The pleasure of seeing that inbox stuffed with e-mails is soon replaced with dread for many contractors. Ads, spam, customer questions, notes from the spouse, vendor updates . . . .
All the popular e-mail programs make it easy to organize what’s coming into your inbox and easy to trash e-mails you don’t want.
From the start, it’s easier to have a dedicated e-mail address just for your contracting business. If you have a website it probably comes with an e-mail account. If you don’t have a website you can get free e-mail accounts with gmail.com, yahoo.com, mail.com, and outlook.com
Only give this e-mail address to your crew, vendors, and other people vital to your work.
Check your e-mail once or twice a day; don’t be continually scanning for incoming items. Checking e-mail only at, say, 9 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon will cut down on distractions and let you get more accomplished.
Create files to store like e-mails, such as one for quotes, one for specific vendors, and so on.
Answer what you can immediately. Try not to let your inbox fill with items that sit there day after day.
By the same token, don’t try to immediately answer every e-mail that will require a lot of research and time – set aside some time once a day to provide more lengthy answers.
If you’re getting too many e-mails from a vendor or subscription list, go to the very bottom of the e-mail and click the link (in tiny print) to unsubscribe. If you can’t find one, write to the owner of the list and request they remove you from the list.
For more leads, contact us at KGR Contractors