Ramon also has fun or special offers for his Twitter followers. Make no mistake, though. Most of his Tweets aren’t customer offers, they’re conversations with his community.

3. If you or someone who works for you effs up, make amends

Last week, one of Ramon’s customers had a negative experience and ended up missing half a football game because of a bad day at Domino. So Ramon made up for it by sending her to a football game the following weekend. He didn’t do it so everyone could tell cool stories about him, though. He did it because someone effed up at his shop and he wanted to make it right. Ramon also made a video apology (that went viral) to a customer who had a bad experience. He didn’t do these things to have other bloggers write about him or to become a case study on how to do social media right. He did it to turn a negative experience into a positive opportunity.  Doing the right thing for others, made Ramon and his pizza stores even more popular.

4. It’s all in the branding

You’ll probably never see Ramon at an event without his Dominos shirt on. He’s known as the pizza guy, and he makes sure no one will ever miss him. There’s no ego here either. Ramon De Leon spends time with everyone, takes pictures and shares stories. People come to Ramon’s stores to take pictures with him and the people who work there. They take pictures of his walls and pictures of his restaurants. I ask you, could there be any better advertising?  Ramon so rocked the Dominos brand that the next time I go to Chicago (which will be the first time I go to Chicago) I want to eat in one of Ramon’s stores.

Something else to note is that Ramon marks all his social media campaigns with the hashtag #RamonWOW. Knowing what is working and what isn’t is important for any business and keeping track of what’s happening on Twitter has been essential to Ramon’s success.

5. An upbeat personality is a win every time

Ramon De Leon was invited to speak at BlogWorld at the very last minute. Because of this, Ramon’s session didn’t make it to the schedule. The room wasn’t as packed as it could have been, but Ramon gave it his all. He made us laugh and his infectious spirit had us leaving the session on a high note. Everyone wanted a picture with him.

Folks remember Ramon. They don’t remember him for his Tweets or his pizza. They remember him for his positive, upbeat personality. Everything else that he does is sort of the pepperoni on the pizza. Expect to see more of Ramon at BlogWorld next year  – and you can be sure it will be a packed room.

If you have been a friend or follower for any number of years, you’ll know that email is the bane of my existence. As someone who receives several hundred bits of email a day, it’s hard to stay on top of it all. Moreover, if I don’t respond to a note or inquiry immediately, there’s a chance it’ll slip down the pile and fall through the cracks. Really, I dislike impersonal email and am learning to appreciate the phone more and more.

I know so many people who don’t want to have to deal with the phone or talking to people in person because phone calls can be such a time suck. However, for me phone calls get the job done. They don’t sit in my inbox. They’re not looming in the background. They don’t require a whole lot of back and forth. In most cases, one call gets the job done.

I also know many people who’d rather email than talk on the phone because then they don’t have to “deal” with people. They don’t have to soothe hurt feelings or make small talk. They send a note and wait for another note to come back. Except I think sometimes it’s simply good business to “deal” with people rather than leave it all to email.

Let’s explore the benefits of using the phone over email.

Tones and Inferences

Folks don’t always catch on to an implied tone. Sometimes they think we’re being nasty, sarcastic or making light of their situation when this isn’t the case at all. When you can hear someone’s voice, the tone is no longer implied – it’s there. There’s no mistake. The party on the other end can tell when you’re serious, when you’re a little upset and when you’re joking. This can make all the difference in the world when conducting business.

One Phone Call v. Several Emails

There’s a lot of back and forth with email. Questions lead to more questions and those questions need answers. One single question can spawn a dozen emails.This is silliness. One short phone call can get all the questions out of the way without the back and forth eliminating confusion. Email is a time saver and the people who you do business with will appreciate the more personal approach.

Immediate Response v. Waiting

When talk with someone on the phone you’ll get an immediate response. When you email someone you have to wait for a response. When you have to email often to get all your questions answered, it can take days until you receive enough answers to get down to business.

Email is a convenience, for sure. However, sometimes conveniences are more inconvenient. I’m not quite sure why no one likes to pick up the phone anymore, but somewhere over the past decade or so we somehow lost our ability to use our voices to the ease of email. The personal touch means something. The people you do business with will appreciate your picking up the phone to get the job done over the frustration over a lot of back and forth.

What’s your preference…and why?

