Professional English Emails | Write Clearly and Effectively

1. Course Introduction: Tell me if this is a familiar feeling. You write an email and you read it and you're kind of embarrassed of it. Or perhaps you send it and it causes an awkward, uncomfortable situation. Or the person who read your email, they don't quite understand it. They're a little confused. What you wanted to say, what was in your head hasn't been communicated in the email clearly. And effectively. This is a very common issue among English learners of all levels. I've been teaching English for almost 10 years, and I've taught hundreds of thousands of students. I've helped many hundreds of thousands of students improve their English. They're spoken English and they're written English. And one of the most common issues, one of the most common problems I've seen is e-mails. And a lot of these things are not that difficult to correct. There are some very useful phrases, methods, and strategies. And once you know them, your email writing will go from here to here. It will improve dramatically, but you have to learn these things. Now, that's what we're going to talk about in this course, are going to learn though, by example, that means we're going to be looking at real e-mails. We're going to be studying real e-mail examples in a wide variety of different situations so that you can start communicating clearly what is in here, because that's really what you're doing when you're writing a good email, are going to be talking about a lot of things in this course, we'll look at very formal e-mails. We'll look at professional e-mails. We'll look at casual e-mails. We'll look at emails for asking people to do things, for sending things, for making requests, for dealing with customers, for giving information to a colleague or a friend. We'll be talking about things related to getting a job, sending a resume, sending a cover letter. And we're going to look at a complete cover letter and talk about how to build a cover letter and much, much more. And from the examples we look at, we're going to analyze and pull out all of the things that you need to become a clear and effective email writer. By the end of the course, you will be a much better writer. You'll be able to write clear emails that are never misunderstood so that you can communicate what is in here. Very well. So if you're ready to do that, if you're ready to take your email writing to the next level, sign-up for the course. And I will see you there. 2. General Lesson Structure: Hi there, welcome to the course. It's really great to have you. I hope you're ready to begin. What I think will be a very interesting educational adventure through emails. Now, you're here probably because you want to be able to write emails more clearly. It's a very reasonable thing to want to improve. The way that you write is often the way that people judge you. It's the first impression they get. If that's the only thing they see. An email often is that's very important. We'll talk about that in this course to be able to express yourself as you want. To express yourself. Very important. And we have a lot of things to talk about. Now, how should you learn how to write emails? Well, what's the best way? Well, I've been teaching students for about ten years. And in that time, what I've seen to be the best approach, the best method teaching thousands of students, is to look at and study real examples. That makes sense though, right? If you want to learn how to do something well, you should look at a good example and then study it and take things from it. Things that you can use when you're doing that thing, right? That's the, that's the way that we should learn. That's the way that we really learn things. That's what we're going to do in this course. The basic structure will be, we're going to start, I'll have the blackboard here just like this. I'll be writing on the blackboard throughout, won't just be the number eight. If that was the number eight. I'll be writing on the blackboard throughout the course, like this, making notes, marking things down. We're first going to start with the scenario. And that is what's the situation? We're going to look at the situation because that helps us get some context so that the email makes sense. But to be very clear, that does not mean that you can only use those phrases and those methods, those things that structure in an e-mail related to that scenario. Now, these are things I want you to then pull out of the email to use for your own e-mails. The scenario, the situation is really just what helps us gather around something very simple and very clear so that the things that we learn can pop out more easily. Then we'll look at the email itself. Now, when we look at the e-mail, we're going to read through it, of course, in parts. And we're going to analyze it. We're going to take out key phrases that are very useful for tone. Phrases that are useful for pushing someone or making someone feel more comfortable or helping them understand something more clearly. All of the things that we're going to talk about, we will pull out of the e-mail as we analyze it. Then we will do a short recap of the takeaways. Takeaways are the things that I really want to make sure you remember. So for each e-mail, that will be the structure. The takeaways will be the things I want you to make sure that you really get and start using for each email that we talk about in your daily life. When you're writing emails, I really want you to be using what you learned throughout this course. That's what this course is all about. We learned through example, we analyze, and then very importantly, use what you learned. Now as I said, the Blackboard will be here throughout the course. And you'll also see me just like this throughout the course. I know in some courses the teacher disappears after the first lesson, which I suppose is fine. But I believe it's very important, like if we were having a real class for you to be able to see me because I'm your guide. So I'm going to be here with you for the whole course. So if you if you don't like my face, Well, I don't know what to say. 3. What We Will Learn: Now as I suggested, we're going to be looking at very useful phrases, phrases we can use for all kinds of different situations, all kinds of scenarios when we want to push someone, when we want to clarify something, so many different things and we'll be talking about what they mean and how to use them, how they affect the tone of the e-mail, all of that kind of stuff we'll be talking about directly. Tips for clarity and etiquette. How can you make sure that your email is very clear, that you're communicating very effectively and avoiding any misunderstandings. Misunderstandings are very common in poorly written emails, but that's terrible. We have to avoid that. Also you can cause awkward situations. Also a big problem, especially if English is your second language. If you do something that causes an awkward situation, that is now what the other person thinks about you. So we need to learn some things. We need to learn them by example. But once you learn them, then it's okay, problem-solved. They're not that easy to start using. And you can start giving people the impression that you really want to give them. We'll be talking about strategies for avoiding a misunderstanding or clarifying misunderstandings. Because you want to make sure that this person has the same idea that you want them to have. Because if they go away thinking something that's not correct and they take an action that takes them one day based on what you ask them to do or would you explain to them, then they come back and they realized that they understood the wrong thing. Now they feel frustrated. So to be absolutely clear, to avoid misunderstandings, we need to know some things about structure. We need some key methods. For example, if I give someone a call to action, the thing I want them to do and they don't see it, they miss it. I have failed. How do we avoid that? How do we make sure it's absolutely clear? There are some simple things that we can talk about. And of course, we'll also talk about methods for actually building your ideas. You have ideas in your head there swimming around. You need to put them down and communicate them so that other people feel how this person has a very clear mind. And when they say things to me, I understand what they're saying. Well, how do you build up your ideas? How do you organize them properly? This is very important. Things need to go in a certain order. Now, there's a lot of flexibility there. There's not only one rule that you have to follow. But to really get the picture, we need to look at a lot of different examples to understand the variations, the variety of different structures that you can use to build up your ideas and communicate effectively. This is just a few of the main things that we'll be talking about. In fact, we're going to cover a lot of other stuff as well. As you go through the course. If you have questions, ask me, I'll be here to answer your questions. Make sure you're practicing throughout. I would recommend for each of the examples we look at you try your own example that's kind of similar, maybe following the scenario but related to something in your life, something in your work. Try it out, play with it, practice it, use it. I would also suggest, of course, taking notes, okay, so I hope you're ready to learn. I'm certainly very excited. Let's jump into it. 4. Section Overview: For most of this course, we're going to be looking at analyzing and learning from real e-mail examples in different situations so that you can learn how to write emails well, no matter what the situation is. So that's how we're going to spend most of our time. But before we do that, there are a few things that I would like to go through first, a few important fundamentals that can give us a foundation that we can use throughout the course. Things I would like you to keep in mind throughout the course and afterward, as you continue to improve your email writing skills, we'll talk about some key tips and strategies. Then we'll go on to talk about some absolute musts. Things you really have to do, keep in mind when you're writing emails. Then we're going to talk about tone and etiquette. And all of these things together are going to give us that solid foundation. The foundation we need to then start going through our examples, which as I said, is going to take up most of the course. For most of the course, it's going to be example e-mails, analyzing those and pulling out insights from those that you can apply to your own emails. So let's start with our tips and strategies and focus first on structure. 5. Creating an Outline: You probably know what an outline is. I'm guessing. I'm guessing you're familiar with an outline, but I want to talk about it because it can be a very powerful tool for structuring your emails, for building your emails. Well, what is an outline? An outline is a way to organize your thoughts so you can organize your ideas. Why would you want to do that? Well, you want to make sure one thing flows into the next to the next so that the person reading your email doesn't feel confused. Often when we're writing something, we're only thinking about what we want to say. What do I want to say, rather than thinking about what am I trying to communicate? What do I want the other person to understand? Well, if I want the other person to understand clearly, especially if it's a very important topic, something I need to ask for, then I'd better structure things correctly so that they make perfect sense. So that's where organization comes in. So before you write the email itself, it can be a very good idea to make a simple outline which we could call bones of your email. Just the basic ideas or things that you want to express in the email in order, in the correct order before you actually start writing. But then you use the outline as the thing which helps you then put down your ideas to actually write the email itself. The important point is that you have the basic structure of your ideas before you start writing. So an example of an outline might look like this. Then we have a second main idea perhaps. And then you have maybe detail than maybe a request. Now, I'm just giving you the basic structure. You don't have to use a and then the hyphen, you can do it how you want. I often in fact, just use the hyphen when I'm making my outline. And I usually do make outlines, especially for longer emails. And I don't have a or B or anything like that just because I know which ideas the main idea for me and which thing is a detail, which thing is a request? And I'm really just trying to organize things in order so that things flow from one to the next. So I might, I might do a simple greeting and I'll just write greeting there. Because that's not really the main point. That's not why I'm writing this email. I'm just going to write greeting. I'll put my greeting in and then I'll introduce the main issue. I have some tuition questions. Now I do want to give a bit more context here, a bit more detail here because this sort of tuition question might be different in different situations. Let's say I'm, I'm writing to the student aid department of a university or maybe the bursters Department, the Treasury Department at a university. And I'm writing the e-mail On behalf of my daughter or maybe I'm paying for her education, so I'm the one who has to pay. I have the questions. So I have some tuition questions, but I also want to mention that it is my daughters daughters freshman year. Okay. Great. Maybe that's enough context. Maybe I can list out one or two more things that I want to include in my context, the details before I ask my questions. Okay. Well, I want to keep it simple now, so let's let's just say that's enough. And then I might say, I have the questions in my mind. I just need a reminder to structure it. So what are the type of questions I have? Well, I have a process question, so I'm just going to write overall process. And also my daughter applied for some grants and the university has decided to give her those grants for whatever reason. And I want to ask about that, but it's important that I know the date. When will the grant let's say Grant. I'm just going to write dollar sign grant money approval. Okay. So I have my Greeting. I'm going to introduce that I have some questions about tuition. I'm going to give a little context. I'm going to ask about the overall process. I have a question mark here to remind me that that's a question. I have another question about the grant approval and then I could add something else here. Maybe if I have a specific thing that I want to say at the end, we could call that the final thing. I might just write here, a, S, a P asap as soon as possible. Because I want to remind myself that I want to give a sense of urgency to the person reading this rather than making them feel like, Oh, it's fine. When ever you want to reply? I don't care. No, I care. I want a response soon. So I'm going to just write asap and then I might change the wording when I actually write it. This is totally for you. It is for you to organize your ideas and nobody else. But why would I do something if it's only for me? Because in the final product, in the final email that you send, It's going to be more clear. Your ideas are going to see more organized. So if it's a super short email that's two sentences long, okay, maybe you don't need it, especially for those slightly longer ones. Think about doing an outline can be very, very effective and is considered to be a best practice for organizing your ideas in emails and other types of writing. But again, do it how you want to do it. Keep it very simple. Don't write out whole sentences here. That kind of defeats the point. It has to be something you can do in 20 or 30 seconds. Then you write the email itself. 6. Bullet Lists: Another very powerful thing you can do to make sure your emails are well-structured, very clear, nothing is missed. If you make a request, if you ask a question is to use a bullet list set off by a colon. This is a bullet list. And with this bullet list, we're going to make sure we use a colon. Now the colon is a punctuation mark that looks like this. Two dots like that. It's called a colon. If you have a little comma there, that's called a semicolon, we're not talking about that. We use a colon to make a list of simple things. We make a list of simple things to make sure that things are not missed. Especially things you need questions, you need to be answered. Important details that absolutely cannot be skipped over. Okay? And we say that this list is set off by the colon. Now for the list, you can use hyphens or dashes like this. Or it can be simple bullets, most places where you would write something will have a way to turn your list into Bullets. They're called bullet points. And that looks like this, right? So either way, it doesn't really matter. Usually have simple ideas. I put a period here, but actually, you don't have to don't follow the ordinary rules that you would normally follow if you're making a list. If it doesn't have to be a sentence, don't make it a sentence. If I need you to bring three things to the picnic, I need you to bring beer, potato chips, and hamburgers. Then I will not make sentences. I'll just write beer, potato chips, hamburgers, and I won't use a period at the end. Absolutely. To keep it simple to make sure it's not missed. All right, and then when you say it, you want to use a very clear sentence. Please bring colon. It could be something like that. Please bring, and you don't have to say the following, just please bring colon list single words. Fine. What if it's questions? Well, for questions you probably need, probably need to make full sentences. But if you want to set it off, you would say something like this. I, I would like to know. And then a colon and then the list of questions. And you write the questions as simply and concisely as you can. Keep it very simple. What's the alternative to this? What's the other way to do this? Well, you could include these things that you need in sentences. What if you do that and it's in a big chunk of text, a paragraph, then the person reading your email has to go through it with a magnifying glass and there's a question, there's a thing I need, this one. And they have to find everything. What are the odds that they're going to miss something? That they're going to find four out of five things that you absolutely need them to do. And not the fifth thing, but the fifth thing was the most important. The odds are not 0. In fact, the odds are pretty good. So don't bury your requests in paragraphs. Unless unless it's one thing, maybe two things. But if it's more than that, It's a very, very good idea to use a simple lists set off with a simple request followed by a colon. And that is the best and most effective way to make sure things are not missed. So for a regular work email, what could this look like? Simple requests related to a deadline. Very simple. By Friday. Please. Colon. That's a colon. Okay, colon, colon, bring, finish, find. And each of these is, starts with an action, a request for you to do something. I keep my sentences as short as possible, not a very long explanation. And you know, absolutely without a doubt what I need you to do by Friday, There's no excuse for you to have missed it because I made it so clear. Again, this is not only for requests, are going to be looking at plenty of examples of these when we look at our example emails later in the course, again, that will be most of the course. But this is an important idea to keep in mind throughout, because lists are so powerful for writing clear e-mails. 7. The CTA: Whether it's with a simple list or not, when you're writing a professional e-mail, usually you want the person who reads your email to then do something with it. You want them to take some action. And as I've said, it's important not to bury the questions. For example, in the paragraph if it's a long paragraph because they could be missed. But maybe that is the action I want you to take to answer my questions. Maybe I have a request and I need you to do something for me. Maybe I just need some information. Maybe I want to meet you in two hours and I'm trying to confirm the time and I need you to confirm well, all sorts of things. But usually when we are communicating with someone, it's not just a one-way thing. We want them to do something. And that thing that we want them to do is called the call to action. Now because the call to action is so important, it's the thing you want the other person to do, the action they should take. Separate it. If you have a long paragraph explaining things, explaining the details of a project or maybe a promotion that you're doing. Whatever the purpose may be. If you have a long explanation, a paragraph with two or three or four sentences, maybe more. Does it make sense to then have your simple request included in that long paragraph? You would be shocked by how many people think that that's a good idea. People don't read things very carefully all the time. They go quickly through it. And like we talked about with the bullet points, that means things can be missed. So you want to do as much as you can to make sure that things are not missed because it's not about your literary style when you're writing. It's about being clear, being concise, and making sure that you communicate well. So make the lists when there are a few things and separate your CTAs, whatever action you want that person to take, make sure that it's clearly written, that you don't use more words than you need. You're not trying to make it flowery and beautiful, and trying to keep it very simple, very clear, and visually separate from the rest of the text. So it might look something like this. Here we have, let's just call this the greeting. And I'm using squiggles instead of words because I want you to focus on structure. Okay? So this is the greeting very short, very simple. Then I go down one space and then perhaps I have a paragraph with an explanation details this is important stuff, very important stuff. I'm explaining the issue, the problem, the request, the promotion, whatever it is. Okay. There's so many different types of emails, whatever it is. And maybe I have two paragraphs, it doesn't have to be one paragraph. Then finally, I want to make sure that you know what I want you to do. So once again, I have one space. Then here, here is where I have my call, my call to action. And then after it, I'll have something like hope you have a great weekend best, Luke, something like that. But the call to action is separate from both of these. And it's very clear and it's easy to see and it's easy to find if you'd go back because you forgot what it was and you need to check it. You can easily find that. I'm not saying put arrows beside it. I'm saying it's easy to find because it is separate. It stands by itself and it's as simple as possible. I'm not saying you should only have one paragraph to explain yourself. I'm not telling you how long your email should be. If it's 234 paragraphs, then you would also have a space between those paragraphs. But usually the call to action is easy to identify because it stands alone and it's quite short. It's not a long paragraph typically. And then I know what I need to do and I can remember it easily. And you will find if you follow this basic guideline, that there will be less need for you to repeat yourself, to send follow-up e-mails explaining things. There will be fewer misunderstandings. It's so simple. 8. Main Email Structure: Finally, I want to talk you through the overall structure of an email, the big picture structure. Keep in mind that this is meant to be very broad, very general. And there are so many different variations of this, so many different ways to structure an email, but they do fit pretty well into this broad format that I'm going to give you. Keep in mind though, many variations and we're going to explore those variations throughout the course. So what is the structure? First is the greeting. And as I said, there are many variations. There certainly isn't only one way to do a greeting. There are thousands, millions, I don't know how many. But generally, in the greeting, we might want to say who we are. If you don't know who I am, I might want to say my title, my role, a little bit of background about me that might help you understand who you are now communicating with. Okay. Sometimes, but that's not always the situation, right? So maybe you know who I am. Maybe I want to provide the basic reason, the basic reason why I'm sending this email to you now that shouldn't have too much detail when you went to explain it further and give more detail. That will probably happen in the main part or the main thing. So you might give a very simple reason. You might, you might say something conversational or friendly. This might set the tone. You might want to just ask a question. Maybe I know this person well, but I haven't communicated with them in several months. Well, if I just say what I need right now, that's not very polite. So I should say something conversational to set the tone. I might do that in migrating. I know something about this person. I know this person. I might say, how's everything going with you and your husband and Denver? If that's what I know about them. This is the time to do that in the greeting, to be clear, these are not the only things you can do with the greeting. We're going to explore this in much more detail in this course. We're going to be, as I said, spending most of our time looking at real example e-mails. So we'll explore this. Does every single e-mail need to have a greeting? Not necessarily. In fact, in many cases, no. Because there might be two colleagues who send five or ten emails a day. Do they need to say, Oh, hello there Sharon. I hope you're doing well. How are the kids? Bob, this is the fifth time you've emailed me today. What are you talking about? Very strange, right? So for that sort of thing, those sorts of fast exchanges of colleagues who were very close or people who know each other so well and communicate regularly, then these rules kind of go out the window. We don't need them because the whole email might be a single word. Yes, Sure, that's fine or thank you. Sometimes that's the email and that's totally fine. If that's the situation you're in. If you know that person so well. And it's just quick communication. Well then it's more like a text message. And sometimes that is appropriate. And in those cases, you certainly wouldn't need a greeting. Next, after the greeting, we have the main part of the e-mail. The main thing can I just call it the main thing that keeps it simple? Do you mind if I just write main thing? The main thing, this is what's pushing us to write this email to begin with, this is what we really want to say. It's why we're writing the email. So here we give context, we explain details, we tell a story, we offer something, we request something. We have our CTA here, call to action is here. All of this stuff. Why are you writing this email? What is it about? What are you trying to say? What are you trying to get, what are you trying to communicate? These are just some of the many things we could do in this main thing, the main part of the e-mail, the things we really want to communicate, the things we really need. I don't want to give too much detail on this because we're going to explore it in depth throughout this course with real example, emails. Most of what we talk about will be this stuff. All of the different ways you can do a greeting. You can do the main thing or the main part of the email, whatever it is you want to say in different situations, including the final thing, I'm just going to call it the final thing. Okay. I'm calling it the final thing because I want to but you could call it the closing if you like. If you want to call it your closing, that's fine. Whatever you wanna call it, That's not really important. The important thing is that we know how to do it. We understand the structure, how to do it. We will get to, we'll talk about that. But what are we trying to accomplish with this final thing? With the closing, the greeting is to say who we are to give a bit of context, give a general reason, perhaps set a conversational tone or professional tone, or a friendly tone. Okay, That's what the greeting is for. The main thing, we give some context, explain the main details of what we're going to say. Make an offer, give the CTA, make our lists, but our bullet points there. What about this final thing? What are we trying to do? The final thing are the closing is what you would use to leave this person with an impression. With an expectation. What is the thing you want to leave them with? Imagine you go to a party, right? And you're telling jokes, you're very funny. But then the last thing you say before you leave the party is something rude. You say something really rude to everybody at the party, and then you leave. What will they remember? Well, they remember the two hours at the party where you were just hilarious? Or will they remember the last thing you did which was rude? They're going to remember the last thing, the final impression. That's what it's for, for leaving a certain impression. And a common one would be, Have a great week, have a great weekend, very common to just leave that little positive thought there at the end. The final impression, a friendly tone. And that can really make a difference because people feel that if you just say something very clearly exactly what you want, there's no greeting. You're not setting the tone, nothing conversational, nothing friendly than people form their opinions about you based on that. And we'll look at plenty of examples later in the course. But this positive thought is a really common thing to include at the end. But it doesn't have to be a positive feeling. It could be a completely different tone. What if I don't want to give this person a positive feeling? Maybe I want to give them a sense of urgency. Want to give them a sense of urgency because I want them to take action quickly. For example, I told you about the university, writing about tuition questions. These may be urgent things. Maybe this is my fourth email. I'm trying to get a response. I'm starting to feel a little frustrated. I just need my questions to be answered. Now. That doesn't mean I'm trying to be rude, but I went to push a little bit. I might say, looking forward to your reply or I hope I hear from you soon. Now those are very polite, quite polite. But it let that person know that what I care about is getting the information. I want to sort of support the call to action. I want to support you doing the thing that I need you to do in a very polite and respectful way or to make it a little more urgent, something like please get those to me asap. Please get those to me. A S, a P as soon as possible. All right. That's definitely pushing. That doesn't mean that this is necessarily rude. In fact, in most situations, I would say it's not rude. All of this is accomplishing that final impression, that tone that sticks with the person who just finished reading your email. The final thing are the closing. These are all essential pieces to understand if you want to structure emails, well, and we're going to be exploring these a lot in this course. Now that we've talked about structure, we're going to go on and talk about some essential musts that will be part of our foundation that we're going to use in this course. