I am always astonished at how hard some people make it to contact them. An email I just received ends with the sender’s first name. A return email to answer her question is not appropriate as the topic is complex. A phone call is needed.
Ugh I now have to email her back asking her for her phone number. Kind of self-defeating…
Advisory: be approachable and conscious of being accessible to all.
On this topic, an excerpt from a chapter I called “Call me, or contact me, maybe?” from my upcoming book:
There are so many ways to communicate. Everyone has a preferred method.
- Embrace them all.
- Some methods aggregate around age brackets, industries, educational levels, nationalities, etc.
- Learn the best practices in using them all.
Make yourself approachable in every method by succinctly naming and listing all of them: email address, phone number, Twitter handle, Facebook name, blog name, website, etc. in your Contact Details subsection…Do not make getting a hold of you difficult, even/especially if you are not connected to the other person on LinkedIn. It may preclude contact that could become business.
Look at your email signature. Does it contain your office phone number? Your cell number in case I want to text you? Your Linked URL?? Mine has my logo (see yesterday’s blog post) and a scanned version of my contact details on my business card. Everything in one place. No confusion.
Look at your LinkedIn contact details. Same thoughts as above. Mine:
Email signature and LinkedIn contact details: they are in essence, your business card, so they need to contain all ways to contact you.
Be aware of how you are perceived from the reader’s POV. Making it too hard for the reader frustrates, and perhaps alienates, them from you.
You cannot afford that! It’s part of your brand to be approachable.
I have a client whose signature is entirely missing. No website, no phone, NOTHING! Whenever I call him, i have to look up his name in my file of contacts to get his phone number. WHY make it difficult for me to reach you?