Hope this email finds you on a good day!

It’s even worse when you have a connection with someone and the email starts off with I hope...
Anyways, this is not a venting platform. So here are some ways, not magical, that makes you connect with someone:

• If someone connected you to that person and they genuinely know each other mention that person. It makes you both feel connected and especially if that person is a trustworthy referencing point.
• Starting off with wishing you a good day. I hope you are having a good day, give that email a since of warmth given we are all swamped in our daily lives. Try to say things to mean it.
• If it’s the first time approaching someone and you have previously met in an event or in a fair or some kind of formal way. Do mention it, it helps break the ice.
• Don’t be that person who writes paragraphs in an email. Divide them into sentences or bullet points, no one has the time to read an essay.
  If you have a lengthy email, try to make a document about it and attach it. 
• Never pitch an idea in an email. No one wants to print and email and it makes you seem unprofessional. If you know someone and would like to pitch an idea, grab the phone and let them know. Or simply drop an email saying: I have an idea I think you’d like, would you be able to attend my quick call, prefer a meeting or an email?
• You don’t have to try so hard to sound smart. Just be human, so you get your point across.
• Never, ever, in your life reply to a trail saying: done, thanks or here you go. Not sure if I have personal issues, but I do find this really rude.
• Don’t just copy people for the sake of adding names, just add the project head or your superior or the NECESSARY team members.
• It’s not cool to bcc. It never was and never will be it’s like hiding a body in your house. Only bcc for privacy while sending emails to a mailing list.
• When an email was sent to you but you are not the right point of contact, refer the right person by saying “my colleague: X who is in charge of X”. 
• Never ignore emails. Unless its sales never, ever ignore an email. No one is that busy.
• Thank you emails matter and when they are genuine they resonate. They will always be in, use them when you end a project or when something memorable happens.

I haven’t mastered human communication yet, but I can tell you I spend time writing emails because they matter and human connections are the core of what I do.

My team members are going to audit my emails moving forward, but hey, the team is family.

Best regards 
Deenah