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 9. Avoiding Mistakes: We've explored tips and strategies for structuring or building an email. Now we need to talk about some essential musts, things that are very important to remember when you're writing emails. And you will see these things in practice throughout the course. But it's important to continue applying them on your own, in your own emails. And you can start right now. Well, perhaps after this lesson, the 1 May 1 be pretty obvious, but I have to mention it because it is such a common issue, especially among English learners, even very high level English learners who speak great English often make mistakes. Simple mistakes that are easy to fix, but you can't have mistakes. You can't have typos, you can't have punctuation errors. You can't have formatting issues. You can't make mistakes, especially in a professional setting when you're texting with your friends. Yeah, of course, it doesn't really matter. But if you're sending an e-mail, it has to be perfect because if it has mistakes, if it has typos, if it has misspellings, it could cause misunderstandings. That's one problem. But perhaps more importantly, it could cause the other person to judge you as not serious. They can't even take the time to spell these words correctly. To capitalize the beginning of a sentence, to make sure there's no space in front of a period. What why would I take this seriously? If the person who sent me this can't even be serious enough to write a correct e-mail. It's not that hard really. Now there are many ways to improve this. To improve your English skills, of course, to improve your writing skills, but simply rereading what you wrote will allow you to catch many mistakes. And I would strongly recommend composing your emails in a grammar checker, I usually use one called Grammarly. It's quite good. It's free, but there are others. You use a grammar checker. It helps you correct basic things. It forces you to reread what you wrote. Then you avoid mistakes and you avoid creating the wrong impression. You avoid negative judgments, which is what you don't want. Trust me, when I get emails that are incorrect, I didn't even read them carefully. I assume that this person is not serious and I don't really pay attention to it. That's my response. So it's very important. So for this one, simply reread, check. I think it's pretty simple to just be careful, be careful. You can also ask a friend for help. But for most emails, you shouldn't need to do that because, well, if this word is spelled incorrectly, you can simply look up how to spell that word correctly. Problem solved. 10. Being Specific: Be specific. This is extremely important to be specific means to not talk around your point, but say what you want to say. Now in conversation, sometimes it's good to talk around something, to imply something or suggested. But remember, you're there with the other person, they can read your facial expressions, the situation. But usually when you're writing an email, the main point is that you want to communicate something clearly. And because you want to communicate something clearly, trying to imply things or suggest things, is that going to result in better communication if it's just text, all I have is the text you wrote probably not hear my boss and I see your e-mail suggesting in a very indirect way that I work extra. I don't have any reason to understand it the way you want me to understand it really do. I know it's not so clear what she wants here. So I'm just going to assume she doesn't mean I should work over the weekend and I'm going to enjoy myself. So you want to avoid that, right? All I have is the text. Tell me you want me to work over the weekend, then I can't misunderstand it. Be specific, be very clear. 11. The Email Subject: A clickable subject, that's the part of the email that says what it's about. This is kind of like the title. This is kind of like a title. Now, you want to avoid this being so exciting and ridiculous that it has nothing to do with the e-mail itself. That's a thing that's called clickbait. Clickbait is when you see the title. Wow, fascinating. What, how can this be? And you click on it and then whatever you see next, not only for emails, also videos and articles. Whenever you see next has nothing to do with that title. So you've been tricked clickbait. So your email should not be that, but it also should make you want to click on it. We'll talk about how to do this. We'll look at lots of examples of subjects you can use. You want the person who sees it to click on it right away. And probably you want to give them an idea about what the email contains. But it could be as simple as feedback request. So I know someone is requesting feedback. I know what it's about. I know there's some action that I need to take, so I'm going to click on that. But if it just says request, well, that might be so broad that I might forget to click on it or am I click on it later? There are these subtle differences between the subjects that you choose. These are important. It's a good idea to choose one that's the right balance between clear and clickable. I know what it is, and I want to click. And again, we'll spend some more time on that throughout the course. 12. Writing Style for Clear Emails: You want to avoid flowery language. When I say flowery language, I mean that type of stuff you would see in literature and poetry. And literature and poetry. The goal is to create an image in your head, a picture in your mind, right? That's the goal. Usually, and often, especially for poetry that can be interpreted in a 1000 different ways. But when you're writing an email, especially when it's a professional e-mail. Do you want it to be flowery and create a beautiful image in someone's mind? Probably not. Well, what do you want? You want to communicate very clearly. So clearly in fact that when the other person reads my email, they have no questions in their mind. They know what they need to do. They understand what they need to understand their thinking, what they should be thinking? So avoid very flowery language because usually that's a distraction. Avoid a bunch of extra adjectives. Avoid sentences you don't need. If you include a sentence in a paragraph and then reread it and realize that sentence doesn't actually add anything to what I'm trying to communicate clearly. Just get rid of it. So your goal should be to delete things. You don't need to remove things that are not necessary to cut out words that don't add anything. Because you want to try to be as clear as possible. And clear usually means concise, as short as possible. Don't say more than you need to say. So there's no reason to try to make something very long. I'm going to try to write a very long e-mail. Now sometimes that's necessary, sometimes a long email is required. But even for a long email, you don't want to be adding things that you don't need to add, which are distractions, which are not related to your intent, what you're intending to communicate. Emails are for communication and literature is four pictures in your head. So if the goal is communication, and if we're trying to avoid saying unnecessary things, shorter is usually better than longer. Shorter is almost always better than longer. Now, note, I didn't say, don't write long emails. I said shorter is better than longer, but longer is better than very, very, very long. So the idea is not about the actual length, but it's about being precise, being clear, and keeping things simple. 13. Paragraphs: Do not be afraid to start a new paragraph. You don't want to have a gigantic block of text that looks like this, that has a 1000 different things in it. If there's a new idea that you want to talk about, a new topic, a new section, a new thought. Don't be afraid to start a new block of text. Go down one space, and then start another one. And that's great because that's how people's minds work. When people see a giant chunk of text, they get lost very easily. And if you ask them to go back and find some detail, good luck. However, if it's broken up very nicely by topic or by thought or by call to action. The thing you want them to do, then they can easily find things. Oh, that's where that is. And this is the description and the background information of this. I can find things easily, so never be afraid to start a new paragraph, even if that paragraph is two sentences long. That's okay. It's totally okay. But also remember, this is an e-mail. It's not an academic essay. It's not something you're writing down on paper. So don't indent. Indenting is when you start a new paragraph and it goes in. And then the next line is out, out, out like that. And then you start a new paragraph and you indent. It's called indenting. And then the others are regular width. We don't do that with emails. Don't worry about that. They should look like this. All of this on the left side here, that should be all the way down, including the first line on the left side here, all the way down, the same width, don't indent. Instead, just have one space between the two paragraphs. That is how we break up paragraphs when we write emails. 14. Keyboard Settings: Use an English keyboard or use the English keyboard setting. Why? Well, it depends on your language. Often English typed on a non English keyboard just looks a bit odd to a native English speaker who's used to seeing a certain format, a certain style, especially when it comes to Punctuation. Sometimes the spacing between punctuation, the spacing between letters, sometimes the punctuation itself like the comma, looks a bit strange. And that might seem like a small thing, but I would ask you, do you want to be labeled even if your English is totally perfect and you spent a lot of time making it great and awesome. Do you want to still be labeled as a non native English speaker, a non native English user, simply because the comma looks a little weird, or that period looks a little weird. Or there's something a bit off about that. It can be a little distracting and you'll be labeled immediately. Maybe you don't care about being labeled. Okay, that's fine. But you should know that that might happen. Why cause additional distractions? I would strongly recommend using an English keyboard when you're typing in English. 15. Tone and Purpose: The last one is tone. What is tone? Well, tone might be a warm and friendly feeling. It might be a strict, harsh feeling. It might be a formal feeling or a casual feeling. A lot of things make up the overall tone of your writing, the overall tone of an email. How does it make the other person generally feel? What's the feeling that it has? And again, a lot of things make up what that is. But you always want to remember that the tone should follow the purpose. What is your purpose? Who is this for? Well, I've never met this person in my life and I'm asking for a lot of information, and this is quite serious information. They'll have to put in quite a bit of work to get that for me. I'm going to use a very formal tone, a very respectful tone, so that they feel very respected and they can tell that I'm very serious about what I want and that they'll give that to me. So that would be meat Choosing the tone based on what I'm trying to do, based on who I think is reading what I'm writing, right? So you always want to think about that before you start. Maybe do the outline, but also think about what is my tone, what kind of feeling do I want to create? And that's not a very clear thing, right? That's kind of fuzzy. It's a fuzzy idea. Yes, that is true. But we're going to spend some more time on it in the next one. Before we get into our e-mail examples, we're going to talk briefly about deciding tone and etiquette. 16. Formality and Politeness: The last thing we need to talk about before we start looking at real e-mail examples. I promise this is the last thing is tone and etiquette. Now, what is tone? What is Etiquette? What's the difference between them? Why are they important? Well, they are kind of blended together. It's often not clear what the difference is. Etiquette is just generally what you should do to make sure your email is polite, to make sure that the other person feels respected. And tone is the overall feeling that you create with what you write. The overall feeling that your email gives to someone else. Generally, that's what tone is. So you can see how these kind of overlap. Now we talk about a general feeling that someone gets That's kind of hard to make a rule for, isn't it? Yes, it is. But there are a few things that make up your tone. Let's call these different aspects of your tone. And we'll talk about those. We'll talk a little bit about etiquette as well. We're going to go through this pretty quickly. So first you want to ask yourself about the level of formality. Now I mentioned this a bit before. Ask yourself before you start, before you make your outline. Do I want this person to have the impression that I'm a very serious professional and I'm taking everything quite seriously. Do I want them to have the feeling that I'm pretty relaxed and easygoing. Maybe I have a sense of humor. What feeling do I want to create? Do I want them to feel like I'm their friend? To have a very casual, very relaxed feeling with an extremely informal tone. Think about that. And that's a powerful thing. Just thinking about that, because that will be your guiding star, your north star, that you can constantly keep in mind as you're writing your email, you can use appropriate language to fit that general tone. Formal, casual, relaxed if you just ask yourself that question, that will help a lot. But of course we're going to look at lots of examples of both very formal and very casual emails or more casual emails. So you'll get a sense for what those, what those look like as well. Now how about politeness? Well, what's the difference between politeness and formality? Formality is, as I said, that sense of being a professional, being very serious or being relaxed, casual. And as I said, maybe fun, funny. But politeness is different. You can be polite and you can be funny, can be serious, and you can be polite, you can be professional and be polite. Politeness is more about using language that ensures the person reading your email feels respected. You can respect someone or make sure someone feels respected and write a hilarious e-mail or a very casual email or a very professional e-mail. Well, what's the difference between polite and impolite? Often it's very simple. Instead of saying things like, I need and you must, that's really direct, right? And if you don't, It's very threatening. That's a, that's an o. If you don't, threatening some terrible outcome. Okay? So if you use that language, it could come across as rude, direct. And there are lots of other examples of rude and direct language. Okay? Instead of saying, I need, you could say something like, I hope you can, or I would appreciate if you could, wow, that's very respectful. I would is often part of polite phrasing. Write this down here. I would appreciate if you could. Okay. And that could be for you must as well. I'm not trying to give you all of the phrases for this right now. I'm trying to give you the general idea that there's a difference between politeness and formality, the level or the degree of formality that's different from politeness. You can always be polite. And in fact, I would strongly recommend always, always, always, always being polite. Notice how many times I said always. That means it's important. Okay, keep that in mind. And of course we'll look at lots of examples with this kind of language. 17. Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Expressions: Now how about abbreviations? Well, just as a reminder, what's an abbreviation? This is where you shorten something. Now, sometimes shortening things is fine, sometimes using abbreviations like street and DR and Mr. these are the standard abbreviations and there are many more, but then there's another type of abbreviation. And this other type of abbreviation would be something like, I'm gonna get that for you. Or that would be g are eight and number 8, you could call these abbreviations too. This is a kind of slang. So separate those in your mind. This type this type is generally considered to be, okay. Okay. This type, this type, you are, you're going to instead of Y OU apostrophe R-E. This would be something that you would see in a text message. Very common to use that in a text message. Totally fine. In fact, to use that in almost any text message. But you don't want to use those in an e-mail unless, you know that person very well and you know that sort of conversational abbreviation is okay. All right, that's okay if you're emailing your friend, but in that case, it's really just a kind of text message, isn't it? So just be careful if you use this sort of thing, this Internet slang sort of abbreviation in an e-mail, be aware that it could cause the other person to not take you seriously. In fact, one time I was choosing a real estate agent, I wanted to figure out who I was going to work with related to house. And one of them, one of the agents wrote very clearly used natural language wasn't super professional, but very respectful, very polite, perfect English, correct grammar. And so I felt respected and I felt this person is being serious using humor. Sure. But but a serious professional. The other person that I was thinking about working with was using these all the time, this sort of thing. You are these, these abbreviations that I would see in a text message on top of that, some typos here in there. So what do you think? My impression was? Well, if I have a choice between these two, I'm going to choose the one who seems to me like a professional who is respecting me, who has a tone of seriousness. Because this also adds to the tone. If you use these, then it's going to create a tone of perhaps carelessness or extreme in formality. Extreme in formality if you use these. So what impression do you want to make? These contribute to the tone. This contributes to the tone. This contributes to the tone. These are different factors and you have to think about these things. What tone do you want your e-mail to have? Now you could say that these things are also part of etiquette and okay, fair enough. I'm not really sure what the line between these two is. In fact, it's not a very clear line. Okay, Now what about acronyms? Well, what are acronyms? This really is more on the etiquette side and less on the tone side. So an acronym is unlike something like this. An acronym is when you have a word that is made up, each letter of the word is made up of words. So a classic example of that would be something like and a s, a, now a lot of people will know NASA's when a lot of people will know things like NBA, okay, these, these are probably okay. They're out in the culture. Everybody knows them. They're kind of part of the language, a TM. But a lot of these are specialized. There are acronyms related to different fields and those are specialized things. This is called jargon. And jargon is when you have special words within a field, whether it's accounting or archaeology, or customer service, or management, or game development, whatever it is. Alright, there's special language. Now, if you're communicating with your group, people who you know know this stuff, then using jargon is a good way to communicate effectively, efficiently. I'm e-mailing someone in my team. I know that they know this this this acronym. I know they know it, so I use it. But you have to be careful because if you send an email to someone who is outside of your team, someone who may not know that special jargon, then you risk confusing them, making them feel frustrated. When someone sends me an email that has tons of jargon because it's simply outside of my area of knowledge. Many acronyms that I don't know because it's very specialized and I'm not in that specialty. I just say, I can't understand this and I sort of just throw it out. Or I call them and I say, please explain these things to me. I don't know all of these words. So don't assume that the person you're sending an email too will understand what you're saying. If you use a lot of jargon, don't assume that they know those jargon words. Those acronyms, acronyms are just a type of jargon. Jargon is a broader category. It just means those specialized words. You want to just think about this before you send your email. Does this person know this word? Yes, I'm sure they do. Okay. Use it or I'm not sure. They might not know this. Kinda outside of my expertise. Okay. I'm just going to keep it simple. Is there anything wrong with keeping it simple? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Don't try to impress people with your fancy language. Don't try to impress them with long and complicated sentences. Instead, impress them with clarity. Simplicity, clear explanations that make perfect sense, that our logical without any typos or any mistakes that are well structured, well-organized, right? All of those things are what impressed people, not who wow, look at all these complicated words. No, nobody cares about that. That does not impress anybody. So just be aware of that, okay, and connected to that would be expressions, or let's say expressions, Idioms, and new words you've learned recently, okay? If you've been learning some really interesting new idioms, some interesting new words, it's great that you practice those, right? It's important to learn those things, to practice them. Very important, okay? But if you don't have a very, very good understanding of the usage of those idioms, of the usage of those expressions, the usage of the new word that you've learned, then probably keep it out of your e-mail, especially your professional e-mail. Don't try out new language in a professional email. Try it out in your private writing, in your personal writing, on your blog, in your text messages, in discussion forums. Don't try it out. When you're sending an email to someone who you want to take you very seriously, don't do that. Because if you've used it in the wrong way and expressions are very complicated, you have to deeply understand them. If you use the expression the wrong way, maybe you don't know all of the meanings and you use it and it has another meaning that you didn't quite understand. That could cause a very awkward situation. And I've seen examples of expressions used incorrectly and it causes a lot of misunderstandings, a lot of awkward situations. So stick with the language, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. Keep it simple. I'll probably say it a million times in this course. Keep it simple. 18. Timing and Faux Pas: Now, another thing related to etiquette is not about the style of the e-mail itself. Another thing connected to etiquette is promptness. And this is more of a norm. So I can't speak for the whole world. But let's say the English-speaking world, when it comes to emails, being prompt, replying quickly is important. So if someone sends you an email and they expect a reply, there is a call to action, there's something you need to do. We need to respond in some way. And you take four days to reply just because you don't feel like answering them right away. That is a kind of fopen. Fopen ferpa is a, a social mistake. A norm has been broken and people feel uncomfortable with that. So this is related to etiquette. Very important. If you get an email, that doesn't mean you have to respond within ten minutes. It just means you want to be prompt. You want to respond relatively quickly. If you can respond same day or early next day, that is a good idea. So not a must, not a rule, but definitely a very good idea if you want to give people the impression that you're serious and you're a professional. All right. If that's the impression you want to give people, then make sure you respond to e-mails relatively quickly. Now, the last thing, just to consider, if you have a pretty good relationship with someone, maybe you've been working with someone for quite awhile. You've got to know them a bit. You have their phone number. Ask yourself before you even write an email. Wait a second. If this is an extremely simple thing, I need some quick information. Maybe I can just send a text message. So know when an email is not necessary, if you don't have their phone number, you don't have a way to send them a text message. Okay, fine. But sometimes it's better to send a simple message, then you don't have to compose a whole email. You can respond more quickly. You don't have to focus so much on all of these things. These things are very important for emails, but not necessarily important for sending a quick message to different things. Usually if it's texting, people will forgive typos. I'm not recommending that you make typos. I'm just saying it's not such a big deal. And if you use abbreviations like this, Internet slang, that's generally, generally considered to be fine. So two different things. Sending a text message, sometimes just be aware that you may not need to. Just think about that before you decide to write an email. Okay, So that is it for our foundation. The foundation has been laid. Now, we can go on and talk about our first email example. We're going to be looking at scenarios for the rest of the course. We'll study this scenario. We'll look at the email and then we'll do a breakdown and talk about the different parts. We'll analyze it and we will learn from it. Okay, I hope you're ready for that. I'm excited for it. I will see you in the next lesson. 19. Scenario | Apologizing for a Problem: At last, it's time to look at our first email example for the course. So how is this going to work? I'm going to give you a scenario. This is the situation, the reason for writing this email. Then we're going to look at the email itself. We're going to read through it. We're going to analyze it, draw insights, tips, and phrases from it. Then we will do a recap to make sure that those things are really clear before we go onto the next one. Now, the emails we're going to look at are for specific scenarios, specific situations. But I want you to always be thinking, okay, that's for this situation. But how can I take this piece and that piece, these insights, these phrases from each email example and use them in my own emails. Going through specific cases, specific scenarios helps us to ground the e-mails in some reality, but that is just a tool to help you get the ideas more clearly. So for example, in this first e-mail, we're going to be looking at a customer service scenario where someone has a problem and the other person is apologizing for that problem and providing a solution. Okay. But you can then use the things in the e-mail for many other things to provide solutions in all kinds of different scenarios, to apologize in all kinds of different situations. So always have those glasses on, put those glasses on. Now, I'm going to be learning things in specific scenarios, but I can use those things in many different scenarios. Just repeat that to yourself. Okay? So what is our first scenario? Well, let's just read through it. A customer has ordered a package That should have arrived on Tuesday. Let's say this is accompany a fictional company called VCU. I made it up. There's a real company called move. Oops. It's okay. I don't mean that one. If there is one, there was a mix-up with the express delivery service. Mix up means there's a problem. They made a mistake. So actually the delivery service made a mistake, not the company, not food. Rather than explaining the full situation, the customer service person will send an email to apologize and extend a special offer because there isn't much that can be done to actually resolve it immediately because it's a problem with the express delivery service. So of course, the company move will do their best to make sure that the customer gets their package as quickly as possible. But that's not the main purpose of the email. The main purpose of the email will be messaging. Will be making sure that they feel okay, that they feel like their issue is being addressed. They feel like they're in good hands there, in responsible professional hands, that the company cares about them and they're deeply concerned about this issue and working on it. That's the real point. We'll see how that works as we get into it. So let's look at the first email. 