When we discuss professionalism, it usually has to do with etiquette and doing unto others. We don’t often talk about what happens after a relationship turns sour. Sometimes instead of simply moving on, people hold grudges or do what they can to make themselves look better than the other guy.

Really, if you had a falling out with an associate, colleague, client, employer or BFF, it’s no one’s business but your own. Taking your anger public is tacky, immature, makes others uncomfortable and can only come back to haunt you later. Also? Behind the scenes plotting won’t do you any favors either. If you had to part company with anyone, regardless of the reason, it’s best to make a clean break and leave it alone.

What happens when you burn a bridge?

• People go from job to job. You never know how it may effect you in the future.
• People don’t respond well to negativity. They may not be affected by your bridge burning now, but it can come into play in the future.
• It may keep you from receiving a job reference.
• You may not think so now, but over time you might come to regret your actions and there are things you can’t take back.
• Constant griping and complaining can cause you to lose friends, followers and credibility.

Still don’t care what that other person (or people in particular) think of you? Then go ahead and burn that bridge. Here, I’ll help with a handy three-step guide.

1. Fire Off in Anger

Raise your hand if you ever sent off a nasty email or posted a snarky comment at a blog or website. This is the sort of thing that can haunt you forever.The thing is, most anger is short-lived so if you fire off a nasty missive, you may not feel the same way two hour later. By all means write it out if there’s a problem, but don’t send it. Revisit your note twenty four hours later – chances are you’ll want to delete. When you send a nasty note, it has the ability to stick around and hang in the air for a very long time. Sometimes, these things even go viral.

2. Assume No Responsibility

I’ve never seen a business relationship (or even friendship) turn sour when it’s strictly one person’s fault. There are always at least two sides to each story – but really three; yours, the other guy’s and the truth. If you’re never going to accept responsibility for your actions, and if the other guy is always at fault, you’re going to have more then one bridge a-fire. Be mature and own up to your side.

3. Bad Mouth and Discredit

If you truly want to sever ties, don’t forget to bad mouth and discredit. Nothing causes a bridge to turn to ash like a heaping pile of public finger pointing, insults and accusations. Again, people don’t care about your fight, break up, eviction, firing or latest bit of nastiness. Even if you think they should, they don’t. The people who do end up caring are probably the ones who will remember your bitterness and pass you over for something important. It may feel good to trash someone else, but always look into future repercussions before slamming someone right and left.

So..?

So do you think it’s worth it? Do you still think your moment of anger is worth a lifetime of something else? The person you’re angry with now, may be the hiring agent at a job you want later. Your best frenemy could turn out to be someone who makes the most important decision of your life.  You might  keep up your tough persona and say, “well who cares, I wouldn’t work/play/do anything if that person has something to do with it anyway...” and that might be true. Now.

Things change.

Things always change.

But now, I’m sending out massive amounts of email and I’m not so sure that I hate form letters anymore. In fact, I’m finding them terribly convenient. Still, I’ve been called out a few times recently over the use of a form letter, especially when it comes to people I know pretty well. So if it’s all right with you, I want to offer a few ideas for making form letters personal, especially when you know you’re going to be sending a bunch out to people you know.

• Use names – No excuses. Sending an email that just says “hi!” or worse yet, has no name at all just plain sucks. Form letters are impersonal enough. There’s no need to make it worse by saying, “you’re not even worth the effort it takes to type in a name.”
• Use reference points – My form letters had to do with speaker proposals for BlogWorld. I made sure each speaker’s proposal name was referenced in my note. Most of the letter may be of the formed variety, but at least I made sure the recipient knew the note was intended for him and him only.
• Jot a note for people you know – The first time I sent a form letter to a friend I regretted it. I didn’t put in anything that would indicate I even knew her. As soon as I hit “send” I knew it was the wrong thing to do. From that point on, I made sure to add a couple of lines to the people with whom I was friendly. I didn’t have time to write up a whole new letter, but I did my best to make everyone feel special.

No one wants to receive a form letter. We want news and information tailored especially for us. We want to think the party on the other end knows our name and why we contacted them in the first place. Sometimes, though, there’s no way around it. Sometimes we just have to go with the email blast. I find that by using names, especially first names, and that by being personal with familiar names makes receiving a form letter a little less painful.

Do you send out form letters? How do you make them seem less…well…formy?