Now let's talk about your emails and how you write them (which has a lot more importance than you might think!)...
Your clients aren't sitting down to read your emails with a cup of tea. They're skimming on their phone between meetings or picking up kids i.e. they are BUSY!! So if your emails are too long, have errors in them or are annoying to read, your clients will lose confidence in you.
Every email you send gives you a chance to show you're on top of the details and making life easier for your clients. Don't be that annoying designer that makes your clients roll their eyes when they see another email from you.
Here's what to stop doing ⤵️
❌ Starting emails with pointless pleasantries like "I hope you're well" or "How's your Tuesday going?" I know you're trying to sound polite, but just get to the point instead of writing this stuff
❌ Overusing exclamation marks to sound friendly or excited
❌ Writing like a junior when you should be leading the job e.g. "I just wanted to quickly send this through and see what you think when you get a chance." Instead write "Please review the attached by Friday and give me your decision so we can keep the joinery drawings on schedule."
❌ Sending grammatical errors (this seems like nothing but these can really annoy highly educated people, myself included!)
❌ Saying "just checking in" or "sorry to bother you" (this undermines your leadership role)
❌ Sounding vague or unsure (e.g. "Let me know what you think?")
❌ Hiding decisions behind options ("Would you prefer this or this?")
❌ Writing huge walls of text. Your clients are busy. They won't read it and they'll find it really annoying when they're in the middle of a busy day. If you have a lot to cover, use bullet points or record a Loom video that they can watch at x2 speed
❌ Using emojis or casual slang unless it matches the client's tone
❌ Apologising for doing your job ("Sorry for the follow up" or "Sorry to chase you")
❌ Being too casual about deadlines. "Whenever you get a chance" sounds polite but won't help your timelines. Give the client a clear date and tell them why it matters
❌ Trying to sound overly "nice" instead of being clear and professional
❌ Over explaining every tiny detail. Your client doesn't need your entire thought process, they need the key info, your recommendation and the next step
❌ Hiding any actions required at the bottom of the email. If you need a decision, approval, payment or response, put that near the top so your client knows what matters
❌ Forgetting that short doesn't mean rude. You can be warm and professional without rambling, apologising or padding the email with unnecessary words.
Overall remember your clients are busy people! They value short and concise (using bullet points can be great to help with this).
One other thing, don't send random emails all week. Everyone hates email and clogging their inbox with constant streams of consciousness throughout the week can be very overwhelming and annoying for busy people.
Instead, save up everything you need to update on for what I call 'The Friday Email'.
Then use AI to check your work
There's no excuse for bad writing or bad grammar anymore. If any of this is not your strong point, run your emails through AI (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) to check your work before you hit send. Your clients are paying a lot more attention to your emails than you think they might be.
BUT!!! Don't get AI to write your emails, that's a big no no and also looks really bad (worse in fact). Write all emails in your own words and get AI to check your work for grammar or errors.
This all might seem overkill, but every email is a small impression that either adds up to you looking professional or not. Get your emails right and you'll always be reinforcing that you're on top of things and can be trusted.