20. Part 1 | Greetings and Apology: As we go through this e-mail for our first scenario, I would like you to try to pick up on things. Notice things, see if you can find what's going on underneath just the words. In other words, why is it said like this? What are these different things trying to express? So I'll read through it and as we go along, maybe make some notes and then see if your notes and my points match up, see if you can find those things. Now this is just the first half of the email. So we'll do the breakdown or the analysis by part. We'll talk about this first part, then we'll talk about the second. Now one thing you won't be able to see is between this part in the second part, there is just one space. So you can't really tell that because I want to make sure you can see it on screen very easily. There would be for the whole email, just one space between this paragraph and the next one. Remember, formatting is quite important. Okay? So let's read through it. Subject, your order. This is a fictional fictional name for our company that we're going to use here. Dear Luke. Okay. Dear valued customer. Ooh, dear customer. Hey there. Hi, Luke. Hello. On behalf of the customer service department. Thank you very much for placing your recent order with us. Order number 2987239847. Of course, we regret to inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances, there has been a delay in your orders delivery. We take great care to ensure that each order arrives on schedule and are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience that this delay may cause you. Okay. So what can you pick out here? What's going on? Well, the first thing would be to talk about, to talk about these. Of course, in the parentheses here, this is just a note for you. You wouldn't include this obviously in the email, you would just have this first part. But now which one is the best one? Hey, they're very casual. Very personal. Probably not. Hi Luke. Friendly, but somewhat personal. Maybe not. Hello. Perhaps. Maybe if you don't want to mention the name, that would be a good way to do it. Dear valued customer, Dear customer. Less personal, but more formal, but perhaps not too formal, right? So one of these two, I think feel about right? Does that match up with what you thought felt right. Dear Luke is also formal, but it sounds a little too personal. In this case. It would it would be okay. All of these would be okay. But we're talking about which one feels best, which one fits what we're trying to accomplish? Remember, we want to keep in mind, what am I trying to do? What am I trying to express here? I want this person, I'm choosing my tone. I want this person to feel that I'm being very professional. And so I want to be a little formal. I'm a serious person and I want this other person to know they're in safe hands. It's okay if they don't personally love me, It's okay if they don't think I'm the best person ever and think I'm a super friendly, bubbly person, that's okay. I want them to feel comforted knowing that they are in good hands, professional hands. Okay. So for that reason, dear valued customer, dear move would be good, formal, respectful. Ok. Now, the first part here on behalf of moves customer service department. Thank you very much for placing your recent order with us. Now, is this the reason for the e-mail? No, this is just the greeting. This is just creating the tone, making sure we're on the same page. It's going to relate to this order, but it isn't the issue. You ordering this thing is not the thing that I'm writing this email about, but it creates a tone and I think the tone is created by on behalf of and then thank you very much. It's very respectful. Very polite. Okay. This part here for placing your order. What would be an informal way to say this pie? I'm Carrie, thanks for placing your order. Yeah, you could do it if you want to be very casual if you want to have that feeling. But we don't need that because we just want to make sure that this person who's reading this knows we're talking about this. And they feel respected and they know that they're dealing with the professional person. The tone here is very professional, respectful. And I would say friendly. I would say it's still friendly, even though it is a bit formal, still friendly. Okay. Now the bad news, if we start the email with the second paragraph, we have our space here. If we start the e-mail with this, is that good? No, it's too abrupt. It's too sudden. So we need to have something here. This greeting it, it's serves the function of being a sort of buffer to the bad news. It gets us on the same page. It sets the tone. It accomplishes so many things if you just start the issue right away, especially if it's a customer, especially if it's someone you don't know. Well, bad idea, bad move. Okay. So then we say the issue. Once we're on the same page, We regret to inform you that very powerful phrase here. We regret to inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances, okay, This is also very powerful. Then we say what actually happened starting there. Now let's talk about this for a second. Well, what if I started with, there has been a delay that would be quite sudden, maybe a little bit shocking. There has been a delay. Who it's a little scary. We went to soften it by using some very polite, professional respectful language first. We also want that language to, in some ways explain a bit about what happened. However, we don't want to explain too much. If you give too many details, this happened and then this person did that and then they did that. What will the customer think? I'm just blaming other people for the problem. Also, if they understand everything that happened, does that resolve it? No. So because the problem and the solution are not really closely related because there isn't really any action we can take about why it happened. We don't need to say all those details, so don't mention them. Instead, use these polite phrases to start before you say what happened. But I'm sort of mentally and emotionally prepared for it when I hear the phrase, We regret to inform you. Now, a simpler way to say that would be unfortunately. So is it okay to use? Unfortunately, I think it would be okay to use, but it doesn't feel as customer service II as customer service ish. That's not a word but you know what I mean? Right? If I use We regret to inform you, that's much more professional sounding. So I would recommend that. Now what about phrases like, I feel so sad to tell you, or I have some very bad news, or I have very sad news, or I need to tell you something very sad, something like that wouldn't work. Number 1, it's too personal. If you say I have sad news to tell you, that sounds like I accidentally hit your dog with my car. That kind of sad news. This is not where we want to go with this kind of email. We're trying to take the focus off of the personal, off of you and me. Instead, we're going to use language that takes the focus off of you and me and places it on the situation on what is going to be done to resolve your issue. So that's what we're doing with this part. We regret to inform you of the company. I'm only representing the company. This is our issue and we are going to solve it. Now. You can use I, it's okay to use III. But sometimes when you want to really focus on the problem and less about the personal, you can use we instead. And this due to unforeseen circumstances, is the only explanation we need to give. Don't give too many details. That looks like blaming, that looks like excuses due to unforeseen circumstances, due to a logistical issue, due to a problem in our warehouse. It gives that person the sense of the issue, the sense of the cause, but doesn't overwhelm them with details. Okay. So then we say what happened. There has been a delay in your orders delivery. We take great care to ensure that each order arrives on schedule and are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this delay may cause you the purpose of this paragraph, the reason that I'm using this paragraph is not to explain the solution. I will do that next. The purpose is to make sure they feel respected, make sure that they know I'm taking the issues seriously or we are taking the issue seriously. So it's the background information and also the comfort. The comfort that I want to provide. A few phrases just to point out quickly before we move on, we take great care. This phrase, what does it accomplish? It lets this person know that as accompany policy, this is important to us. It's one of our values. It's something we strive for. And I want to let you know that so that, you know, you're in safe hands. It's reinforcing that, hopefully giving them a feeling of, okay, this is inconvenient, but thankfully, I'm dealing with responsible people, okay? They take great care. They're very responsible. And I know this is sort of a an unusual situation that makes me feel a lot better to ensure that each order arrives on schedule. Now, if you want to talk about time and delays and dates on schedule is really useful. It lets you place a little stick in the sand, a little stick in the ground. And it says here, if it's before this or on this, it's on time. If not, it's late. And I'm letting you know that we make sure that we do things in a way that it's supposed to happen at the time it's supposed to happen. That's how we usually do it. So your issue is an uncommon thing for us and that's why we are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this delay may cause. I'm recognizing that you have stuff that you need to do. You may need this thing for something important to you. So I'm not just saying adds late, it's late, it's a few days. Relax. I'm saying I know. I understand this is very important to you. It's very important to us as well. Okay, so now we focus on solutions. 21. Part 2 | Making Up for It: Now we're going to look at the solution to this problem, okay? The order has been delayed. That's the problem. It's not a common thing, but the customer needs to know that we recognize that that can cause inconvenience. Okay, we've done that. So hopefully now they're feeling okay. These people, they respect my time. They know this is important to me. They really want to help. They're professionals, they're serious. That's solving a lot. That's half the battle. That's the battle of emotions, part of it, at least. Now, we need to talk about the actual solution. Because if you just say that stuff and don't offer any solutions, then you're shooting yourself in the foot. So now we have a solution. What will our solution B? So what is the solution? I'm going to read through it and as I do, I want you to try to notice what is being said to make sure that the solution is not just presented, but it's presented in a way that is perfectly clear. Impossible to misunderstand, impossible to miss, that it can't be missed. And to ensure that the customer feels satisfied with the solution, that this is a good answer to the problem. Okay, So let's, let's go to make up for this delay and show you how much your business means to us. Who've would like to offer you a 70% discount coupon, which can be redeemed on your next purchase with us. Discount coupon code colon, VOV 700. Who PhD? I'm just reading that out. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. We would be glad to help. However we can. Once again, we apologize for the delay. Kind regards carry CS specialist. Okay. So what do you think about this one? What is this trying to do? Number 1 to make up for this delay. Very important to say now I'm changing topics. I'm no longer talking about the issue. Now. I'm talking about the solution. To make up for this delay is a simple phrase that can be used to say, now I'm talking about the solution. To do something is my intention. My intention is to make up for the delay. So I say to make up for this delay. And I could stop there. I could just say to make up for this delay. But I then say, and to show how much your business means to us, now, maybe you think that's a little too much, okay. Okay. They feel comfortable, they feel respected. Do I need to say that? No. I'm just giving you some options here you could say to make up for this delay, to make up for this issue, to make up for something to make up is to compensate. And you could cut out the end if you want, or you could include the end. And to show how much your business means to us to reinforce that you are a valued customer, we, we value your business. It's very important to us that you are satisfied with your purchase. Then then we say what we're going to do. Notice for this paragraph and the last one, we have something before the main action. Again, this is where the main action happens. This is what we're going to do, right? But before that I say something to prepare your mind in your emotions for what we're going to do, right? So that can be a very powerful thing. In the previous one, I haven't told you the issue yet. I say a couple of things first, then a comma. Then I say the issue for this one. I haven't said the solution yet, but I'm preparing your mind for one with a couple of things, then a comma, then I say what I'm going to do. It helps to make it a little less direct. If I just start wou would like to offer you. It's totally okay, but it's not as indirect. The indirect language is often more polite, more comfortable sounding when you read that indirect language, it, it makes you feel better. So then we get to the solution itself. Would like to offer you a 70% discount coupon, which can be redeemed on your next purchase with us. Now, this is something to really pay attention to. Number 1, I would like to offer it. So instead of I would like to offer you it's UHV or we why would we do this? Well, if this is just your business and you want to offer somebody something, that's fine. It's just you. But this is Kerry. What if there are 25 different customer support people? We're trying to reinforce, this is the company. This person is just a representative on their important of course, but they represent the company. So it is in a way the company that's doing it, not just carry. If Carrie says I want to offer it, it gives me the feeling, even if it's not true, that carries is kind of doing whatever she wants, which is okay to say it, it's fine, but it might give that feeling and could give the wrong impression. Even though most people will understand what that really means. Okay. So I would like often we use would like instead of will, I would like to, instead of, I will send this to you just to soften the language a bit, to make it a bit less direct, it feels a bit more comfortable. I feel good when I see would like instead of will, I will send this to you. Sounds like it's a little scary. Okay, So who would like to offer you a 70% discount coupon? That's the thing you're going to get. But here's a crucial opportunity that you might not want to miss. If you say W2s would like to offer you a 70% discount coupon, stop end discount coupon code VOV. What are you missing? This which, what is the witch doing? The, which is answering the first question that is going to come up in this person's mind, that might require another back and forth. So when you're doing this, when you're offering somebody something, when you're giving somebody something, ask yourself this. Once I give this to them, are they going to then have a question about it, a relatively simple question about it, that then I would have to reply to again. And if that's a relatively simple question, just use which and then answer that question. So that's what this is, which can be redeemed on your next purchase with us. So I imagine I send this without that part and then I get an email back that says, okay, what can I use this coupon for? There are a lot of different applications of coupons in different situations. I'm just saying you can use it on your next purchase. That makes it clear. Okay. My next purchase, I will get 70 percent off. It's also saying we want to make sure you buy from us again. So that seems pretty reasonable. 70% is a pretty big discount. It's not such a major issue that I would give you a bunch of stuff for free perhaps. So all I'm doing is answering the first question you might have. Using which right after the thing, right? This discount coupon which you can, which you might, which you are able to that sort of language, especially using which here after a comma, after the thing, the noun itself, the coupon, can do a number of things, but it can reduce the number of back and forth emails. So that can save you time. That saves frustration and answers questions that don't even need to be asked. And it also gives the impression that you're very thoughtful. You're thinking about this kind of thing. You're thinking that they might have a question and then you're just answering that. That's great. Now if something is really important and we want to make sure it is not missed, we want to separate it. Never be afraid to separate something. Things like phone numbers, codes, email addresses, contact information, things which absolutely cannot be missed. Another good thing about this is if I go back to check something and I look at this email that happened a week ago. I don't have to read the whole thing and find it. There it is. It's separated from everything else. This is totally fine. Notice that this is not a complete sentence. Could be just phone number, my personal email, the website, and then the colon, and then the thing itself. Now if this is a list, you wouldn't put it right here. If you have several things, then you would go down one and then you'd have your, perhaps your bullet list, 1, 2, 3, like that. So what have we done here? Here we've provided a solution. And the solution is explained not in too much detail, but explained how it can be used and why we're providing this solution. Then we stated clearly the details that cannot be missed separated from everything else. Then finally, this is the last thing. This is the last thing. This is not the solution is just the last thing. The thought, the feeling I want to leave you with. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. We would be glad to help. However, we can. Now, this is giving you the feeling of what? That if this solution is not to your liking, you're still not happy. There's still a problem. I'm here. I'm reminding you that I really care about your issue, that I'm responsible, I'm professional, that I'm willing to help you. So it gives you a feeling of comfort. When you finish this, you have your solution, okay, great. Problem-solved. I have the code. Well, not problem-solved, but I feel better about it because I got a discount code. Okay? So I know you're working on this and I know that I'm going to get a discount. Great. I feel good about that. But now I also know that if I have other issues, if I don't understand something, I can ask and I won't be annoying you that you really want to help. So that makes me feel good. Maybe I still want to know about my order. So when exactly will it arrive? You haven't exactly told me that, right? You've given me something positive, but I still want to know when it will arrive. So then I might ask another question. I could. I could, but hopefully I feel satisfied knowing that you're working on it. You care about my business, you're aware of the issue, you're focused on that, and you care about my business so much that you want me to come back. So I should feel pretty good about things. But now I know that if I have any issues, I can always reach out. I mean, I already knew that. But hearing it from you is very nice. Once again, we apologize for the delay. Why is this here? I already apologized in my email. Why should I do it again? Repeating myself? Certainly, you don't have to, but you want to have a final thing, a final thought to leave this person with. Well, what would that final thought? B, I could say, Have a great weekend, but that's not really relevant to the situation. So why not support or reinforce this? We care about you. We're focused on this problem. We want to resolve it. This makes us feel bad. We don't like making mistakes. We don't like the things go wrong. We want you to be happy. Why not use something that supports that idea as a final thing that you'll have in your mind when you finish reading the email. Then we have kind regards that is a classic, quite professional. It's a bit formal sounding. And again, we'll look at more of these as we go through the course. And then you might have your title beneath your name in parentheses. Or maybe you have a preset signature that you use and it includes all your information like your other e-mail address and your phone number and a bunch of stuff about you. Either one is fine. It doesn't really matter. That's just something that you could include. So now that we've talked about this e-mail, now that we've gone through it and drawn out some really useful things, Let's just do a quick review of the main things I want you to keep in mind for this e-mail before going on to the next one. 22. Recap | Apologizing for a Problem: Let's do a quick recap of things to keep in mind for our apology email. First, the email is formal and respectful. That's the tone we're trying to strike. We use things like we instead of I, we use a lot of indirect language, such as wood, like the email uses phrases like regret to inform you rather than sad to tell you to make it less about you and me, and more about this situation and the company and you. That's why we're also using we throughout. We regret to inform you, rather than I feel sad to tell you. And it's just a bit more professional sounding to say, We regret to inform you, although it's saying almost the same thing, we're also not providing so many details about the issue that it could look like an excuse. Oh, this happened and that happened and that happened and it's their fault or that we're trying to avoid responsibility. But we can't say nothing. Because if we say absolutely nothing, then the question is always floating around in this customer's mind. I don't know why the issue happened. I don't know why you're not telling me anything. So give a sense for it. We had an issue in our warehouse or something like that. A simple thing, a basic detail, but not so much, not a long explanation, because that long explanation also has nothing to do with the solution. Probably find that line between giving way too much detail, sharing too much information, and saying nothing at all, but still taking responsibility. Take responsibility, Give a bit and move on. We want to make sure that the offer or anything that's important is not missed. Make sure you see it. It's separated from everything else. It has its own line. It's got a space above and below cannot be missed. And also if you go back to the email and you reread it, you'll find it very easily, very easy to find. Then we repeat the topology at the end. We want this to be the final thought that they have in their mind when they finish reading the email? Yes. This company, they care about me. They feel bad when I feel bad, they want to be responsible. They're working on this issue. They are professionals and in fact, they're so professional that when I hurt, they hurt. They don't like when bad things happen with their customers because happy customers, that's good for them. This is the final thought I have. And when they see that very polite apology, again, it's not necessarily too much. You have to be aware of it, know when it might be too much, but don't be afraid to include it if you want that to be the final thing in their mind as they then stop reading the email and go about their business. What do you want that final impression to be? Okay. So that is our recap. If you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 23. Scenario | Replying to an Inquiry: In the last lesson, we looked at an apology email carry from V move apologized to a customer because there had been an issue with the delivery of something they ordered. Now we're going to stick with boof. We're going to stick with Carrie. We won't do that throughout the course. We're going to look at quite a few different scenarios, many of which have very little to do with customer service. So with that said, let's get into our next email scenario. This one about replying to an inquiry or an inquiry. People say it either way. So here's the scenario. A loyal customer is curious about what may be coming soon, including products offered and potential service options. Carry needs to address each question. So an inquiry is when we ask for more details or we ask for some information, we don't want a thing. Usually, we want to know something. So if you're responding to that, it can be tricky. It can cause confusion. If you respond in the wrong way, we want to make sure we answer as clearly as possible so that the questions are answered and answered in a way that makes total sense. Leave the customer feeling, oh, okay, well, that answers all of my questions. I don't have any more questions which can reduce the back and forth. So let's look at the email itself. 24. Part 1 | A More Personal Greeting: Let's say that move is a pet food company. Pet food, okay. We didn't talk about that in the last lesson. We didn't say what kind of company it was. Let's say that they make pet food, okay? And that's what they do. So this customer, a loyal customer, loves moves, products, loves moves. So weird thing to say, loves moves, loves moves. And we can assume that's because their pet loves moves, products, loves moves. That's very difficult to say. Their pet loves moves products. So they love moves products and products. You get the idea. I'm assuming they don't eat the pet food, that it's their pet. Okay, anyway, so we'll start as we did before with the simple greeting and then get into the main thing, what the email is really going to be about. Now here I have the subject, your inquiry or your inquiry. Now, normally, in fact, this would be a re and that's probably even better. So if the subject of the previous e-mail were a few questions about future of move products. That's a little long, but that would be okay. Then this subject would be R0. And then exactly that. A few questions about future products, okay. But I'm, I'm keeping it simple in case it's not a clear subject and this person wants to do a new subject. That's okay too. So you can DO RE, that's the standard thing to do, is to just respond and then it will have R0 and then the original subject. Or if you want, if you want to, you can do it this way and have your own subject. Either way is okay, this, this is probably best. Okay, so now let's look at a few things that we can say here at the start as part of our greeting. Greetings from who've very friendly. Hello Luke, maybe that's the customer's name. Hey, there, hi. Different possibilities. We'll talk about these. You of course, can only use one. And we'll talk about which one might be the best one and the different variations. Thank you for contacting us. My name is Carrie and I'm responding in reference to your inquiry regarding future products. Allow me to address each of your inquiry's individually. Now of course, there is more. We're not looking at the whole email here, but let's just talk about this first part before we go on to the question and answer part. So which of these is best? Well, it's up to you, but let's explore them. Greetings from who've, this one is very enthusiastic. In fact, they all are mostly because of the exclamation mark. This one seems least personal, but perhaps most professional, more general. This one is of course, very personal. This one sets a very personal tone. Do you always want to be kind of distant? Remember with the last one we talked about, we, we, we move, move, move, creating a bit of professional distance and that can be good. But do we always want to do that? Well, if we're apologizing, it might be a good idea. But what if we're just answering some questions? It might make sense to make it a little more personal. So if you're gonna go personal, maybe hello Luke would be a good option. That's very personal. So this one happens to be my favorite. That's not a very good star, but that is an attempted star. Hey, there, This would also be okay, very friendly. Hi, Hi, could be very friendly, high could be great. You could absolutely use that. Some might see it in this case as not very personal. Just saying hi, right? If you don't know who you're writing to, you might say hi, but if I know I'm writing to Luke, then it might make sense to just use Luke, use the name. It's more personal right from the beginning. Now let's talk about the exclamation mark. There's one, there's one, there's one, and there's one. And what feeling does it create? A, creates a feeling of enthusiasm as though I'm excited to get back to you. I'm excited to respond to you. I'm looking forward to answering your question. Perhaps a feeling of excitement, being genuinely excited, but you just have to be careful about this. So here I think it works because you've asked some interesting questions and I'm, I'm enthusiastic about answering them. But if I use too many, if I used exclamation points all over the email, that'll be a big mistake. That would start to feel a little off unbalanced as though it's a little too crazy. The person who's responding, you have to be very careful with exclamation marks. These should be rare. Don't use exclamation marks to frequently be careful. Exclamation marks are pretty common for salutations. That's what these are. These are salutations. The first thing you say to the person you're writing the email to, that is your greeting salutation. Okay. Now what's the difference between using the exclamation mark or not here. If I don't use it, I'll use a comma instead. Hey there. Comma. Hello, Luke comma. We wouldn't have a comma here. If it were hello Luke, it would be hello Luke, no comma. And then the comma would go after Luke. Greetings from move. Let me just read them with the exclamation and without greetings from voom. Greetings from who've hello Luke. Hello Luke. Hey there, hey there. Hi, hi. So that's the difference. It's really the tone, the feeling. One is more excited, one is more neutral. If you want to be more neutral, which can be totally fine, then, okay, Don't use the exclamation. And remember, these should be rare. And if you use them too much, people will think you're crazy. Thank you for contacting us. My name is Carrie and I'm responding in reference to your inquiry regarding future food products. Now for this, what am I accomplishing with this first part? I am setting the tone, of course. I'm also saying who I am. So I'm accomplishing a few things here, setting the tone. Maybe that's enthusiasm. Maybe it's a willingness to answer, right? I'm stating my intention. My intention is to help you specifically with your questions. So I want to make it clear why I'm responding to you. So when you read these two sentences of, you know, now what to expect next. And I want to let you know who I am. Now you don't always need to do this, but it can help here if you're going to be a bit more personal. For the previous one, although the signature says Keri earlier in the email, we didn't have an introduction. My name is Carrie and that's totally okay. Especially because for that one, we were focused more on saying things from the standpoint of the company. We, but this one is going to feel a bit more personal. We've already started out that way. So introducing myself as Kerry gives you a feeling of it's you and me as though you were to come into my office or walk into the store. If we have a store and have a conversation, that's the feeling you get and sometimes you want to do that, sometimes you want it to be more personal. So we've accomplished a lot with two sentences. Now let's also note a few more things about the tone of these first two sentences. Yes, we get a sense of excitement, especially from this part here, from the salutation, but from this, what do we get? I'm responding in reference to your inquiry regarding future products. Wow, is quite formal. I want to let you know that I'm very professional, but what if I don't want to give you that feeling? What if I wanted to feel a bit more relaxed? What might I say? Oh, that's a good question. Thank you for asking self. My name is Carrie and I'm responding. How about responding to your questions? Simple. Instead of inquiry regarding, I'll say questions about about future products, say that in the same way. So doesn't that sound a lot simpler? I'm responding to your questions about now, which is better. Well, I don't know. It depends on what you want to say in the tone you want to have. But it's important to note that the words you choose create the tone. So what tone do you want? Formal, we use things like in reference to, instead of just I'm responding to, responding in reference to, it adds a layer of distance. It separates things a little bit. It makes it less direct responding to, responding to your questions. Replying to your questions Sounds a bit more direct, a bit more casual. And then inquiry regarding regarding his more formal regarding this in terms of that, when we use regarding we tend to want to sound more formal. So about that would certainly make things sound more casual. So as you're writing your email, as you're deciding your tone, think about that. Do I want to be more direct, less direct? Do I want to use simpler language that might sound more casual? More direct to? I want to use certain phrases like regarding and in reference to, to add a bit more distance to make it more formal, just ask yourself those questions. Allow me to address each of your inquiry's individually. Now what would be a simpler way of saying that? Let me answer your questions. And you could say individually, you could say one by one. But do you feel the difference there in tone? Allow me. Allow me. Allow me is quite formal sounding. This phrase, allow me. Let me is less formal sounding, sounds more casual. Same meaning, same basic thing, different feeling. Okay, So choose which one feels right. A dress. Each of your inquiries, we already know that inquiry is a bit more formal sounding in tone, so we can replace that with questions as we have here. And then instead of a dress, we have answer because answer is quite direct answer as an everyday word. Notice that these things that we use in a more formal sounding e-mail, they're not quite as every day. You wouldn't use that in everyday language. Saying regarding, we don't use as often in everyday English. Say in reference to not as often in everyday English in the workplace though, maybe so. That's one of the things that makes professional sounding English. Professional sounding because it's not in everyday English. This is everyday English. Answer your questions. Yes, That is. So how do we use a dress? This word here, address each of your inquiries. This is something like deal with or sometimes talk about. Sometimes it's used to say focus on any of those would be okay. We can use address for a lot of those things to address your concerns, to address an issue. When are you going to address this? A reporter might ask someone who's in some sort of scandal. Yeah, it's fairly common but not as common as answer. An answer in this case means the same thing, but as more everyday sounding, so just be aware of those. Now let's actually look at the questions and answers themselves. 25. Part 2 | Addressing Questions: When someone asks a question in an email, we can usually just respond to that. We can usually address it or answer the question directly. But what if they asked two questions? One of the ask three questions, four questions. Then we run into an issue. What is the issue? We run into a possible issue of the person who wrote the original e-mail not remembering all of the questions they asked or maybe remembering the questions but not remembering the order or not remembering how they were asked. So then if you respond directly to the questions, let me answer your questions. 1, 2, 3, 4, or 1, 2, 3, and you just put the answers, I forget which question is number one and which one is number three? I don't remember. So then I need to go back to my original email. I need to read my own questions. Then I need to go to your reply and then look at both of them together like this. And it's just a very frustrating thing. So I would say if you're answering one question, it's generally okay to not include the question with the answer. But if you have more than that, even if it's two, it can be a very good idea to make sure that the person you're responding to doesn't feel confused, knows which thing is being replied to. Because you don't know, they might write 50 e-mails a day. How did they remember everything? They probably don't. You generally, when you're writing a professional e-mail, want to be as consider it and thoughtful as possible to make the other person feel that you are very professional, very well organized, very considerate, and to give them an overall good feeling about interacting with you. That's what you want, right? Always. So make sure that not only your words, but also your structure fits that intention. Okay, So let's read through the question and answer and then talk about these a little bit. You asked, We'll move offer can food for cats in the future besides the new line of soft canned dog food products? Answer yes, our formula teams are hard at work on two variations of soft cat food products, which you can expect to see in our online inventory later this year? Question, I currently have to set a reminder to order cat food to ensure it arrives on time. Will you offer a recurring subscription so that I can just be billed monthly? Answer, this is a great idea. Well, it's not something we have specific plans to offer in the future. I will submit the suggestion to our product development team. Okay, so a few things. Number one, structure. Now here we used Qe, qe, question answer, question answer with a space in the middle between the questions. And if there were a third question, then that would have a space between it as well. We've set up a format, but what format you choose is kind of up to you. The key thing is that the format is consistent. That means that you don't do QA and then the next one, you don't do it. It's almost like when you decide a format, you're setting some rules. And once you set those rules for each e-mail, they can be different for each e-mail. That's okay. Usually, the key thing is that once you set the rules, you have to stick to them. Because if you break your own rules, then you cause confusion, misunderstandings. Why is it that between the first group, in the second group, there's a space in the middle, but between the second group and the third group, there's no space. I'm confused. Yeah. That would be confusing to me as well. Follow your own rules, set rules, and then follow them. Maybe instead of doing QA, you put the question in quotation marks like this. Like that. You don't do any que, no q node a. And you just put the questions in quotes like that, and then you answer it right after. Maybe you want to separate it even more. Well then you would maybe put it in quotes and then do Italica x. That means the letters are slanted slightly, right? You generally want to have something which separates the question from the answer, the original thing, and the thing that you're responding with, the text you're responding with visually, they should look different somehow. That makes it easier to find, easier to see if these two things look exactly the same visually. I feel a little confused. Here I have a clear marker QE, That's one way to do it, but certainly not the only way. So the key word here, the key thing to keep in mind once you have your format rules be consistent. Consistent rules are an absolute must unless you want to cause confusion. Now, let's talk about the questions and answers themselves. This answer is good news. And there are two new kinds of cat food coming out soon. Well, that's great, that's great news. So this is just a description of what's going to happen. It should be good news to the person who asked. And when they see it, they should feel pretty happy about it. It's a simple answer, yes, followed by an exclamation with the second one. This is a great idea. This is in a way bad news. I'm asking. What I'm really asking here is I have to remember because I need cat food maybe every month, maybe every two months. I have to remind myself this one is just a hope, a wish based on some other experience with some other online sellers. I wish I didn't have to remind myself to buy cat food every time. I wish that I would just automatically be billed and the cat food would arrive some kind of subscription because maybe for other online retailers, I get that. That's what I have. So I want that with my cat food provider to you make great cat food. But I just wish that I didn't have to remember every time. Okay. The answer is we don't have that. We can't do that. Bad news. So can I just write, sorry, we don't. Well, I suppose you could, but that would be leaving the customer with a bad taste in their mouth. Not a very positive feeling just because of the way you set it. So change the way you say it. That means say negative things in a positive way without lying. Probably not a good idea to tell a lie and say, Oh yes, we're doing that. Well, that's not true. You're not doing that. So be honest. You can be honest, but say honest things that are bad news in a very positive way that makes the other person feel great. So how do we do that? Well, in this case, instead of saying, Nope, we don't have it, sorry. We can say that's a great idea. I like your idea. Then I'm going to tell you we don't have it. Well, it's not something we have specific plans to offer in the future. We don't have it now. As far as I know, we may never have it. I don't just like it. I'm going to do something about it. So you provide it a good idea. I provided you some bad news that we don't have that. But because you have a great idea, I'm going to take your great idea and hopefully your great idea will become a reality. And then you feel, well, I might have a real impact as the customer. They may start doing that now because of my suggestion. And this person really likes my idea and it's really going to pass it along to the product development team. And hopefully then you actually do that. I will submit your suggestion to our product development team. This is bad news presented in a very positive, honest way. Now, the other thing to pay attention to for this one is something we talked about a bit in our last lesson, which you can expect to see in our online inventory sometime later this year. Because if I just answer a question, but I don't give an answer to the next thing that might come up, then it's very likely that I'll get another email back asking more questions. So it's a good idea to try to anticipate the next question, to give a little bit more so that anything they might be wondering based on your answer is also resolved. That saves time for everybody and makes this person feel that you understand them, that you're very thoughtful. So don't just say yes, we are working on it. You could say that it's very friendly, but instead of saying that, I give a bit more detail and then I say what you can expect. I say where to look for this new thing. Our formula teams are hard at work on two variations of soft cat food products, which, which you can expect to see. The keyword there is which, which follows the thing. So noun comma, which noun comma, which remember that structure. Noun, cat, food products. Comma. Very important. Which then what you can expect, the expectation you should have, which you can expect to see in our online inventory, okay, so now all I have to do is go to the inventory maybe every week and check to see when you have it. Great. I can do that. I know where to look. I don't have any more questions. My problem is solved. And even though I feel a little disappointed that I can't do recurring payments, I can't do a subscription. I feel good that you might take my idea and make it a reality that would be fantastic. I feel that you hear me, that you're listening to me. Now this you can expect to see is a common phrase which does sound more formal. The variation of that would be, you can see, you can expect to see, gives it a bit more distance. It's a little less direct, expect to see it, something like anticipate that just gives it a slightly more formal sound. You can see, perhaps you will see, I think you can see would be better. There would be a variation for a slightly less formal email. 26. Part 3 | A Helpful Final Thing: Let's read through the final part of our inquiry e-mail, talk a little bit about tone and about some variations as well, in addition to a couple of useful phrases. Okay, On behalf of the team, I would like to sincerely thank you for your loyalty to the company and your inquiry. Please enjoy this 20 percent loyalty discount for your next order, Code, V over 200 J FH. If you have any further or additional inquiries or need help in the future, please do not hesitate to reach out. Sincerely. Carry move CS specialist. Alright, so let's talk about this one. What do you notice here? On behalf of the team? This is a very useful phrase for when you represent other people, doesn't have to be accompany on behalf of myself and my colleagues, on behalf of all of us. Maybe there's a specific group we're talking about. I would like to thank you for all your service, this sort of thing. It definitely has a formal sound to it. Definitely In this case, sounds quite professional, but it also gives a certain impression that's a bit different from the last email On behalf of means that I am one member. It's not just we it's not move is me carry talking to you. So it's formal. Yes. But it is still personal or reinforcing personal in this one. Last one? No, not so personal. This one is much more personal, but still formal. Still has that formal tone, friendly, formal, personal. And it reinforces it because on behalf of I on behalf of means, I'm representing this group, this company. I'm a specialist, I'm a representative, but I am still me. I am still a person, I'm still an individual. So that's what this accomplishes, especially in more formal situations. It is very useful. But then it's I, it's I, I would like to sincerely thank you. I'm thinking you, number one for your loyalty, your very loyal customer. But also here you are asking me some questions. So I'm thanking you for your loyalty and your questions and your inquiry. And you could replace inquiry with questions, that would be okay. If you wanted to say thank you for being such a loyal customer, that would be okay. There are a lot of different variations for that one. But putting both here allows me to say something extra, not only for your inquiry. And in fact, it might be a little strange if I just thank you for your inquiry. Thank you so much for asking questions. Might be a little bit too much. So saying thank you for being a loyal customer and your inquiry. It allows me to kind of add it on without it being a bit strange. Now, is this inquiry or should I make this an S inquiry's well, you could do either one. For this one, yes, It's two questions true, but I can still call that an inquiry. It is. Okay. Now an optional thing you might include here as a way to express your gratitude. You're sincere. Thanks for this person being a loyal customer, you might want to include a discount code. I put it in parentheses, not because you should, but because it's optional. If you wanted to put something like that in here, you would then have another sentence. Please enjoy this 20 percent move loyalty discount for your next order. I would not actually put these parentheses here. This is just to show that this is a kind of optional thing that you may or may not include if you have any further or additional questions. This is also an extremely useful phrase to show willingness to help in the future. If you have any further. And then you could say further or additional. So one or the other. That's why I put them both here. They're pretty much the same. Any additional any further? Exactly the same inquiry's questions, that would be fine. Or and you can add something or not. You could say if you have any further inquiries, please do not hesitate to reach out. Or if you have any additional questions, please reach out or please let me know. You could say reach out. You could say Let me know. You could say get in touch, can say contact us or if we want to make it more personal to me. So all of these would be okay. And it does depend on the tone that you want to create. Again, inquiry's is going to be more formal. Questions will be a bit more relaxed, additional and further, I would say that those are pretty neutral, not really formal, not really informal. Both of those are pretty much the same thing. Or need help in the future is an add on so you can add whatever you want there. You could include that, you can leave it out. You could change it to something else. Of course, whatever you want to say there, wherever you want to add on should be fine. Please do not hesitate to reach out. Does though field pretty formal by itself? Please do not hesitate to. This is an extremely common expression in e-mails, especially related to customer service or when you're the one helping others. Don't hesitate to let me know. Don't hesitate to reach out. Don't hesitate to get in touch. Don't hesitate to contact me. Not only not exclusively for customer service, but very common for that purpose. Anytime you want to show willingness, this do not hesitate or don't hesitate, or to make it stronger, please don't hesitate, is super common. And then probably the most common farewell salutation. Sincerely. Sincerely that one's extremely common. You would use that and personal e-mails, you could use it in formal emails. But usually when you want to be more formal, sincerely is not very casual sounding. If you're sending an email to a close friend, it might be a little odd if you use sincerely, Bob, right? That's a little bit too formal for a close friendship. Thanks or see you or something like that. Now that we've gone through the email, done our analysis, talked about the key phrases, pulled out some useful insights. Let's do a quick recap. 27. Recap | Replying to an Inquiry: There are a few key takeaways that I would really like you to keep in mind for this inquiry email example, remember, take these and apply them to your own emails. They're not just for this scenario, not just for this inquiry situation. With that in mind, remember, you can use exclamations, that's totally okay. But be aware of the frequency. They should generally be rare and they're used to make things pop. To use them. They make things really go boom. And you notice that, and it gives a feeling of enthusiasm. But if you use it too much, then it's overenthusiastic and it can feel a little bit fake if you use them too much. So just be cautious of that, but also don't be afraid to use them completely. Now we looked at the greeting, the first two sentences that really focus on why this e-mail is being written. The intention, we solved a few problems. Number one, who are you? You say who we are also? Why are you writing this? I am answering your inquiry's. Okay. So we're solving these problems and we're setting the correct tone. This is going to be a friendly e-mail, but it's also going to be a bit formal and it's going to be personal. I'm going to speak to you as meat, not the company, not we. So we're doing a lot of things with those first few sentences with that greeting right at the beginning of the email. So remember how important that is, you can accomplish a lot with that. We use a word like address only in formal situations. So you don't want to use this for casual e-mails. If you want to create a casual tone, maybe don't use that. But if you want to show someone you're serious, your professional addressed can be a great word which means deal with or talk about or focus on, that can really help let the other person know, Hey, being very serious about your questions, about your problems. So just be aware of the nature of the language and the tone that the language you use creates. You have to be aware of that so that you can make sure that your words match your tone. When we looked at the Q and a, or in fact, anything including a list, including the structure of the paragraphs, the key is being consistent. So if you make a rule for yourself, follow the rule throughout the email. Do not break your own rules. Because if you create a format rule for yourself, a format rule or guideline. And then later in the email you break that and you do something different, then that really distracts people. I don't know why you did that. I'm very confused. So it's actually pretty simple. You set up general guideline for yourself. You follow it for that email. And it can kind of be whatever, as long as it's pretty clear, it's easy to read and you're sticking with it. It's okay to say something that somebody does not want to hear, to give them some bad news, that's okay if that's honest, dishonesty can cause many more problems in the future. So an honest answer is usually a good thing, but that doesn't mean you have to say it in a very blunt and direct way. No, we don't have that. We don't do that. Okay. So you're being honest there and blunt. To be honest, and a little bit more diplomatic. You can be honest and say something in a way that leaves a positive impression on this person. Now the example we looked at was to say, great idea, I'm going to recommend this to our product team. That's a good way to do it. There are many different ways to do that, but think about that. I can present bad news in a good way and still be honest. And if you do that, you leave this person with generally a good impression of their interaction with you. Finally, when you use the phrase on behalf of you, show accountability, you show that you're proud to represent this company, but also you make it personal. You're connecting you, the person to this other person, the person you want to trust you, and the company. So it can be a great phrase to create that connection. And at the same time, give a sense of professionalism. Also, if you have any other questions, if you have any concerns, if you need any help, this kind of comment at the end can remind this customer, this person, Hey, I am here, I'm always here, or at least we're always here and we're willing to help. It gives them a sense that they can always come back, that they have support. It's a bit of a reminder at the end. Remember the last thing we say tends to be one of the most important because it is that final impression, that final tone, that feeling that lingers in their mind throughout their day. Yeah. I always have support from them. They're great. I love interacting with them. So choose your last thing carefully and don't start with words. Start with the feeling you want them to have when they finish reading the email. Start with that. Then choose your words, then choose your phrases. Alright, let me know if you have any questions. If you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 28. Scenario | Checking in with Colleagues: In the last email we looked at, we talked about an inquiry which was personal but still quite formal. This e-mail that we're going to talk about now, checking in with colleagues is even less formal, not casual, but less formal than a customer service type e-mail between colleagues. So we're trying to find the balance between personal, friendly, kind of relaxed, but still quite respectful. And we'll get into how we do that. We'll look at the email, of course, we'll do our analysis. Before we do that, we have to read our scenario. So let's read through the scenario, understand what this situation is, then jump into the email. Kelly has just been hired at her dream company, Digital. Yes, I spelled it that way on purpose. This is another fictional company. So she's a new employee. She's new. Keep that in mind. Very important. If you're new, do you generally want to be very casual with your new colleagues, especially your boss, your manager, probably not. But you don't want to be so formal that you seem very stiff and unfriendly, right? Okay. So I have to find the balance. There was a special meeting for her and a few other employees to introduce themselves. There's a meeting for people who have just been onboarded. Other new employees, including Kelly. Afterward, Kelley began the onboarding process. Onboarding is often what we use for a new employee. This is trainings, this is getting setup, this is signing a bunch of documents. This is all that stuff that you have to do when you first join a company, including your orientation and your training. So she's starting this process. One step is to get a computer with access to certain necessary applications. Many larger companies will provide their employees devices, computers, phones, different things that they need to do their work, as well as a security badge. Oh, so maybe this is something in finance or maybe it's something in big tech, maybe it's government related. Unfortunately, Kelly is having some difficulty doing this and needs help doing what? Getting the computer with necessary applications and the security badge. So Kelly will be reaching out to someone for help. Now think about this before we even look at the e-mail. If you're a new employee, if you're new and you don't know others well, not even a new employee, but just not knowing others well. What tone do you want to create with them? How do you want them to feel about you put yourself in this person's shoes, not even a new employee, someone who doesn't know the other people they need to deal with. Well, what tone do you want to set? How do you make sure that they're willing to help you? How do you make sure they have the information that they need and they don't need to write a follow-up email to ask you a bunch of questions. How do you make sure that they don't think that you're stupid and you just don't understand what's going on. I'm new, I don't know anything. I don't know what's going on. You want to make sure they don't feel that way about you too, right? So regardless of the situation when you don't know others well and you need help from them. These are things to think about. Now let's jump into the e-mail. We're going to read through it as usual. Then we'll do our breakdown, we'll do our analysis, we'll pull out some useful phrases and then of course, to our recap. So here we go. 29. Part 1 | Background Information: Let's take a look at our email. Remember, Kelly needs help. She's asking for help from Leicester and Tanya. These are the two people who are her colleagues, but maybe her managers, people who ran the training or the meeting that they had where everyone introduce themselves for those who are who are being onboarded. So she's reaching out to these people because something has gone wrong in the process. All right. Let's read through the first part before she actually makes her request. Okay. Subject my Onboarding Checklist. We could say some help regarding my Onboarding Checklist, Onboarding Checklist request. There are many different things we could say it should be quite clear when I click on it, the content of the email itself should match the subject. And I should think, Oh, okay, this makes sense. I understand this based on the subject. And as I mentioned before, something relevant that I would want to click on. It doesn't have to be very exciting, just has to be clear and it has to be relevant to me. I have to know what this kind of thing means. I know what an onboarding checklist is as Leicester or taenia because I was just involved in a meeting where we talked about the Onboarding Checklist. So okay, it must be related to that very clickable. Anyway, here we go. Hi Lester and Tanya. Lester and tenure, these are alternatives. Thank you so much for your support during my onboarding process, I'm really excited to have joined such a great team. Everyone has been very welcoming so far. As you advised, I have reached out to the digital support desk regarding my applications, access and security badge. I was told that this will need to be reported by our project manager, I arena through the digital system. Alright, so here we have our first part. What have we done here? What are we accomplishing here? Let's start with these two alternatives. What's the difference between them? High Lester and Tanya. Lester and Tanya. This one sounds a little bit more friendly and a bit more bright, a bit more cheerful. And this one is very, we can say matter of fact, or a bit more, a bit more serious to the point, not so not so fun, not so friendly. So which tone do you want to strike? That is up to you. Now again, let's say that Lester and Tanya, they were involved in this meeting where the new employees were introducing themselves. So they were the ones who talked about the Onboarding Checklist. Naturally, you would want to reach out to one of them, even if they're just regular colleagues. Maybe they're not even super high level managers. Maybe they're just supervisors. Anyway. They know what's going on, or at least hopefully they know what's going on and can give some guidance, can provide a solution. Okay, So we choose either one of these and then we have our greeting. Now notice in the greeting we have nothing about the issue really itself. Thank you so much for your support during my onboarding process. This is just acknowledging them, their role in this process and showing a bit of gratitude because they've been your support, they'd been the thing that have made this process much better. So it's a reference to our relationship. If you have a relationship with someone or you know them a little bit, you can reference that in the greeting in this sort of way to help create that personal connection. This helps create a personal connection. And this reminds both Lester Antonia about the background of this situation. They probably have a lot of different things going on. They won't necessarily remember who this person is if this is a new person, right? So a bit of context helps and a reminder about, Hey, we're connected in this way. And I am grateful for that connection. I'm really excited to have joined such a great team. They're going to be part of the same team. Everyone has been very welcoming so far. This is all about setting the tone. What is the tone? Well, I think it's one of enthusiasm. I think this is a relatively enthusiastic tone that shows optimism. It shows excitement for the future. I'm really excited to have joined such a great team. It shows a sense of wanting to be part of a team. If you say, I'm very excited to be here and make my contribution to this company. All right, Well, that's okay. You're excited about your contribution. Fine, good. But if you mentioned in reference the team, then people might be more willing to welcome you in, to bring you in, to accept you as one of the team, excited to have you in the team as well. So it might be a good idea to mention the team. Everyone has been very welcoming so far, really has no function in the e-mail itself in solving the problem. That is all about the tone. Letting you to know that I feel welcome means that this team fits me very well and I'm a good fit for the team. And U2 are doing a great job encouraging the right kind of team culture so that someone like me feels welcome. So what are we accomplishing here, really, it's all about tone. Not much more as you advised, I have reached out to the digital support desk regarding my applications, access and security badge. Okay, Now we get into the context. I'm referencing something that happened before, number 1 as a reminder to you to let you know that that happened because you have a lot of things going on in your life. As you advised also serves another purpose. As you advised allows me to connect a previous action you took, which is to tell me this so that they seem like a coherent chain of actions. They're not just random separate things. As you advised at some point in the past, you told me to do this. So that's what I did. So you, Leicester or Tanya told me do something and this is me. And then I tried to do that thing, but something happened. We'll find out what So then because this thing that I was supposed to do didn't happen, I am circling back to respond to you and ask for more help. But when I do that, I'm going to reference this thing that you did so that you have the full picture so that you understand everything at a glance and you don't need to ask a bunch of questions. Reference the past action, if you can, to create that powerful context and give people a sense of clarity. Okay, yes, I remember telling you that. So now I can help you with the next thing to try because that didn't work and we'll get into what didn't work exactly. As you advised, I have reached out to the digital support desk regarding my applications access and security batch. That's what you told me to do. So that's just context. You told me to do it. I did it. Then we have this new detail which is going to be important background information that either Leicester or Tonya will need to help Kelly with a solution because if they don't know what happened next, they don't know what to recommend. Right. Okay. I was told that this will need to be reported by our project manager. They're not the project managers. Irene is Our project manager. I reno through the digital system. Okay. So this is what she heard back when she did what Lester and Tanya told her to do. Well, that might be new information because if they had known that this needed to be reported by arena and not directly communicated by Kelly, then they might not have told her that. So it's kind of telling them that they might have been a little bit wrong. They might have given her the wrong instruction. Without saying that directly. We don't want to say you gave me the wrong advice. You told me to do the wrong thing. Because maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. Maybe the rules just changed yesterday and what they said to do was the right thing the day before yesterday. So don't blame anybody. Don't say you did this, you told me that. Just say what happened, say the response. It still makes everything very clear. This part through the digital system is the way that it needs to happen. So this is another way for me to communicate important details. So what am I really doing here in this paragraph? I'm doing a lot of things. I'm referencing the thing you told me. I'm telling you the new information that you need and I'm giving you a kind of framework that you need to then give me a solution or helped me in a way that is actually useful or helpful. Because if I don't say this through the digital system, then maybe we need to have another back and forth about okay, well, where do I need to send it? Should I email someone? Should I call someone if I'm Lester or Tania? Well, you didn't tell me that because you didn't give me the full details of what you were told when you did this thing that we told you to do. Okay, I know that sounds a little bit complicated, but what this last piece is doing in a very simple way is creating limits. When you give me new information, when you help me do it in a way that fits within this thing. The, through the digital system. Remember that? So don't give me wild and random advice. There are some limits to that advice. Your advice should fit inside of these rules that I was told by the digital support desk, but I haven't even asked for help yet. I've given you necessary background so that when I ask for help now, there won't be many follow-up questions, hopefully. So think about that when you're writing your emails, instead of writing a very complicated and detailed request, maybe it's better to put most of those important details in the context. First to set it up so that when you make your request, it can be very simple, not too complicated, and very difficult to miss. Understand. I made a little face here. That's nice. This is totally an accident. A little tongue. This, this could be an ear here, right? That's a little ear. I don't know what this is. Two eyes and that's weird. And other ear? Yeah. Kinda looks like a face, right. All right. Let's go on to the next part. 30. Part 2 | The Ask: We continue with a simple, clearly written request from Kelly to Leicester and Tanya, given that she will be out of the office for the next few weeks. Remember this is I Rena, we're talking about this as the project manager. Irene is the person who is supposed to report the support desk check-in if there are any issues given that she will be out of the office for the next few weeks, would either of you be able to assist me with reporting my support desk check-in. This is extremely simple. If so, please let me know if you need any additional information from my end. This does everything right best. Kelly, now let's talk about this a little bit more. What is happening here? Given that this phrase, given that she will be out of the office, maybe she's on vacation, maybe she's having a baby, whatever is happening with her. She's not there. Normally, she would be there to do the thing. What's the thing? Reports my support desk check-in, have to check in to get access to the apps and to my Security card, my security pass. Okay. She's not. So what do I do? Just hang around here until she comes back in a few weeks and not have those things. No, I need help from these two people. Okay. They know the context now. So this request should make total sense to them. Using, given that here allows me to do something quite interesting if they already know that she's out of the office. This is just a reminder or a way to tell them that. I also know. And it's based on that that I'm making this request. If they don't already know it, now they do. So it's a way to tell somebody something new or a way to remind somebody of something that they already knew that maybe they weren't thinking of or it's a way to make sure that we're on the same page so that I let you know that I know the same thing as u and that my request is based on that or the thing I'm asking you as based on that. So this helps us, again clarify things so that we don't need to have many back and forth e-mails, back and forth e-mails. That takes up a lot of time. We want to clarify things and say the basis of our knowledge, even if the other person knows it, just to make sure we're on the same page or to remind them or to let them know. Very powerful phrase, okay. She will be out of the office for the next few weeks. Then comes the request notice that so far with our emails, we don't just state requests immediately. That's not the first thing we say. We have a bit of context first or something that expresses tone, maybe a phrase that expresses tone, then a comma, then the request. And this one, instead of using will, using wood, would almost always makes things sound a bit more friendly. It's a bit less direct. Will you do this is a sort of yes or no. Tell me now sort of feeling like you're pointing your finger in their face. Would you do it? Is asking the same thing. Doing the same thing, but in this way instead, would you, instead of William, Will you, would you, will you, would you, which one would you like to hear? Well, would you is generally much more friendly, sounding, much more polite. Would either of you be able to assist me with reporting my support desk check-in. We restate the thing that we want. We could just say could either of you assist me and stop it there? That would be. Okay. But why not reiterate, why not repeat the point to make sure it's very clear to make sure it's not missed, but rephrase it. Rephrase it so that it's different. But the same meaning. I'm asking the same thing that I mentioned when I gave you the background. I'm saying the same thing that I need. I need to report this, but I'm saying it in a slightly different way so that I can make sure you got it. I'm asking you to do something for me and this is what I want you to do. I don't just say Please help me. Although it's not wrong to do that. I would recommend saying specifically, finally, if so, please let me know if you need any additional information from my end. We could say simply from me, that would be okay for me. Or if you need any additional information and get rid of all of that, that would be okay because it's implied. It's implied. All of these are okay variations of that, if so, is a very useful thing to have in your English toolbelt, not just for emails in general, if so, allows you to make an assumption and explore the assumption a little bit. If the answer to what I just asked you is yes, then and I can make another statement or request or say something else that is based on that possible yes. If the answer is yes, then I want you to know this information. I want you to know that you should let me know if you need any additional information. That's what I want you to know. Now I'm leaving the possibility open. The answer is no, that you cannot help me, that you're not the right person to help me. But I'm also leaving open the possibility that I'm incorrect, that you are the wrong people to ask about this, that you're not able to help me, that someone else can help me. If I just assume that you will help me that the answer is yes, please let me know if you need anything else. Well, I don't need anything else because I can't help you. I'm the wrong person to help you. Well, that's not a great feeling to have. It's a kind of pressure or a misunderstanding. Something doesn't quite line up. So this, if so, gives you that flexibility by allowing you to explore or say that next thing, you might again reduce the need for a follow-up e-mail. And you still leave open the possibility that, hey, you might not be the right people to ask. So quite useful. Remember, we should also think about for the last thing in the email, what is the final impression we want to give? The final feeling that we're trying to create to leave these people with that feeling. These two people, Lester antenna, well remember their new colleagues. I want them to like me. I want them to be impressed by me. I want them to think that I'm easy to work with. I want to leave them with a feeling that I am very willing willing to make sure this issue gets completely resolved. I'm not just throwing it in your lap here. Fix my problem for me. Deal with it. No. Hi, I'm willing to work with you on this. I went to help if you need help from me. If you need information from me, I will give you whatever you need I'm willing. So that's the last thing I want to leave with you, the final impression, even if you don't actually need any more information from me, you still have that impression and I'm willing to work on this until it is resolved. Okay. Now that we've explored and analyzed this e-mail, let's do our recap. 31. Recap | Checking in with Colleagues: Let's quickly recap the takeaways and some of the useful phrases we talked about in Kelly's email, asking for help checking in with her colleagues. Okay. Kelly is using the first names of her colleagues and starting her greeting in a very warm and friendly way so that they feel that she's a warm and friendly person because she's going to be working with them. So her email is still very polite without being too formal. If it's too formal in this sort of situation than they might feel that she's a little bit distant, that she's a little bit stiff or too strict or pushy, maybe not the type of person they want to work with. But if she starts with her greeting and a very friendly, very warm way, then they might be excited to help her. They might feel excited to work with her. That greeting is really essential when we're creating our tone. She uses simple language. She doesn't use a lot of jargon. She keeps her sentences very simple. What does that accomplish? It ensures that what she says, what she describes, that what she asks is not misunderstood. Because an email is all about communicating something, not only about writing beautiful sentences that are very long with a lot of complicated language. No, simple is usually the best thing when Kelly is giving the context before she makes her request, that paragraph where she describes the situation follows up on a previous suggestion. So either Leicester or Tanya had said something, told her what to do. And she mentioned that she connects the actions together to create links so that everything makes sense, so that everything is clear, that context paragraph is so important. She then provides the details that they didn't know after she took the action that they told her to take when she makes the request itself. Of course, it is separate from the paragraph that includes the context and it refreezes the main action that either of them will need to take just to make sure it's very clear, but said in different words. Then she shows that she's ready to get involved in the process of solving the problem. She's willing this is the final thing she wants to leave them with. I'm willing to help. I'm here. I'm willing to help. I'm happy to provide extra information. I want to make sure we resolve this and I'm not just throwing it at you and asking you to do it for me. I want to do it with you because we're a team. Finally, remember some of the language we talked about given that. And if so, we use Given that to create a common understanding, make sure we're on the same page we use if so, to mention a possibility if the answer to my question is yes, while allowing for the answer to also be no. And we also use that phrase as you advised to reference what you told me before to make sure we're on the same page. All of these things are reducing the need for us to have many back and forth e-mails. This improves efficiency, improves communication, ensures that there are no misunderstandings between us and gives you the feeling that I'm very responsible, very clear headed. And I know what I want to say, I know what I want, but I'm also very respectful of your time, very respectful of you. I'm a good person to work with. Okay. So that is it for this email. If you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 32. Scenario | Meeting Follow-up: With the last email we talked about how to check in with colleagues, especially if you need help with something. For this one, we're going to be talking about a follow-up. Now we'll talk about what that means. We'll go through the scenario. But this is going to be a follow-up related to a meeting. That means after a meeting takes place, There's going to be this email. So we'll talk about what all that means. But first, let's quickly read through the scenario. Gus is the leader of a marketing team responsible for helping athletics brands with their campaigns. Okay, We'll talk about what that means too. He has just finished a meeting with his team to go over some of the upcoming projects the team will be working on. His goal is to make sure everyone is on the same page. Okay. So this is essentially the meeting happened. And now gus, this person who's the leader of the team, is going to mention some things that are necessary to mention after the e-mail that would include a recap. We've been doing recaps. Remember what recap means? A recap is going back to say the overview of something. Going back to review the points that were discussed before talking about the main ideas of something, giving people a reminder about what was previously mentioned. Sort of like a summary in some ways. It's often used in the same way as a summary. So this thing that happens after, and it can be used in a lot of different situations is called a follow-up. This specific follow-up is related to a meeting, but you can have a follow-up about any sort of thing. Now that doesn't only mean a recap, it could be to summarize the main points and calls to action CTAs of the meeting. That could be the follow-up. Maybe I'm reminding you about something. You are my client and I want to follow up with you about something you mentioned that you would do last week that you haven't done yet. So I'm following up about that. Maybe I'm applying for a job and I had an interview on on Monday and on Thursday I want to send an email to make sure everything's okay, make sure you don't need any more information for me. That would be a follow-up e-mail. We say follow up by itself. I just want to follow up. Those would be separate and then a follow-up would be combined like that with the hyphen there in the middle of follow up, a meeting follow-up. This is just a quick follow-up. Can you please follow up follow up with them to make sure they get that done on time. So recap, follow up. What about campaigns? This is specifically related to marketing. Advertising. A campaign in marketing is used to broadly say, an effort to push this. There may be a campaign for this specific product that would include maybe video advertisements, print ads, social media, and all kinds of things like that part of this campaign. So several different things together, but all driving in the same direction, often toward one specific goal or to support one specific product. You hear things like a presidential campaign. So the campaign is the effort, all of the things that are done to get this person elected as president. So that is a campaign. There are a lot of different ways that we can use that word for marketing, for advertising. It often involves running ads, for example, on Facebook or YouTube or something like that. That's just a little bit of background information to make sure this all makes sense. I want you to understand the scenario so that the email will be clear. But remember, this is not an e-mail only meant for marketing. These are general things that we're going to be talking about that can be used in your emails as well. That's why we do the analysis so that you can pull these things out and use them in your own situation. All right, let's take a look at this email. 33. Part 1 | Recognition and Review: All right. So let's get into this e-mail. It's not the whole thing, just the first half. Hey guys, thanks to everyone on the content and global partnership teams for bringing great ideas to the meeting this afternoon for our upcoming collaboration initiatives. I would like to give a quick recap of the meeting to make sure we're all on the same page. We laid out a couple of potential apparel and Sporting Goods projects going forward. Number 1, a DDOS. Sound like anything you recognize. By the end of Friday, Aaron will present a deck with her team's top five ideas for both print ads and online video campaigns. Global partnership teams will work with a DDOS to nail down a potential budget range for this stretch, three months of campaigns. All right, so let's talk about this so far. What exactly is going on? Starting with, hey guys, what does this feel like to you? Formal, casual, polite, not really close. This is definitely quite casual. So when is this appropriate? Generally, if the team works together regularly, they have a pretty good relationship. Everybody knows each other. They'd been working together for weeks, months, years. Hey guys, is totally acceptable. In fact, it gives a kind of casual friendly feeling to the beginning of the email to address everyone as guys, you guys. Now this is kind of an American thing. When we say you guys, what we really mean is you all, it's not just men, it's men and women. So women will say you guys, men will say you guys, men will say you guys to men and women. And women will say you guys to men and women, or all women were all men, doesn't really matter. We use guys to mean you people generally, but that is kind of an American thing. Okay, let's look at this first paragraph here. The greeting. Of course, the grading is always very important. What are we trying to do with the greeting? Well, of course, as we've talked about many times now, we want to set the tone. What is the tone? It's upbeat, it's positive. It also says the reason. Often in the greeting or the first part we want to introduce generally what we're going to talk about in this email. So it does say the reason that this has been written, which is what? Well, a quick recap and to make sure we're on the same page, That's the main reason followed by them the details of that recap. It also gives recognition. Gus is recognizing the content and global partnership teams. Now maybe those were the only two teams there. Maybe there were more teams there. But to give recognition when you can is generally a good idea. If you can do that in the greeting, because you're not talking about the main meat that you really want to get into. Maybe that's a good place to do it. You might ask the question, why is he giving details about this? Why not just say bringing great ideas? We were all there. We know the topic. Why then go on to say, bringing great ideas to the meeting this afternoon for our upcoming collaboration initiatives. Y say that collaboration initiatives. We all remember it. We were just in the meeting and hour ago. Why do you have to give that detail? You don't have to. But look at it a slightly different way for this greeting. What if someone didn't go, one person wasn't able to attend? Well now they have some really nice context. Okay, That's the topic. That's who was there. Those are the people who gave the ideas. And the purpose of this is a quick recap, which now I can use to understand what happened in the meeting or going back to read it, going back to review it a week later, two weeks later to check something. Who was it that was supposed to present the deck? Let me check. I was Aaron. What were we talking about? We were talking about upcoming collaboration initiatives. Now if you don't know what that means exactly, don't worry too much about it. We're not trying to go into the details of what exactly this is and who makes up the global partnership teams. That's not so important. I want you to pay attention to what's happening here. This is why you might want to give a bit more detail, a bit more context in the greeting, you're accomplishing a lot here. You're recognizing people, you're setting the tone you're giving, the reason for the e-mail itself and a bit of context in case you weren't there or maybe you were there, but you forget because it was two weeks ago. Then we get into the recap itself and I want to talk a bit about structure here. We laid out a couple of potential apparel and Sporting Goods projects going forward. All right. So that's all we're going to talk about. If we were talking about more stuff, I wouldn't just say this. So you have to think carefully about how you want to organize things. These are things that people are going to do related specifically to a DDOS, but we're going to talk about another one next. So how do I organize this? How do I know how to organize this? Well, you have to think about this. You have to think about it carefully because we're only talking about potential apparel. Apparel means clothing, things that you wear, apparel and Sporting Goods projects going forward, then I don't need to break it down that way. It makes more sense to me to break it down by the company that we're working with. So I'm going to list out these action items or main things that we talked about in the meeting. By project, by company we're working with. So this is one project. Now if I'm going to break it down by the type of thing we talked about. Maybe there are different things that we talked about. We talked about potential a parallel in sporting goods projects. We talked about something completely unrelated to that. We talked about another thing completely unrelated to that. So then instead of breaking it down by project, you could break it down by topic, topic. But whatever you decide to do, make sure that it's here and it's clear what is going to be broken down. We laid out a couple of potential apparel and Sporting Goods projects. Okay, that tells me that number one is a project. This is a company we're working with. A project with that company. Number two is going to be a project as well in number 3, if there is one, that's going to be a project in number 4 is going to be a project. That's how it's broken down. But that is not the only way to break it down just because I did it this way doesn't mean you have to do the same. I want you to think about which way makes the most sense for your situation. Then make sure this part, the thing that introduces what I'm about to do, the breakdown, the recap, make sure that is very clear and it tells people how this is going to be broken down, how it's going to be organized. So just a few useful phrases to keep in mind here. Adding quick to things, a quick recap. This gives people that feeling of, okay, this is going to be no problem to read. Maybe that's true, maybe not, but it helps to reinforce that all on the same page. I'm sure that you know that already. I'm sure you know that we're on the same page. That means we have the same general understanding, but this is such a common phrase. I want to highlight it. You often use this when you want to communicate the idea. Not I'm teaching you something, but I just want to make sure that you're understanding and my understanding are the same. Because then once we have the same understanding, we have a foundation. And from our shared foundation, we can then talk about other things. We can work on other things. So let's just get on the same page. Let's just make sure we're on the same page. Now, what about going forward? Going forward is also very common. It just means in the future. In the future, It's a common phrase that means in the future, It's not more formal or less formal. It's about the same as in the future. I think it's more common. I use it much more often. So just pay attention to that. I don't think it provides any special feeling other than that, it's very common. Now again, we don't need to go into a lot of detail on what all of this stuff means. I quickly mentioned what a campaign is, just so you have some sense of how people in marketing use that. I'm not showing you this one so that you have a better understanding of marketing. That is not my purpose. I do want to talk about a couple other useful phrases though. Present a deck. Aaron will present a deck. This is what we use to talk about slides. We often use this present in the verb form instead of give a presentation just because it sounds a bit more active and present what presents slides, it actually may be more common to say present a deck rather than present slides or present a keynote. Or present a PowerPoint. Used to be that people would say present a PowerPoint. I feel like that's becoming less common as other types of software are getting more and more popular. So a deck is kind of replacing that presenting a deck. And then the other one to pay attention here is to nail down to nail down a potential budget range. The budget range is just how much they can pay between this and this. How much money do they have available for this period of time for these campaigns? $50,000.80 thousand dollars, a range of budget range, but nailed down, what is that and how is this used? We would use nailed down is very active language to talk about deciding something. But deciding something after a process, usually of negotiation, of conversation of back and forth, to nail down a decision to nail down an agreement, nail down a budget is like people are trying to hold a sheet and different people are trying to hammer nails into it in their own place. So it's a collaborative process. And this phrase kind of recognizes that it's not very simple, that it's not easy. It takes time that it's back and forth, that it's kind of complicated, that it requires personal skills, all of that sort of thing, negotiation skills. So nail down as a great phrase when you want to emphasize or focus on that difficult process and not say it in a very simple way, like decide the budget range. That might give the wrong feeling. 34. Part 2 | Action Items and Closing: Let's continue with our meeting follow-up e-mail to NYC. I'm sure you know why I spelled it this way. By eodie Wednesday, leucine will send a links to rough cuts of both ads for the raincoat campaign. And all feedback is due by Friday, Jessica and tambourine or working with Nick social media accounts team on optimizing their pipelines. They will update us on that in next week's meeting. Again, I'd like to thank you for your input and time, and I'm looking forward to touching base on these projects and a few others next week. Let me know if anything above is unclear. If you have any questions. Thanks. Gus. Now here we have one acronym, eodie, which stands for end of day. End of day. And I said before, be careful about when you use acronyms. This one would be absolutely okay because everyone on this team knows it. Most people in fact, no, it if it's something industry-specific, some kind of jargon or acronyms related to marketing, in this case, something like row as that would probably also be okay because they're all marketing people, they'll know it. Just be aware of it and try not to do it if you're not sure. If the other person knows the acronym. In this case, it's generally okay. So by end of day, Wednesday is what this is saying. And this is again, just continuing the recap of action items. Things that people need to do that were discussed in the meeting that include the campaigns. These are trying to find the balance between being short and being very clear. Because if this just says leucine will send links to rough cuts, maybe Lucy and knows what that means, but maybe everyone else doesn't know. So you have to say what those rough cuts are about. By the way, that's related to videos. If you make a video, the rough cut is before the final thing, maybe a week before. It still doesn't look perfect, but you can get a general idea and you can do some feedback, and all feedback is due by Friday. So this includes everything. It includes what leucine is going to do when he has to do it. It also is about what? It's about the raincoat campaign, not about something else, because there might be other video projects, maybe other things that leucine is working on. It also says when feedback is due, so other people have to give feedback on his rough cuts on these videos he's working on for the rain coat campaign. That's what it's about. So everything is known, all the dates are known, the context is known, the actions needed are all known, and we've kept it pretty simple. So you have to find the balance when you're doing something like this between detail, which means longer, and brevity, which means simpler and shorter, being concise. If it's too concise and two brief, it's no longer useful because people don't know what it's about. And if it's too detailed and two long, nobody's going to read it. So try to cut it down and make it as dense as possible. Don't say anything that doesn't need to be said. If there's something extra there, like a comment, something that isn't necessary or relevant for the recap. Get rid of it because the purpose is the recap. Always remind yourself, what am I, what am I trying to accomplish with this e-mail? I'm trying to make sure everyone's on the same page, so I need everybody to know what everyone else is doing so that we can have a good meeting next week and we can all do our jobs correctly. So this is not the time for me to make a bunch of comments about this or that. So I won't do that because that doesn't fit within my purpose. Because my purpose is to make sure we're on the same page in the context of action items related to these two campaigns were talking about. I've decided to break it down by campaign. So we're talking about a DDOS and we're talking about NYC. And the actions connected with those. No more and no less than anybody needs to go back and read this a week later and understand everything they need to know. That's the sign of a good email. If people read it later and they say, Oh yeah, that, that, that that that I understand everything now. Good. That means it was clear. But if they didn't read the whole thing, maybe it's because there was too much detail. Then for this one, Jessica and tambourine or working with Nick's social media accounts team on optimizing their pipelines. So what are they doing? They're working on optimizing their pipelines in case you want to know what they're up to. Optimizing is a word you see pretty often, especially in a work or a business setting. Pretty simply it means to improve something, to make it function better, to make it function better. So if they're optimizing something, I know that they're working with the team, they're doing analysis that tells me what I need to know. But what I also need to know is what are they going to do, okay, they're optimizing the pipelines. That's a marketing thing that has to do with. Emails that are being sent out and when they're sent out and part of the campaign that we don't need to focus on too much. So that's what they're doing. They're working on improving something that gives me the context. But what actions are they going to take? Well, they're going to let us know how it's going next week. They will update us on that in next week's meeting. So we don't have too many details there. This one is a bit more specific. It's telling me about what everybody is doing and when they're doing it. This one is describing a much more general activity. A lot of things could be included in optimizing something. But then if there's no action item, if there's no thing that they have to do, nothing they have to prepare for or think about some upcoming deadline. They might just say, well, we don't really need to try our best because nobody really cares or knows what we're really doing. So even something very general like VAE will update us on that in some form in next week's meeting, gives them a bit of pressure. So if you want to provide that positive pressure, that little bit of accountability, you could add it onto the end of a description like this. But in general, as a manager, what am I trying to do with all of these action items? I want to make sure yes, everybody knows what's going on. But I also want some public accountability. I want everybody to know what everybody else is supposed to do. Maybe this is my real purpose. Maybe both things are important. Yes, I want everybody to be on the same page. I want to have transparency. You often hear that word too, meaning everybody can see what's going on with everybody else. So that's good. I want transparency across the team. That's why I do these recaps after each meeting. But the other reason might be what? Accountability, especially that it is now public. Everyone got this e-mail. This is not a one-to-one e-mail. I'm sending this to both of these teams, all of the teams involved in these projects. So now everybody knows what Lucien is supposed to do and everybody knows what Jessica and tambourine or working on. And Jessica and tambourine know that everybody knows and Lucia knows that everybody knows what he's working on. So I'd better do a good job. So I'd better make sure I do it correctly. I'd better make sure I try my best. I better make sure I'm ready for the deadline or next week's meeting. Because if I'm not, then everyone will say, Hey, I thought you were doing that, Why aren't you? So it can serve two functions there. And sometimes this part may be the main reason from a manager standpoint. But then to reinforce, to support that positive feeling we started with, again, I'm going to repeat myself. It's okay to repeat myself. I've said a lot of things in between, so it's okay. But I don't see it in exactly the same way. Again, I'd like to thank you for your input and time input. We use here to say the same thing as what we said before. Bringing great ideas is what we said before. Now we're saying input, different way to say the same thing. If you can say the same thing a different way, that's usually a good idea because it gives some variation to your email, to your writing. And I'm looking forward to touching base on these projects and a few others next week. And usually this is for the purpose of staying updated, getting up to date. I tell you things that you didn't know. You tell me things that I didn't know and now we're on the same page. So it's a common e-mail phrase that we can use to get on the same page. Let's touch base sometime this week. Let's make sure we touch base sometime next week. I hope we can touch base soon. This is a very common expression of intent. Our intent when we touch base is to get in contact in some way, email over the phone doesn't really matter so much, usually. And then we update each other. And once we've done that, we're on the same page. In fact, we often say, let's quickly touch base next week, but you don't have to say that because usually just using touch base suggests that it's going to be relatively quick, then we have let me know if anything above is unclear or if you have any questions this shows. Yes, I'm your manager, but I want to be supportive. I want to communicate with you to make sure everything is clear and I want to help you if you need help. So it kind of shows an openness and that's usually that positive feeling we want to create at the end of the e-mail. Remember, no matter what, you always want to think about that last thing you want the other person to feel, to think that impression, to give them when they finish reading the email. Then finishing up, thanks, Gus, of course would not be okay for a formal email. But because we all know each other, Everybody's on the team. We've been working together for a long time. It's totally okay to have something much less formal like this. It's friendly, it's casual. It's fine. All right. Now let's go on to our recap of the takeaways and key phrases for this email. 35. Recap | Meeting Follow-up: Let's just quickly recap our meeting follow-up e-mail, GAS wants to communicate clearly the main ideas from a meeting that just finished, but also encourage transparency so that everyone knows what's going on. And accountability so that everyone knows what's going on, who is doing what thing, and make sure you get it done. Because now everybody knows that you're supposed to be doing that the action items that everybody has in the greeting to make sure that everyone knows what this email is all about and to give the right tone, to provide the right tone for the email. Gus uses everyone's firstname. Everybody knows each other. I know you, you know me. The whole thing has this casual yet professional feeling to it. And Gus is going to very clearly introduce in the greeting the main purpose. What is the main reason for this? Well, it is for me to give everyone a recap so that we have transparency and accountability. And it's more casual because we're a team and we all know each other, and that's just more comfortable. Now the action items themselves are broken down by project. Remember, you have to think carefully about how to break things down. It doesn't have to be by project. But think about this. What is going to be most impactful? What is going to be most clear by topic, by project, by time, what is the best way to do it in your situation? Don't force it to be any certain way. Think about it. Maybe it follows the meeting format. Maybe it goes by project like this. I'm not telling you what the right answer is because it depends. And also remember the format tip. If you're going to use bullet points, use bullet points for all of them. If you're going to just list them out with a hyphen, use a hyphen for all of them, follow your own rules. Now there are also a couple of phrases we talked about which kind of repeat each other. The same meaning, upcoming, going forward. Well, these really mean the same thing. So it can be okay to repeat things, to reinforce things, to make sure they're clear, to make sure everybody remembers. But then it may also be a very good idea to use different words or different phrases to say the same thing. An example would be upcoming going forward. Those mean the same thing, but they are different. So that provides a bit more variety to the e-mail, which simply makes it easier to read, a little bit more engaging. Now we talked about one acronym, eodie. End of day, most people will know this one. So these general acronyms are usually okay to use. Just be aware when it comes to acronyms, when it comes to jargon, don't use what people don't know because that frustrates them. So if it's in your team, absolutely great. Use what everybody knows. But if this e-mail is being shared more broadly or sent a little bit more broadly to a wider audience. Maybe don't use so many acronyms. Maybe don't use so much jargon and instead, stick with simpler language. Why? Because you want to, first and foremost, make sure everything is clear. Everything is well understood. Not make sure people are impressed by how many jargon words and acronyms, you know. So always be mindful of your audience and choose your acronyms and your jargon or your lack of those accordingly. Now most of the e-mail was listing out action items, things that people on the team need to take care of presenting a deck, giving an update, sending out links to a rough cut of a video. These are the action items. You always want to be very careful that it's not so detailed that it's too much to read. The dreaded wall of words. Don't allow your email to become a wall of words. That is not a good thing. A wall of words is a giant block of text. So at the very least, break things up, use bullet points. Think about how your structure and your format can make your email a little easier to read. But also when you're listing things like action items, be aware of how much detail you're including. Is this too much detail to people really need to know all of the details of what this person is going to do. No. So cut it out, keep it short, but make sure it has enough detail so that when someone reads that they understand it, it has dates, it has an action and maybe a project it's attached to or something that tells people what it is. If it's just an action by itself, then after a few weeks, people will forget what that is about, what that is connected to. So be aware of that and find the balance between detail and brevity, between detail and being concise. We talked about the phrases, touch base, and being on the same page. These are both very common and they're really about transparency so that everyone can see what is going on so that you know what I know and I know what you know. And we're talking to each other, encouraging group communication, openness. So they're very useful phrases for making sure that people feel that that is important so that they can communicate in line with that important thing. Alright, so that is it for this e-mail as usual. If you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 36. Scenario | FYI About an Event: In this lesson, we're going to be looking at an email for an FYI, for an event. What is an FYI? Well, FYI stands for for your information. It's very common. But we don't say for your information, this is one of those acronyms that we use by itself as a noun, only in the acronym form. And this for your information, is just to inform somebody about something to let them know. I want to inform you, I want to let you know, but it's useful to say an FYI. I want to give you an FYI, although we don't say a four-year information, we never say that. So this one works as a noun only as an acronym, but it doesn't work as a noun. If you say the whole thing, you would say the whole thing. If you want to say it like this, for your information, we need to be there by seven PM. So you could say that, but you could also say that as an acronym, FYI, FYI, we need to be there by 7 pm. But then when you make it a noun and FYI, then you can't use this hole, this whole expression. Okay, So what is our scenario here? Taf is an HR manager at Tribe up and needs to let the whole company staff know about an upcoming event that they must attend. She needs to make sure people know about the upcoming workshop and that attendance is not optional. It is mandatory, not optional. If it's mandatory, you have to go there, you have to do it. It is mandatory. So let's look at Tuffs e-mail to the whole staff and see how she explains this announcement. 37. Part 1 | Mandatory Event: Okay, so let's read Tufte's email. Pay attention to what she's trying to do with the first part. What is she trying to accomplish? Always ask yourself that question. With this part, with this paragraph, with this sentence. What is this person trying to accomplish? And once I understand that, I might then start to see how I can take their ideas and apply them on my own. And once I see that, I can understand how the phrases are being used to accomplish that thing. So let's read through it. Tough says everyone. Simple enough. I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday weekend. Okay. The HR department will be holding a mandatory to our health insurance workshop next Wednesday at 3PM. All staff or we could say all staff members are expected to attend, excluding the executive team. All right. So what are you noticing here with these first three things? Well, everyone, This is a staff wide email. That's simple enough. I know that I'm getting this, but that I'm not the only one getting it. If you want to let everybody know that this is an email to everybody and that everybody is getting it. Everyone would be a good choice if it's a smaller team. Like with the last email, it might be, Hey guys, sometimes, hey team, but what's the feeling of this? Well, it's pretty neutral. It's not too formal, it's not too casual. It's neutral, it just means everyone. So it doesn't really have a strong feeling one way or the other. I think it's fine. If you wanted to make it feel more formal. You might say, try BOP, try Bob, staff. Or perhaps dear try Bob Steph. Mm-hm. I don't know about that one. That one might be a little too formal for this sort of situation. I would avoid it if you wanted to use something that sounds more formal, just using tribe up staff, I think would be okay. Sometimes you'll see deer staff. And that lets everybody know that everybody is getting this. But again, that's quite formal. I wouldn't recommend that when you can do it if you want to, if you want to have that really formal feeling. I think this one works just fine. I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday weekend. This is of course, setting the tone. What is the tone? I would say it's friendly. And I hope or I hope that you or I hope that you all, or I hope you all a very common way to recognize something that happened recently, like a weekend, okay. It's also recognizing that people are kind of adjusting and it's not getting right to the point. Starting here would be a little bit abrupt. Whoa, whoa. Okay. I just finished a three-day weekend. Now you want to tell me that I have to do something. It's a little shocking. So having this sentence here, one simple sentence that's positive. That's a good wish. A positive wish that's friendly can really act as a buffer to recognize. Okay, I know you all had a long weekend and you're not really in work mode right now, but it's time to get back to work and get serious. So I think it's a good sentence to include. Then we get down to the point, we don't have many details yet, but we wanna make sure it's not misunderstood, that everything is absolutely clear. So we say everything in one sentence, everything important. The important details are very clearly written in a specific order to make sure that nothing is missed and nobody will misunderstand. You don't want to write a long paragraph that includes all the details about this workshop in different places because then people have to hunt for all the details. When is it, where is it? What day is it? People get lost, they get confused. So condense it down. Put it all right at the beginning, it's very clear. It's to the point the HR department that is who will be holding a mandatory okay. That tells me that I must go. That's what mandatory means. It's not optional. Okay. Very clear to our okay. That tells me very important information that lets me know I need to schedule my day around it. Health insurance workshop. Okay. Very important. That's the what but the details about the what, which kind of workshop is it? Is it 1 I should look forward to? Is that when I should be excited about is it fun? It's health insurance. So maybe not. But at least now I know. So this manages expectations. We say to manage expectations, to say very clearly that something is mandatory, you must go. Okay? To say very clearly that it is for health insurance. Not a fun thing. Very clear. Not necessarily good news, but honest. I know I'm going to a thing I have to go. It's probably not going to be my favorite thing, but I can prepare myself for it now that I clearly know what it is and I know when it is. But if you just gonna write when, Wednesday at 3PM. When okay. So the who the when. And the what. So if we don't include these details in a very simple condensed way, ideally in one sentence right at the beginning, then people have a lot of follow-up questions. That's a common theme throughout this course. We want to reduce confusion by being as clear as we can, writing things as simply as we can. And we want to manage expectations by saying up front what it is rather than trying to hide it. It's going to be a very interesting workshop coming up. And then we don't say that it's mandatory. So people wonder, can I decide not to go? No, no, no. It's about health insurance. So it's going to be boring. It's two hours long and you have to go. Oh, okay. Now, I know this is this is at least extremely clear and nobody can complain that they don't understand. Everybody understands because it is so clear. All staff members are expected to attend. Now, you could say All right, do we need to say that? Probably not. But if we want to then add another thing, excluding, that might help to clarify. So we've already said it's mandatory. That means you have to attend. But I want to add the detail that if you are in the executive team, you don't have to, then I can include this final sentence here. All staff or all staff members. Now, which one should you use? Whatever you're comfortable with. Sometimes we just use all staff. Sometimes you hear companies using all staff members. Either one. All staff are expected to attend comma, excluding the executive team. So if this is you, if you're here now you know for sure You don't need to go. And everybody else is thinking, well, I wish I was in the executive team, but I'm not so I have to attend. This is what it means to be clear. Being clear does not mean adding a bunch of details. Being cleared does not mean explaining every tiny little thing, telling people why they need to go, giving complicated reasons. Now we can do that. We're going to get into a little bit of that next, a bit more detail. But when we want to say what it is upfront, when we have an announcement and we want people to do something based on that announcement. We don't want to add too much of what is not needed unless we need to add something like this, excluding the executive team to clarify who doesn't need to attend. We've accomplished what we want to accomplish with this. So then we stop. Then we leave a bit more detail to the next paragraph if we want to. But if I'm tough here, I could just stop the email right there. I could say thank you all for your time. Have a great rest of the week. Tough and end it very to the point. And nobody will blame me. Hey, I don't understand. Hey, why do I have to do this? Do I really need to attend? Yes, you really need to attend. I've told you this, It's so clear, you cannot miss understand it. So think about writing short emails and don't be afraid to do it and only add more if you feel that it's necessary. Okay, now let's go on and look at the rest of this email. 38. Part 2 | Getting Buy-in: Taf, the HR manager who is announcing this workshop, letting everybody know about this workshop doesn't just want to tell people you have to go to this thing. This is when it is goodbye. She wants to give some more detail about the reason. Because if she doesn't, it could cause some resentment. Instead of just hearing I have to do this. I want to hear I have to do this. And why. If I can understand why as a staff member, then I can accept it more easily and I won't feel resentful. Tough is in HR. She knows this, she understands this. She knows how important it is to communicate things properly, not just force everybody to do things, because if the staff starts to feel resentful about these events, then it's going to get harder and harder to make them attend these events. But if they understand the reason why this is valuable, oh, actually, I kind of want to attend this event because this benefits me in some way, then the chances of resentment go down. So that's what TAF is going to try to accomplish with her next paragraph. So here we go. We're going to read this next part here. The workshop is crucial for understanding tribe ups changing insurance policy and most importantly, your health care benefits. Topics covered will include but not be limited to out of pocket costs, free checkups, and reimbursement. Please make sure you are there on time. For more information. See the workshop brochure in the attached PDF. If you have any questions or extenuating circumstances, contact HR regards tough tribe up, HR manager. All right. So as I mentioned with this first paragraph, what she's really trying to do is explain things a bit. Now, do you think most people care about changing insurance policy? Maybe not so much, but she explains that it's crucial. So using a very strong word like that might help to give people a sense of, well, I don't know why I need to understand the changing insurance policy, but tough says it's crucial, which means very, very important. So we can emphasize things a bit using stronger language like that, using something like crucial. But then she gives something that makes it a bit more personal, that makes it relevant to each person reading this e-mail. It's not just, Oh, l need to understand changing policy. Okay. Sounds boring. It's crucial that alright, yeah, I'm going to go, when I feel a little resentful, know this is about you, you are going to get something out of this when you go. So if you understand this stuff, you might get some benefit. Then she focuses on the benefits because health care is a benefit, something you get as part of your employment at Tribe up or most companies. Okay. So she adds that and most importantly, not just crucial. So crucial is one level which is very high. Crucial, most importantly, then allows her to put even more emphasis on this part. Most importantly, even more important than crucially. Most importantly, that might catch people's attention. That might make people focus on this. Oh, I need to make sure I catch this because if this is about my benefits, I need to know what's going on because if I understand my benefits really well, then that's good for me. It's good for my life, it's good for my family. So now we're connecting a must to a reason. And that reason includes the personal, the individual. So when you're writing an email to a group of people, also think about the individual interests. Why does each person want to read this? Why should they care about what you're telling them about? Try to personalize it. Even though it is to a whole group, even though it is to a whole team, even though it is staff wide. Perhaps you can use that in a lot of different situations, but it's more about the method and not so much about the specific language used. Although this language, this is crucial and most importantly, is a useful and a pretty easy way to do it. Your health care benefits, whoa, my benefits. Then tough ones to give some specific details. What are we going to talk about? That might also peak. When I say peak, I write it like this. P i, Q U, E. Peak means to catch someone's interest, to get their interests who my interest is. Peaked. Topics covered will include, but not be limited to out-of-pocket costs. Oh, relevant to me and my family. If this is about out-of-pocket costs being lower, then when I take my son to the dentist, I don't have to pay so much because the company is covering it. That's what's going on in my mind. Maybe actually the costs are going up. I don't know they're changing, but I don't know how the policy is changing. But at least my interest is piqued. Now I might be a little more interested in attending this workshop. Yes, I know I have to attend, but if I have to attend and I want to attend, isn't that better? Probably, yes. Free checkups, Bu and advantage, I can get free checkups. That's interesting. I want to learn about how I can do that. So tough is strategically mentioning details that will be interesting to the people reading it so that they feel good about it and they might even be looking forward to it. She is choosing those things that will catch their eye and maybe leaving out things that are not so interesting. Leaving out things that are maybe not related to benefits and reimbursement would be the same thing. Reimbursement. This is when you pay for something and you get paid back. So I have a thing I have to pay for a medical thing cost and someone pays me back. So there again, I'm thinking, ooh, oh, so I got that thing I had to do last week. Can I get paid for that? Even though my insurance didn't cover it, maybe, I don't know. I haven't attended this workshop yet. But if I learn about it, maybe I can. So I'm kind of looking forward to it. I'm kind of excited about it. Then finally, just to request a simple request, please make sure you are there on time. You could include that. You could not include it. I think it's a nice touch. It kind of closes up this paragraph, which is a very strategic paragraph. The paragraph that gives the y the y related to the individual interests of everyone receiving the e-mail, the thing that peaks their interest hopefully and reduces any resentment they might have been feeling about having this mandatory workshop that they had to attend. Now, remember I said earlier in the course, don't be afraid to make a new paragraph, and don't be afraid if paragraph has only one sentence long. That's totally okay. In an e-mail, we went to separate things more, segment things more rather than less. We want to reduce the wall of words, affect the wall of words, the wall of words, something we usually want to avoid. So it's okay to break things up. In fact, it's great to break things up even if those things are very short. If I have two individual thoughts that I want to share, two totally separate things that I want to communicate. Why would I put those things in the same paragraph? When you're writing something? Usually we have one idea contained in one paragraph. When we start a new idea, a totally new small topic, then we start a new paragraph. So do that. Follow that rule. Don't be afraid to have a bunch of different sections in your e-mail. That's totally okay and far, far better than the wall of words, this huge chunk of text that looks like this. And we have to carefully look through it and find all the details. That is a big email. No, no, don't do that. Okay. So for more information, see the workshop brochure in the attached PDF. So she wants to include more details. Taf does. Tough, wants to provide details, but she doesn't feel that these details need to be in the body of the e-mail itself. If she includes a bunch of specific details about the workshop. More than this, this is really about the reason for it. And there are a few details here. Free checkups out of pocket costs, a few details, but not much, right? It's not too long. If there are a lot more details that she could include, the question to ask herself would be this. If I include a bunch more details, is that going to make this more clear to everybody? Will people understand things much better? Well, people feel better about attending this workshop. Will I be accomplishing my goal of letting everybody know what is going on, making sure everybody knows why we're doing this. Maybe not. So check the PDF. That's why we attach things by attaching those more detailed things like slide decks, PDFs, documents, brochures. You provide the detail you want to provide without taking up a lot of time in the e-mail itself and perhaps causing confusion, especially confusion that hurts your main purpose for writing this email, which is to tell everybody what's going on and why it's happening. Then if you have time, when you have time, you can read more about it. You can click on the attachment, check out the PDF, the brochure on your own time. When you're free to do that, or perhaps not do that if you're not interested, if you don't want to know the details, because that's also what we're going to learn in the workshop probably, right? So don't burden your reader with unnecessary things. I'll say that one more time. Don't burden your reader with unnecessary things. If it's not necessary, get rid of it. This one suggests. For more information, see the workshop brochure. If you want to if you feel like you want to get more information about that, go ahead and open the attachment and read about it. But we're going to talk about it all in the workshops so you don't have to if you wanted to make the attachment mandatory and not make it feel like an if you want to kind of thing, then you could connect it to some kind of action. You might say, please be sure to read the PDF and give me feedback. Or once you've read the PDF, once, once you've reviewed the slide deck, please give me some feedback or I would appreciate some feedback. Once you've reviewed my presentation deck attached, once you've means yeah, it probably should. Yeah, you kind of have to because I'm asking you for feedback based on that. Maybe I have a deadline for you to make sure you review that. Maybe not a simple way to do that politely would be a request. Please, please review the slide deck attached and give me some feedback by Monday. Okay, So that's very clear. That would make it a little bit more forceful. That would be a way to push someone a bit more or make it mandatory. Then we have, if you have any questions, now, this should feel pretty familiar. We want to let everybody know that we're available. Tough is available to answer questions. If you're confused about anything, if you're wondering about anything, if you have any extenuating circumstances, contact me, contact HR, maybe not just me tough, but the department someone in the department, you could say reach out as we've talked about before, reach out. But contact, it's pretty formal, pretty professional. I think it would be really common for this sort of thing, especially for people who are not in your team. If they're in your team, then you would be much more casual as we looked at with the email from GAS. Very casual. This I don't really know. Tough very well. She's over there in the HR department. We don't interact very much. So there's a level of formality there that contact provides. Now what is an extenuating circumstance? This also, by the way, feels quite formal, not something you would say in a casual email. An extenuating circumstance is something that you don't have control over. That's uncommon. That's unexpected. That prevents you from doing something, prevents you from attending something. So something comes up. In your personal life. You can't go to work today. You definitely can't attend the workshop. So maybe if I know that something is coming up that's very important, that will prevent me from attending the workshop. And I'm being honest about that I really can't attend or maybe my wife has do with our baby on that day. So there's a good chance that I won't be able to even go to work. So I will send a reply back to TAF and let TOF know that I have some extenuating circumstances. Hopefully that's a rare thing. Hopefully not many people get back to her with that sort of thing because that's what extenuating means. It's not common. It is the exception, not the norm. Most people will be attending the workshop, maybe 98%, and a few people, they have some extenuating circumstances. This suggests that there is some room to get out of this mandatory thing. But it doesn't say it in a way with too much detail that encourages that. If you are not able to attend, please let me know. I would not recommend that way of saying it. If you cannot attend, just let me know. That makes it sound a little too easy to come up with some reason to not attend? Oh, actually, I can't go because I don't want to yeah. Right. So that's probably not the best way to say it. This feels more extreme, like I can't avoid this thing I have to do. I really can't attend. It's probably a better way to say it so that people still feel that this is a very important thing that they must attend. And there isn't really a way to get out of it. I think this is a better way to say that. Then she says regards, which is pretty standard for this sort of email, any professional e-mail if you want to use regards that would be very common. That would be totally okay. I probably use regards more than anything else. And then tough tribe up HR manager. So that's the e-mail. We've looked at it, we've analyzed it a bit. Let's now do our recap. 39. Recap | FYI About an Event: Let's do a recap of the key phrases and takeaways from toughs FYI email to the entire staff about the upcoming health care workshop. At the beginning, she uses a friendly greeting as a buffer before she says the announcement itself. Because remember, people have just come off of a long weekend and it's good to have something friendly first and to recognize that people might not be in work mode. So something friendly to set the tone, to recognize that everyone just had a long weekend. Then go into the main thing, then go into the FYI itself for the announcement in the first paragraph of the main thing, only the key details are given. Not a bunch of details, not too much detail. Only what is relevant when, who, where, what, not even why yet? Just what is this condensed into a single sentence so that nothing can be missed. So don't spread out important details throughout a long paragraph. Instead, condense them down to a what to aware to, uh, went to a WHO as simply and clearly as you can. It doesn't have to be one sentence, but that's not a bad idea. One sentence can be a great way to start off and announcements. Everybody knows, okay, I know what's going on. Then we can go into a few more specific details. Perhaps we can talk about the why then after that and then anything that's too detailed that doesn't support the purpose of this email. Maybe I can attach instead, whether it's optional or mandatory, maybe I can include it in a PDF. Maybe I can include it in a document. Maybe I can include it in a slide deck. But if I include it that I might create a wall of words and people might miss the important things. It might actually hurt my purpose, which is to communicate this announcement and tell people why. And when I tell people why, when I explain the reason for this thing, I don't focus on the reason that benefits the company. I don't focus on the reason that benefits me in my department. I focus on the reason we're reasons that benefit the people reading this. Because I want them to buy into it. I want them to not only understand it, but see how it can benefit them, how they can gain an advantage from it. So if you have many different things that you could focus on reasons. Well, the company, well, me and my department, well, this thing that people don't know about or you the attendees who have to attend, it's mandatory. You don't have an option. Probably choose those things because that's going to allow people to connect with it to see oh, yes, this is mandatory, but I understand why I have to attend and I feel a lot better about it. Then when another workshop comes up, people won't say another workshop that I don't care about, that has nothing to do with me and I just have to go to people will feel oh, another workshop. Okay. Well, I can learn something that's going to benefit me. This is good. Hopefully, that's how people feel, right? But tough also wants to reinforce or support the idea that this is mandatory, that this is not an optional thing. So she says it several times, or at least she uses language that supports this idea. She makes reference to the fact that this is mandatory in different ways. She uses the word mandatory. Well, that's pretty clear. She says all staff are expected to attend. That's another way to say the same thing, which also allows her to say except and then include a small group. Extenuating circumstances then allows her to say, unless it's extremely crazy and rare and you've been bitten by a snake or something, you have to attend. That while it does allow people to not attend, suggests that only in extreme cases can you avoid this, which supports her again to say this is mandatory. Everybody has to attend this workshop. So she's using this language, not saying exactly the same words, but saying the same thing, repeating the same ideas to make sure people get the idea, Hey, you need to go to this workshop. You must go. I hope you want to, but you do have to. All right. So that is it for this email. Let me know if you have any questions and I will see you in the next lesson. 40. Scenario | Calling in Sick: Last time we looked at an announcement or an FYI for an event. This time, we're going to also be letting somebody know about something, but in a slightly more personal way and with different kinds of details. This one is going to be about calling in sick. Now, calling in sick here doesn't mean calling on the phone calling in sick. We can use calling in sick when we're not going to work, we're not going to school. Even if we're not on the phone, even if it's an email or a message, we could say, I think I'm going to call in sick. We could also say, I'm going to be out of office or I'm going to take a sick day. We sometimes just say take a sick day or take sick leave, sick, sick leave. And there are many different ways to do that. But again, I want to highlight that while we are describing a specific scenario where someone is taking a sick day or telling their boss about taking sick leave. We can use a lot of the phrases we're going to talk about for many other situations as well. I know I've said that several times, but always keep that in mind. Make sure you apply what you're learning to your own situation, your own e-mails as well. Okay, let's read through the scenario. Scenario. Jing teaches after-school classes at a training center in her city, but recently has come down with a case of strep throat. That's nasty, not fun to have strep throat. I've had that a few times. She needs to let her boss know that she will be taking a week off and provide proof of her illness. So this is a little bit more than just taking us sick day. This is taking a more extended sick leave. So that might be a little bit different than if you were to just take a single day off. So we'll see how Jing handles this. Now that we understand the scenario, Let's look at the e-mail. 41. Part 1 | Explaining the Situation: Okay. Let's read Jean's email. Thomas. Thank you for sending the curriculum updates. I will review them later today. I'm sorry to tell you that I've been ill since yesterday and need to take request. And here this means we could use either one take or request seven days of sick leave. I went to the hospital today and got a doctor's note along with my diagnosis. I have strep throat. She suggested two weeks of rest, but mentioned I could return sooner, assuming the medication I was prescribed is working. So let's first talk about this salutation and this greeting. So Thomas, what is the relationship between Jing and Thomas? Well, they must know each other pretty well. They are on a first-name basis. If you are on a first-name basis with someone, that means you feel comfortable calling them by their first name. You can't always call your boss by their first name. There are many people you shouldn't call by their firstName. It depends on the relationship. So sometimes this will be Mr. or Mrs. someone and that's how you address your boss. But hey, they're pretty close. So Thomas, that's my boss's name. I'll say Thomas. So this already has a slightly informal, it also is somewhat personal. Dear Thomas might make it sound a little bit more formal. So just Thomas a little less formal. Okay. Thank you for sending the curriculum updates. I will review them later today. So what are we doing with this greeting? This is a response to something else, responding to a previous thing that Thomas sent to Jing related to their work. Remember, she teaches after-school classes at a center. So this is something related to that. Curriculum is something related to that. So what I'm doing here is using my greeting or the very first thing as a buffer. Before I say the main thing I want to say. The main thing I want to say is about taking sick leave, but there's also a connection. It can also act as a transition. So recently, maybe this morning, maybe yesterday, you've given me updates about something related to the curriculum and I am going to take action on those things. But now something has changed. There's a new variable, new factor. So I'm going to review them later today. I will still do that. That's my plan. But I'm going to connect that action to the next thing that I have to say, which is about taking sick leave. So I want to show you my boss that no matter what, I am very reliable, I am responsible. Even when I take a sick day, I will at least on the first day, make sure I do what I told you I would do. Then I'm going to explain why tomorrow I won't be able to do stuff and perhaps the next day I won't be able to do stuff. So let's get into the main thing. I'm sorry to tell you that I've been ill since yesterday and need to take or request. Okay. So pay attention to these two. And also I'm sorry to tell you. Now, we don't have to say I'm sorry to tell you. Usually we would use sorry when there's something unfortunate. It's unfortunate news. It's unfortunate news. Now, this still feels pretty personal saying, I'm sorry to tell you, that's quite personal and it's not super formal. If you wanted to make something like this that's more formal, then you would use regret. I regret to inform you. Now this is when there's bad news coming, but in a very formal context, in a very formal situation. And when we say it like this, the other person will prepare themselves to read bad news. We can use these phrases to prepare someone. We don't just say the thing right away. We have our little buffer. We connect the thing that happened before to the next thing we say. And we have some remarks to prepare what we really want to say. I regret to inform you in a formal way, very formal way. We regret to inform you that your application was not approved. We regret to inform you that we've decided not to go forward with your application, right? That would be a very serious context. Maybe for a job, maybe for a university application. I'm sorry to tell you as a softer, slightly less formal version of that. But if you want to avoid it completely, you might say something like, I need to let you know, or even less formal, even less formal, just to let you know. Just to let you know or even less formal, just a heads up. So a heads up is a pretty informal way to say just so you know, hey, heads up, I'm not going to be in the office tomorrow. Hey, just a quick heads up. This is going to happen. Someone is coming here at 3PM. Hey, heads up, be aware of it. That's what it means. But it's not a request. Like please let me know. I'm just telling you. So here we're not requesting this really. We're informing, Hey, I'm telling you what's happening. It doesn't feel very direct. It doesn't feel rude to say it like this. I need to let you know. I regret to inform you. I'm sorry to tell you. No, not at all. It doesn't feel too direct, not too straight, certainly not rude. But the word we choose here will make a big difference. I need to take seven days of sick leave. I need to request seven days of sick leave. If you say take, it feels less like Thomas has a choice. I'm taking seven days of sick leave. Basically, that's what that means. You don't have a choice. This is happening. I need to request seven days of sick leave. Feels more like well, if there were anything absolutely extremely crucial that you need me to take care of, maybe, well, I'm sick. You can let me know. Although what it really means in this specific case is I'm going to take a sick leave because why would Thomas say no, I know you're very, very ill, but you have to come to work. That would be pretty extreme. So saying it this way just makes it feel a little bit more like there's some flexibility there. But based on the context because of the situation, it doesn't really mean that request by itself, the word request by itself does mean that though, just not in this not in this situation, I need to take or request seven days of sick leave. Personally, I would use take. They're not giving you an option. I don't even want to make it feel like an option. This is happening. I'm informing you FYI, just a heads up, then a little bit of detail. Now you could separate this into another paragraph if you want to. That would be okay. But leaving it in the same paragraph, I think would be okay because it really is just to detail that is part of this FYI, this heads up. I went to the hospital today and got a doctor's note along with my diagnosis. And the diagnosis is what you got. Now, to go into too much detail about the diagnosis is probably not necessary to explain a lot of details, probably not necessary. That's why we just have a simple parentheses here. I have strep throat, That's my diagnosis, that's the name of my illness. I don't want to explain more. Once you here I have strep throat. You know, that's quite serious. That can spread around an office very quickly. So it makes sense to stay home. Okay. She suggested the doctor two weeks of rest, but mentioned I could return sooner assuming the medication I was prescribed is working. So this is all just explaining the situation, what is going on, the heads up, and some of the details that support that heads up. So far, nothing else is being accomplished. Now this last sentence could accomplish something kind of interesting. She suggested two weeks of rest, but mentioned I could return sooner. Gives the feeling of I don't want to take a leave. I really don't want to be sick. I prefer to go to work. I'm not going to take two full weeks even though the doctor recommended that. That's what the doctor told me. But I want to return sooner. I am a loyal employee, prefer to work. I don't like sitting at home watching TV all day. That's kinda the feeling that Thomas might get from this email. Whether or not that is Jing's intention, it could feel like that, Hey, I might be able to return after seven days. I don't need to take two weeks, but I could have requested two weeks. So you should be glad that I'm only requesting seven days, not two weeks, because I think I can recover faster now that Thomas knows what's going on, we could stop the email right here. That would be okay. In fact, if we really wanted to, we could cut out this first greeting. I don't recommend doing that for most emails. I don't recommend getting directly to the point. But if it is someone you work closely with, you can often get right to the point because you know each other so well, because you're on a first name basis, perhaps getting right to the thing might be a way to save them time. They might actually appreciate that. If you wanted to cut that out, you certainly could. If you wanted to end the email right here and say, thank you. I will report in every few days to see if I can help with anything. That would be okay. Jing also wants to eliminate any concerns that might come up in Thomas's mind when he hears this news, what would those concerns be? Well, if you hear that one of your employees is going to be out for a week and you might think, okay, who's going to do all the work? I'm going to have to schedule someone. This is going to be a headache. But gene has thought about this and that's going to show that she's responsible, She's proactive, She's really thought ahead. So let's take a look at the next part. 42. Part 2 | Anticipating Concerns: Continuing with her sick leave email, Jing says the note is in the attachment along with a photocopy of my diagnosis and prescription. There's no need for you to worry about rearranging my classes this week. I'll get in touch with the other teachers and make sure everything is covered. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll see you in a week regards Jing. Okay, so let's get into this. I think this is quite interesting because this part allows Jing to do something that others who send a simple notification might not think of two as much as possible. Put the other person at ease. Eliminate concerns, worries, and doubts. When you're sending an email, after you explain the thing you want to explain, after you let somebody know what's going to happen, you don't have a choice. This is happening. Then think for a second. Is there anything that they might worry about once they read this? Well, they have any deep concerns or problems or doubts or frustrations after they read this, am I throwing a problem into their lap and then plop it lands in their lap and now you deal with it. I'm sick, Don't talk to me, or am I going to do as much as I can to think about what you might be thinking about when you read my email and then address those things, deal with those things in a few simple statements following the heads up. So this one might address the doubt of Thomas thinking in the back of his mind. Well, I trust Ching, She's definitely reliable, but maybe maybe this time she's being dishonest. Maybe in the back of his mind, he's thinking that maybe not, but just in case. All right. Provide some proof, some support for what you're telling me. Here's a photocopy of my diagnosis and prescription. This is what the doctor said. This is the note here it is. You can see it, you can read it for yourself. I'm being totally honest. Now maybe that's not necessary. But just in case there is a doubt, why not provide that? And you can provide that without it taking up tons of space in the e-mail itself because it's in the attachment. That's what attachments or for extra things connected to the email that might be referenced in the email, but which are too detailed to include because that would make the email way too long. Now, what's the second thing that she wants to deal with? This is much more likely. This first one, not very likely. It's not likely that Thomas doubt, sir, but she wants to provide evidence just in case. Okay. The second thing, the inconvenience causing an issue. Now Thomas has to rearrange a bunch of stuff and work very hard for the next week to make sure all the classes get covered. One is likely it probably is feeling a little frustrated when he reads the beginning of this email just because he knows now he has more work to do. But Genghis thought about that too. And she wants to reassure Thomas that she is going to take on most of the responsibility to deal with that inconvenience because she recognizes that even though it's not her fault, that she got sick, she still wants to help out and she should be the one that makes sure everything still gets done. So there's no need to worry about rearranging my classes. Oh, that's nice. That's a reassuring statement. Right up front. There's no need for you to worry. There's no need for concern. There's no need for doubt. Oh, that's probably not a good one though. That means go ahead and do it. Don't think about it. It probably wouldn't want to say that there's no need for, was a very common phrase at the beginning. Usually used to comfort someone. There's no need to worry about that. There's no need to think about the details right now. There's no need to worry. There's no need for concern. There are a lot of different variations you can say for you to worry or just to worry and cut out for you or for, or there's no need to overthink it. Don't overthink it. Just try your best. Don't overthink it. There's no need to overthink it. Okay. Great comforting phrase, very useful. But I need some explanation here. You can't just say there's no need for you to worry about rearranging my classes this week. Why not? I run this center. I need to worry about it. No, no. Let me explain. I'll get in touch with the other teachers and make sure everything is covered. That's why I'm going to deal with it. I'm going to take that on. I'm going to take that on to take something on is to take a responsibility, to accept a responsibility. The responsibility to make sure all the classes are covered. And we use covered often as well when one person is going to do something for someone else because that person is not there to do it. They can't do it. Hey, I need to go out for a lunch meeting. Could you cover could you cover me for a few minutes in case a call comes in? That just means sit by the phone and take calls. Do you think you could cover my shift tomorrow if you work shifts, could you cover my my shift tomorrow or just cover me tomorrow? That means work for me tomorrow. I'll make it up to you another time. I'll make it up to you. That's probably what gene will say when she communicates with the other teachers. I'll make it up to you. I will compensate you. Maybe when you get sick, if you get sick or you take an extra vacation day, you take a day off, I will cover you without asking for anything in return because you've already done me a favor. So this is going to make Thomas feel very good. He's going to think Jing is very responsible. She communicates very well, very clearly. She explains when she has issues, exactly what those issues are. She's willing to do what is necessary to make sure that my job is not more difficult just because something unexpected happened. Then she says regards Jing, This is pretty neutral. This is extremely common, pretty standard for emails. You can almost always use that one. Okay, let's go on to our recap. 43. Recap | Calling in Sick: Let's do a quick recap of the takeaways and key phrases we talked about for genes email to her boss to let her bus know that she has to take sick leave. Remember, right at the beginning with her greeting, Jing doesn't talk about something fake like how are the kids? She references something before that they've talked about previously and uses that to make the main thing that she needs to say seem less sudden, less abrupt, and you could cut that out. It doesn't have to be there, but it is a way to soften it a bit so that you don't start the email with, I am going to call in sick or I can't come to work. That seems pretty abrupt, even if you say, I regret to inform you or a hate to have to tell you this, but to say that is still a little bit abrupt. So having something in reference to a previous e-mail, something work-related, something in the beginning to set the tone and to soften the main notice to soften the heads up is usually a good idea. Then she uses I'm sorry to tell you, that's one way to do it. We could say as we talked about a few other phrases, I regret to inform you, but that would be quite, quite formal if it's a very serious formal thing, I regret to inform. You. Could say, I hate to tell you this. I hate to sometimes we say have to, to tell you this. But and then you give the bad news. That's one way to do it. But she's also very thoughtful. One characteristic of Jing is that she is very thoughtful before she hits send, she thinks carefully, not just what thing do I need to let my boss know, but when I send this, how will it make my boss feel? Is Thomas going to be frustrated? Is he going to doubt me? Is he going to worry? Is he going to feel more stressed about something? How is he going to feel? So I'm thinking about these things. And I think to myself, well, I don't think that he doubts me. I think that he believes me, but I'm still going to provide my doctor's note because why not? And I'm going to reassure my boss that the classes will not be disrupted. The classes I was supposed to teach will be covered. And I'm going to arrange that. That shows that I take initiative. It shows that I'm very thoughtful. It shows that I'm proactive, that I'm very responsible, but I still want to recognize that this could cause some inconvenience. So again, she repeats that. Sorry for the inconvenience. I apologize for the inconvenience. Again. Sorry for the inconvenience. It's okay to repeat something. Remember with our last thing, we want to leave a final impression. And what is the impression? I think the clear impression that Thomas would be left with is this is a responsible person. I feel bad that she's sick, but I appreciate that. She appreciates that this could cause me some inconvenience and I feel respected as a result. But then the other important thing to take note of for this email is that there's no back and forth happening. Jing is letting Thomas note this is happening. It's not a choice. Now, we could say take leave instead of requests leave to make that even stronger. But even if it's request leave still, it's a one-way thing. There are no questions because there are no options. Jing is not saying, is that okay? Do you mind if I take a sick leave? Because she has two she has a doctor's note. She's ill. So if you ask a bunch of questions, it mixes the messages. Sometimes the best thing is to clearly state what's going to happen. Then focus on saying it in a way that's easy to accept and that removes concerns, worries, or frustration. Not having any questions makes this seem very final and will reduce the need any back and forth. The next email gene gets from Thomas probably won't be a bunch of questions or concerns. It will probably just say, Jing, take good care of yourself. Make sure you drink lots of fluids and chicken soup. And I will see you next week or I'll see you in a week. Best, Thomas. And that's it. That's all it will say because he has no concerns, he has no worries And he feels good knowing that he has a thoughtful employee who's able to take initiative and be responsible. So that's it for this e-mail. As usual. If you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 44. What is a closing salutation?: At this point in the course, before we go on to talk about some more emails, which we will do, we have a lot more to cover. At this point. I want to stop, pause and talk a little bit about closing an email. Now we have looked at a few different closing salutations or email closings. You could call it a closing. You could call it a salutation, a closing salutation and ending salutation. Most people will just call this a closing. A closing. And the other word is salutation. Salutation could be for the beginning or the end, dear Chuck. Sincerely, both of those would be regarded as a salutation. Now, what are these common closings? We're not going to talk about all possible e-mail closings that would take forever. And it wouldn't be that useful because the most common ones are the ones you really need to know, the ones that people use most often. We're going to talk about those that people use most often and how it feels when we use those. The feeling that we get from using these different ones. So have standard ones, ones that feel more casual, more personal, and ones that are used for specific purposes. This is very quick. We're going to fly through these. 45. Common Salutations: Best and regards, these two are both very standard, extremely common. You can use these informal situations. You can use them in casual situations. You can use them with friends, you can use them with colleagues. These two best and regards are perhaps the most universal. Which means if you don't know what to use, then use one of these two. You can use them in almost every situation. Now adding best regards does make it a little bit more formal. So this is still standards, still very common, but would be more common in a work situation when you're talking to someone, when you're e-mailing someone who you don't know as well. If it's someone in your team, someone you work with on a daily basis, then it's probably too formal. So this one feels slightly more formal. And I don't wanna say just formal. I want to say more formal than these other two. And so you have to just be aware of that. Now what if you're writing an email to a friend? Well, it depends on the relationship. How often do you communicate with this person? Do you talk almost every day or once a week? And that case, maybe not. Maybe it's too formal, but if it's once every few months where you don't have an extremely close relationship and you want to add a slight feeling of formality. Yeah, then it's absolutely okay to use best regards would be great for requests. If you are requesting something, if you need something from somebody, if you want to update someone, if you're sending an email to customer service or if you are Customer Service sending an e-mail to someone else, this would be a great choice as would sincerely. So I would group these two together. Slightly more formal, still extremely common. But for those situations that are a bit less familiar and a bit less casual and relaxed. And then I would group these two together as more universal. These two, I grouped together is very similar and these two are grouped together as very similar. Now, what about thank you. Why would you say thank you? Well, you say thank you. If somebody's doing something for you, if there's a request that's been made and they've done that thing, or they're working on that thing, or you're happy that they are responding to you in some way, something is being done that you appreciate. So you say thank you. Thank you means that saying thank you by itself is slightly more formal than Thanks. So if we want to have the casual feeling, we might use, Thanks. This also gives us a feeling of something quick, a quick reply to something, right? You're responding very quickly with one sentence, often a one sentence or two sentences, email in a back and forth exchange. Thanks, Luke. That would be really common. Thank you. Might be for a slightly longer e-mail. Maybe it's more detailed, and maybe for that one, you want it to feel a bit more sincere. So the quick one gives a feeling of appreciation, but not really a big deal. Not like, Oh, thank you so much. Uh, your efforts are appreciated, whereas thank you. Feels a little closer to that, not that strong still, but a little closer. So maybe more detailed or maybe a slightly stronger feeling of appreciation. Maybe they've done a lot of things for you. Thank you. Instead of thanks, if someone does a lot for you, you're very appreciative and you say thanks. And they might feel slighted by it. But if they do something for you that's difficult and you say Thank you, then they'll feel respected. You can also say Much appreciated, that would be alright, too much appreciated. So the difference between these two is really just in the usage and how it feels when we use either one. And what about thanks in advance? This is for some kind of requests, something we want others to do, something we want others to finish or let us know about. But it is in advance, which means it is before it is done. The thing has not been completed. Sometimes I'll use thanks in advance before I even get confirmation that they're willing to do it. Because maybe they have to do it. They have no choice. I need you to do this, right? Maybe a boss or a manager telling someone they must do this by Friday and then say thanks in advance. It shows appreciation, but gives us a feeling of having no choice. Or maybe someone has already agreed, but it's not done yet. And then you send them more details to update something or make a change. And then you say thanks in advance. You know, they've already agreed to it. That's already been discussed. It's just that it's not completed yet. So it's sort of in process, we could say in process. Now you've probably seen in a lot of emails or letters, yours yours truly. But we're not even going to talk about yours truly because that's so formal and closer to the romantic side of things that it doesn't even really make sense to talk about. But you will see yours a lot in emails. This is absolutely more personal. It would be much less common for someone to use this in a work email unless there's been some sort of huge conflict and you have to explain yourself. And it's a back and forth where you're sharing feelings and talking about what he said and she said and this whole thing. And there are emotions involved. Then at the end you might say yours, it feels more personal, the content is more personal. But for an email that's a request or some quick back and forth, we're trying to get work done saying yours might not be the best option. At least it would be less, much less common for those sorts of situations. Typically, when we use this, it just feels more personal. That's not to say you will never see it. In other situations. I'm just trying to give you a sense that for the everyday back and forth requests and instructions and recaps and, and things like that. It is less common. Less common. Now what about something like the missing package, the customer service situation, the package has been lost and that's very inconvenient and the customer doesn't like that. And I'm explaining to them as the customer service person, then what we're going to do to make it better, then can I do yours? Yeah. But that does feel a little bit more personal. Right. We appreciate you and your business and we're apologizing and we're explaining what happened. So yes, for customer service, you might see yours a little bit more often than you would for the regular back and forth e-mail exchanges in the workplace or between a client or something like that. Now how about the last two? Cheers and respectfully. So cheers is very casual often this is for personal emails. I had a professor in college who always used to use cheers at the end of his emails. And that gave a very personal casual feeling to those e-mails. He would update everybody in the class about maybe having a lecture somewhere else or having an event on the weekend and then would say cheers, Hank. And that made him seem more personal and made the students feel like they had a more casual relationship with Hank. That's the kind of feeling he wanted to create. So you have to think about that if you want people to feel more connected to you in a more personal way, yeah, maybe it makes sense for you to use yours more often because that's the feeling it has. Maybe with your clients, maybe with your colleagues. You want to use yours because you want them to feel more personally connected with you. It's the same with cheers, except cheers is more casual. Cheers is quite casual, often between friends in fact. So I always thought it was cool that my college professor would sign his emails close as emails with cheers. I always thought that was really cool. It made me feel more like friends with that professor. So if you want to create that feeling, maybe cheers would be a good choice. But if you're trying to create a more serious, formal or neutral tone, then maybe that's not the best choice. Maybe you would go with one of these up here. What about respectfully? Respectfully, sometimes respectfully yours. Sometimes you'll see these two together. Respectfully. Yours, respectfully would be quite formal, quite serious. It gives people the impression usually that you are quite serious. And the matter that we're talking about are discussing or going back and forth about. Also quite serious, joking around here. This is business. This is something we really need to focus on. I'm not making jokes. You're not making jokes. We need to deal with this or I have a request and I really need you to do this, but I know that you're very busy. You might not have a lot of time. So I feel very grateful that you're doing this and I want to show my respect because you're a very serious person and you have a lot of things to do and for you to spend time on this thing that I need you to do for me is really great. So I want to show you my respect. So I say respectfully. And so that's the feeling It has. It's not jokey, it's not fun, it's not casual in the same way that shears is. So those are the common closings or closing salutations. However you want to say it, you can use them. Just be aware of the kind of feeling people get when they see them. And also be aware that people do use these in different ways and that there are trends. These might change in the way that they feel over time as some become more popular or less common, these things change over time. So my advice would be to pay attention to how these are used when you're reading emails that you get whenever you see an email, pay attention to which closing is used, and then choose the ones for yourself. Reflect the tone that you want to create for this e-mail. For each email that you feel fits you, your style of communication, what you want to get across that match the tone you're trying to create. And if you feel comfortable with it and you feel it matches how you want to express yourself, then it's probably the right choice. But think about it for each e-mail. Don't always use the same one. No matter what. Think about it. Think about your intention for each e-mail and choose it accordingly. All right. Let's go on to our next email. 46. Scenario | Work Completed Update: In this lesson, we're going to look at one more FYI Or heads up type e-mail. This is where we want to let somebody know something. We're trying to communicate information clearly, effectively, but it's more one way. In the next section, we're going to be talking about are focusing on something else. We'll be focusing on confirmations. So that's a bit different. We'll be getting into that in the next section. So for this e-mail, Let's go through our scenario. We're going to be talking about a work completed update. And update is to give someone information that they don't know yet. This is a common work thing. Or if you're working on a project with someone, have any kind of thing that you're doing with others, one person may need to tell another person what they're doing. This is usually called an update. Basically it's new information, new information. And it's usually very important that this sort of e-mail is written succinctly or concisely without wasting words. Because usually other people or you're doing something with, they have a lot of other things to pay attention to. They just want to see quickly. Okay. This is new, new, new, new, new done. I understand. And then move on and do the thing that I was doing. So usually we want to be as concise as possible. Let's read through the scenario, then. Take a look at the email. Kelly wants to make sure the head developer on her team knows what she has been working on. Would be the that would be the update, wouldn't it? What have you been doing? What she's been working on? Just in case it affects his work. So she doesn't know for sure whether it does. So she wants to let him know what she's been doing in case something she's been doing has some impact on what he is doing or what he might choose to do. Oh, thanks for that update. Now that I know you're done with that, I can do this thing, whatever that may be. So she's not sure, but she wants to give him an update just in case just in case it affects his work. Ahmed and Kelly or unfriendly terms work on different aspects of the project. So they're on a project, they're not working together so closely that they know exactly what the other person is doing because they're working together every day. So the updates are really important because we're working on different aspects of the project you're working over there. I'm working over here. Well, it's important for you to know what I'm doing just in case it affects your work. Now that we understand the situation, the scenario, Let's look at Kelly's email. 47. Part 1 | Broad Context: Let's look at Kelly's email to Ahmed. Ahmed. I hope everything went smoothly today. I'm working remotely today and tomorrow. So that's why you haven't seen me whether it affects the dev schedule or not. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up on what we've been doing this week. Okay. So what is she trying to do? Well, what do we usually talk about here? We usually start with this, but now we know what it means for someone to just say a first-name. They are on a first-name basis. They know each other well enough to do this. So on that is okay, could be hello Ahmed or Hey Ahmed. To make it sound a little bit more casual, all of those would be okay. I hope everything went smoothly today. We've talked about how to begin with, I hope a very common way to begin a, a positive greeting, very positive. I hope you had a nice vacation, this sort of positive thing, but you can make it more specific if you know something more specific. So if you don't know something specific, then you can always say, I hope you had a great week because everyone had a week, everyone had a weekend. You can use something very general, that's fine. But I happen to know that he's working on something on it. I know a little bit about what he's doing now. I may not know every little detail so I can keep it general enough. Everything went smoothly is still pretty broad, right? But at least it's more specific than I hope you had a great week. I want to let him know that I know a little bit about what he's doing kind of maybe, and also say something positive. It's a very good way to start, a very good way to set the tone. Set the tone for any e-mail. I use this one a lot. Then I give a little bit of context about my situation before I get into the thing I want to say, I'm working remotely today and tomorrow. So that's why you haven't seen me. You could add in case you were wondering, which is a pretty common phrase, but here I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe normally Ahmed would expect to see Kelly, right? Because they work together generally, maybe not on the same aspect of the project, but they see each other. So she might want to explain why he hasn't seen her. Well, She's been working remotely. That means perhaps working from home or maybe she's traveling somewhere and she needs to work from wherever she is. Okay. So this greeting accomplishes its task of providing a bit of background situation, context, and also sets a very friendly tone. Now we get a bit more specific and say the actual purpose of the email itself. This is where we say the purpose, whether it affects the dev schedule or not. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up on what we've been doing this week. We already know quick heads up is a way to talk about Update. It's a way to tell someone, Hey, FYI, I want to tell you this thing. It's usually very informal in the workplace setting, or informal, even among friends. If I need to tell you something, I need you to know something. Hey, just a quick heads up or heads up. You need to know this. We've already talked about how to use heads up. Let's focus on this first part here. Whether it affects the devs schedule or not, whether you've finished or not, whether whether it snows or not, whether I go or not, whether the deal goes through or not. And then after that, you say something that will be true whether it is or not. So it's a really useful tool. It's a really useful phrase to talk about things because we're saying, I don't know what the outcome will be. I don't know what is in fact true. You don't have to tell me. It's okay. We don't need to do a back and forth where you first answer a question and then I tell you something. This is a common theme throughout this course, isn't it? We're trying to reduce the need for a back and forth. If I give Ahmed the impression that first I need to know if this affects your schedule and then he answers, yes, it affects my schedule and then I give an update. Well, we've just gone back and forth without needing to do that. And that's not very efficient. One of the main ideas that's running throughout this course is we're trying to be thoughtful about this stuff. We're trying to think about how we can reduce the need for a back and forth. And using a Whether or not is a very powerful way to do that. Because when you use that, whether or not what you're really saying is, I'm not quite sure about this. However, in case this is useful for you, I want to provide something. I want to give you something. If it's not useful for you, then you can just disregard it. Just ignore it and that's fine. But if it is, then you might want to use that. You might want to accept it, you might want to do something with it. But I'm able to do that without us having a back and forth and sure. Emailing back and forth, that might be fun, I guess. But isn't it better to be more effective to work a little bit more efficiently and think about this kind of stuff when you're writing an email. So think about when you can use whether it's something or not, whether you've finished or not, whether the something or not, then you just say what you want to say. So whether it affects the dev schedule or not, comma, I just wanted to now notice that this is just wanted to, not I want to, or I'm going to if I say I want to, or especially I'm going to, this has the correct meaning, but what is the tone, what is the feeling you get, whether it affects the deaf schedule or not? I'm going to give you a quick heads up. Yeah. It sounds a little bit like you're throwing it in my face. It sounds a little bit like you're attacking me with the details. That's what it feels like. Instead, when we use this slightly more relaxed language, I, and especially just, just really softens it then the past tense of the verb, the past tense of the verb. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up. Doesn't that sound much more relaxed and comfortable than saying, I'm going to give you a heads up. I will give you a heads up. Now. I will give you a heads up. Oh, Okay. Okay. But relax. It's not that important, right? So just is a great tool then you do wanted or you use the past tense. We often use the past tense. I was just wondering if you'd like to grab a coffee. That's a lot better than saying, I want to take you to get a coffee. Wu I was just wondering, so much more relaxing, so much more comfortable. Okay. And then on what I've been doing this week, I've been is up to the present. So maybe I was just working on that before the email and earlier and previously this week, maybe Monday and Tuesday and today's Wednesday. Up until now, basically, I've been you've been she's been that means up until now, up until the present. And it could also be something like recently up until the present. Alright, let's look at the other part of this email. 48. Part 2 | Update Breakdown: Continuing with Kelly's work update email to Ahmed. Here we go. The dashboard colon. This tells me that a list is coming. Very good. Then a hyphen mind-map FOR loop lab dashboard due April 16th, Thursday. The next hyphen style guide for all screens done. The next one, initial wireframes for phase one due April 18th, Friday. Okay, then it goes down. New section, overall platform research, another colon, another list, very good. Hyphen interviews completed. Colon. Another list, Steve, Nick, and summer. Then another item on our list, working on building our three persona's with Lydia. Okay. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything I can do to support your team. Thank you so much for your time. I'll see you in the office next week. Best. Kelly. Okay. So what's going on here? Well, we're using two different lists. Why two different lists? Well, maybe there are two different categories. If there are two different categories, wouldn't it be a little confusing if they were in the same list? Remember the marketing team e-mail, we separate things by project, okay, well here we're separating things in a slightly different way by category. You decide what is the most relevant way to separate things, to categorize things, to organize things. The key to remember is once you make rules, don't break them. Don't do two projects and then for the third one, do something completely different. Now I feel confused. So make little rules for yourself within each email and then things will make more sense. They'll seem to flow. So I know that these are two general, broad categories that Ahmed will know. He knows what the dashboard is and he knows what overall platform researches. These are two things that are going on that might be related to his work, that might impact his work, that might be relevant to him. Okay. So Kelly has decided to organize things in that way and that makes sense. But she's also clearly set some rules for herself here. She's decided to use hyphens for her list for each item. Fine. But she doesn't change it. She doesn't use a bullet and then a hyphen or something like that. If she used bullet points instead, that would be totally fine. She's also decided to put some things in parentheses. You can see here she's put due dates with both the date because we know what year it is with both the date, the month and the day, and the day of the week. That might make things clear because not everyone knows maybe what 416 is. Oh, it's Thursday, but some people have to go look that up because they don't remember which day of the week that is. So it can be helpful to put also the day of the week. This can be a good way to do it, but certainly not the only way. Remember, you can create rules. You can create your own format. But the key thing is, once you've established or set your rules, set your format, don't break your rules. So she sticks with it throughout. This one is exactly the same as this one. But if it's something that doesn't have a date, that is a status, then she can put done and that still makes sense. The due date there isn't really relevant because it's done, it's finished. So we don't need to have a date. It's completed already. And for this one down here in parentheses, it might help to just say, by the way, and put with Lydia to say the team member to add a little bit more information. But generally speaking, both of these follow rules. Now let's look at this one. Interviews completed colon, Steve, Nick, and summer. So this tells me this is one item on the list, but it tells me in a very simple and clear way, who has been interviewed. What would be the other way to do that? Well, you could say Steve, Nick, and summer interviewed. Okay. That tells me in the past tense, but just to make it really clear, I want to use the word completed. So I'll say interviews completed and then have a colon. I use a colon when I want to make a kind of list. Can you have a list within a list? Well, yes. If it's something like this, if it's a couple of items, 123 and it looks like that, then it should be okay. It's not confusing if it's too long or you need to make a list with many bullet points, that would probably become confusing. Now that's a little different. If you have an outline and there are examples within examples, then you might have lists within lists. But generally speaking, for a list in an e-mail, we don't want things to become too complicated. We don't want things to become visually complicated or difficult to look at, difficult to understand. So something like this would be okay, but probably not more. Now notice that these are not focused on making complete sentences. Mind-map for the loop lab dashboard. That's not a sentence. That's just a thing. Style guide for all screens. That's just a thing. Initial wireframes for phase one. That's just a thing because Ahmed knows what these things are. So you don't need to say things. You don't need to say. Don't add too much, don't worry about making full sentences. I've mentioned this before, especially in lists. You usually do not need to make full sentences. Now this one does sound a little more like a sentence working on building our three personas, but it's okay for lists, you typically do not need to make complete sentences. Now just one quick phrase to point out working on. And then an I-N-G verb. Working on doing this, working on building that, working on creating something. Or if it's not an I-N-G verb than some noun. Working on our final draft of working on this, working on that. Working on means it's ongoing. It's happening now. It's pending. It's in the process. It's ongoing. And it gives us a feeling of movement. We can tell now that Kelly is actually actively doing this. Maybe she was working on it today. So working on is very useful when you want to communicate What's happening, What's going on with you right now, what is not completed yet? What is in the middle? Then if you want to help that person, you might reach out based on this, Hey, I see that you're working on the three personas. Do you need any help with that? That would be a reason maybe for Ahmed to get involved to reply and ask if he can help. But now put yourself in Ahmed shoes. He's just received this e-mail from Kelly. Okay. And he's read it, he understands it. But there really isn't much for him to say other than thank you for the update. Thank you for that update. It doesn't have anything to add. He doesn't need anything from her. He's glad to have the update because some things might be related to his work. But what really can you say other than thank you. I got it or I understand. Thank you very much. Well, not much else. But maybe Kelly also knows that and wants to provide a little bit more to make sure that Ahmed knows that she is willing to help with other things, that they can have a conversation if he needs more details, that if he needs some help in some area, she is willing to help if she can, maybe she has a little extra time. Maybe she has some bandwidth. Sometimes you hear people say bandwidth when they have a little extra time to do other things. If someone is really busy, they say I have no bandwidth right now, no bandwidth. I have some bandwidth. I think I can help with that. So please let me know if you have any questions, okay? Maybe not, maybe yes. Or if there's anything I can do to support your team. So I'm reaching out to let you know that I'm willing to help even if he doesn't want any more help. At least now he has a little bit more to respond to. He could now say, thank you so much for the update. Right now, we don't need any extra support, but I think next week I might reach out to you to ask for support on the dashboard design or something like that. You might have a little bit more to say. So it can be useful to add something like this when you have these one-way emails, these things that are really just thrown over to the other person to give them a sense of how you feel about this, or your willingness to support, or that you're a team player. And then at least to have a bit more to grab onto, a bit more to respond to, then just to give a good impression at the end of friendly impression. Thank you so much for your time taking the time to read the update. I'll see you in the office next week. This tells Ahmed that Kelly is not going to be working remotely. Next week, she will be coming into the office. So now he knows if he has any questions for her. He can ask her face to face if he wants to. So there are different ways to respond to this. A simple thank you. A simple. Okay. I got it. I appreciated something like that. Or he might address this and say, Well, I can talk to you next week. We might need help with this, but I'll talk to you about that when I see you in the office, he has a bit more to grab onto there. Okay. So that is it for this e-mail. Let's now do our recap. 49. Recap | Work Completed Update: Let's do a recap of Kelly's email to Ahmed right at the beginning. She sets up a friendly tone in her greeting with an I hope, and I hope, I hope is a great way to begin. And then recognizing something that Ahmed might have noticed, She's not in the office. So he might have been wondering where is she, why haven't I seen her, what's going on? Maybe he didn't wonder. Maybe he did, whether he did or not, she wants to mention it. This starts the e-mail with a conversational tone, something that you would see between colleagues. She's also just using his name because they're on a first-name basis. So it's got a it's got a conversational tone. Then she uses whether it affects the dev schedule or not. And why does she do that? Because she doesn't know whether it does or not. But just in case it does fee updates, the things that she's been working on. She wants to tell Ahmed what's going on. This again allows her to send this one way thing without it being awkward and to reduce any back and forths. Because if it's not needed, if it's useless, he can just say, Okay, thank you. Or if it's useful, then he can take the things, the updates, and maybe changed his plans or do something differently. That way the need for the back and forth is reduced. Also, she's just she's just passing along information we use just to say I'm giving it to you. If you need it, you need it. Okay. And this gives Ahmed the feeling that he's getting this and that no action is needed on his part. He doesn't have to take any actions. She's not asking him any questions. No action is necessary. This is an FYI this is a notice. I'm telling you things and you can ignore it if you want to ignore it depending on how useful these updates are to you. Also remember when she said Just wanted to give you a heads up. She's using the past tense. Just wanted to give you a heads up to be a little less direct. Sound, softer, more natural, more conversational because it's less direct because it's the past tense. Then when she gives her updates, she follows the rules she has set for herself. That doesn't mean you need to sit down and write a bunch of rules, but you have rules in your head. I'm going to use this type of checklist. I'm going to separate things by broad categories. I have two broad categories. I'm going to talk about the dashboard. I'm going to talk about the overall platform research. I have two broad categories. I'm going to talk about the dashboard. I'm going to talk about the overall platform research, whatever that means. And then below each of these, I'm going to use a specific style of list. I'm going to use a list with hyphens. And when I need to give a date or say something more specific, I'm going to put that in parentheses. The date with the day of the week or the status like done, or some relevant detail like with some colleague. Okay. That's the rule. I'm going to follow it and that's going to be very clear and nobody's going to misunderstand it. And for those lists, I'm going to avoid using full sentences because I don't need to. Lists don't need to have full sentences. They are items, not sentences. Then Kelly ends with a positive conversational tone, and she lets Ahmed know that if he needs any support, she is willing to help, which has that positive tone, but also gives him something to respond to if he feels like he wants to respond to the email. Now he has a little bit more that he can work with. A little bit more than he can say he has some more material that he can use to respond. Oh, yes. Can't wait to see you next week. I can't wait to talk about this, this and that. So even though it's a one-way update, now he has a little bit more to respond to because she's added this at the end. If he wants to. Although he doesn't have to, because it is an FYI. It is just an update. So that is it for this email. And this is also the end of this section where we've been learning how to provide information, how to give updates, how to give FYI eyes and announcements. In the next section, we're going to be talking about emails for confirmation, also very important. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 50. Scenario | Confirming Order Details: In this section of the course, we're going to be looking at some emails for confirming information. In the last section, we were talking about informing someone, announcements and FYI. But when we need to confirm things, it may be even more important to make sure that things are clear, to make sure that there's no misunderstanding. Why? Because we're asking for someone to respond to say something back to tell us. Yes, that's correct. Or perhaps that's not quite correct. Actually, it's this way to confirm time. Lot of different ways that we can confirm things and we're going to spend some time on that. But again, very, very important to be clear for an e-mail to confirm something. It may be even more important to make absolutely sure that this is clear that there can be no misunderstandings because the other person who receives it then needs to take an action. They need to respond. They need to say yes, that's correct or that's not quite correct. Actually, it's like this or like that or that's the right time or that's not quite the right time, or I need to change the time. We're getting some feedback when we confirm things. Being clear is absolutely important. Now for our first email, we're going to look at confirming details. As usual, this is going to be a specific scenario, but also as usual, of course, you can use what we talk about in a lot of different scenarios, a lot of different situations as well, especially when you need to confirm details, okay, So let's quickly read through the scenario, make sure it's very clear before we look at the email itself, Neal, a specialist at a company that makes Canvas banners. Canvas is the material. It's a type of cloth or fabric. And then a banner is usually something long that says something, assign some information, a big phone number and Announcement, something like that. Okay. Neal, a specialist at a company that makes Canvas banners, is emailing a customer during the busy season about a custom order. What is a custom order? This is when there's something unique, something that this company is doing specifically for this customer, that they are not doing for others. So for a custom order, if it's going to cost you more and it's going to take more of my time as specialists time. We need to make sure it's correct. I need to confirm this because if I don't, it could waste a lot of time and money. Any slight mistake could result in huge delays that affect the whole business and also affect the customer. They won't be happy. Neil needs to confirm certain details of the order and explain why he needs to do so. So not just confirmed, but explained the reason why. Well, we'll talk about that, but especially so that the customer feels eager to confirm things. Yes, that's correct. Not that that's not quite right. That's not quite what I want. That is correct. That is not quite correct. Please change this number, please change this detail, this quantity, that sort of thing to have the reason explain very clearly can make the other person feel the customer feel I want to respond right away because I know that that benefits me if I respond quickly. Okay, so this is the scenario. Let's now look at the e-mail. 51. Part 1 | Setting Expectations: Here is Niels email to Roland to confirm the details of a custom order. Now note the tone. Pay attention to the tone. We're going to be looking at a couple of phrases for connecting things together and explaining reasons. And we'll be looking at how Neil frames the request for the confirmation. Not that I need something from you and you have to give it to me, but in fact that I'm doing something for you. And by you giving this to me, I'm able to do something for you which is a different framing then please give this to me. That feels like you're taking something, but it doesn't have to feel like that. And we'll look at how Neil does that. So here we go, starting with deer Roland. Note, this is a formal tone. Well, that makes sense, right? Because Roland is a customer and perhaps Neil and roiling don't have a very close relationship. They haven't been talking with each other very often. Maybe this is only their second time corresponding. So it would make sense to say, dear Royal, and it gives it a formal tone. If you said high Royal, and if you said, Hey Roland, maybe not hey Royal, and that might be too casual, hi Rowland or roiling. That would also be okay. It would give it a friendlier feeling a bit less formal. Okay. Thank you for your prompt reply. As you know, the turnaround time on banners is somewhat slower throughout June and July given that it is graduation season. That said, we want to make sure you get everything you need in time for your event to that end, our printing and materials department has asked me to confirm a few of your order details just in case anything may have changed since our conversation on the phone. And because it's a custom order, we want you to be completely satisfied with what you're getting now, could kneel, send an e-mail That's a lot simpler. That just says, hi Rowland, could you please confirm a few details about your order than say the things? The details then. Thanks a lot. I appreciate your time, Neil. Yes, absolutely. In fact, next, we're going to be looking at a quick and simple confirmation email so you can see what that looks like. But why have a little bit more here? Why does Neil feel that he needs to explain a little bit more than he needs to give a reason. Well, I think if we talk through it, it will make it will make sense. Okay. So thank you for your prompt reply. This is a signal. What is this signaling? This is telling Roland that the faster you respond to me, the faster I'm responding to you, I'm getting back to you pretty quickly because you got back to me pretty quickly. So I know that you already know that, but I'm kind of telling you that I appreciate that because I have a lot of things I have to take care of. I want to help you, but the faster you are, the faster I can be. So this is something that's important. And if you want good service, you're part of the equation. And you being part of the equation means confirming things accurately. And it also means prompt replies. Prompt is also a bit more formal sounding if you wanted to use quick. Thank you for your quick reply, that would be okay. I think prompt sounds better here because we're already setting a formal tone. So this sets a formal tone. It signals a, hey, it's good if you e-mail back quickly and it's just polite because they don't know each other well, saying thank you for something that you appreciate is usually a good thing. As you know, the turnaround time on banners is somewhat slower. As you know. Now, be careful with this one, this, I know Royal and nose because I'm the one who told him this. Maybe I told him this on the phone before or someone else told him on the phone. He saw that on his order form. It's clearly written there, something like that. I know he knows. You don't want to just say as you know, because if you make an assumption about something, somebody knows, you think they know that you could be wrong. And if they don't know that, they could feel somewhat insulted. So in this case, probably Neil talk to roiling on the phone and told him this and this is just a reminder. And it's also going to be part of the basis for the reason that he gives Roland to confirm these details, to make sure that you're willing to do this, to make sure that you confirm the details accurately and hopefully that you do it relatively quickly so that your order is not delayed because it's the busy season. This is a way to suggest by referencing something I told you before, to suggest that you really work with me. Help me help you, as they say. And this is a way to do it very politely using an, as you know, but again, be careful, make sure it's something they actually do know, something you've already told them before. You're sure that they know about, as you know, the turnaround time on banners is somewhat slower throughout June and July. Okay. Well, why is that? Well, I've already told you this you already know this turnaround time is how long it takes to actually finish something, complete something. That's an H to finish something, to complete something to ship and order, something like that. Any sort of project we can say there's a turnaround, turnaround time. Turnaround time on a course for me is like eight months. Wait too long. It's way too long. Somewhat slower throughout June and July, given that it is graduation season. Okay. I've probably explain this to you, but I am reinforcing it. I'm restating it. I'm explaining this so that you feel Oh, that's reasonable. I should really rush. I'm trying to give you a sense of urgency to say that if you're too late to say that if you delay four or five days before you confirm this, other things are going to come in and it's going to slow us down. And your order might be late and you might blame us, but it might be partially your fault because you didn't respond quickly and accurately. But I'm not going to say that. I can't say that there'll be very rude. What I can do is suggest this as a basis for the reason that you should work with me on this, that you should respond quickly and accurately. I'm trying to use suggestion here. Now we also have, given that this simply means, and it is a slightly more, once again, I'll make an arrow pointing toward this, a slightly more formal way to express. Because, right? Or when you consider or something like that, It's sort of like because because of graduation season, given that it is graduation season, you're stating the fact and connecting it by cars, right? There's a cause for this slower turnaround time. Well, graduation season. That said also a very useful phrase here that said, we want to make sure you get everything you need in time for your event. This is all building up this background information to let you know that timeliness and accuracy is very important. And I'm not trying to annoy you by asking you to confirm this. I'm trying to be responsible. I'm trying to help you. Because of this situation with graduation season, a lot of people are getting banners for a graduation party. For example, in the United States, almost every party for a newly graduated student will have a big banner that says, congratulations Kyle or class of 2097 or whatever it says. Big banner often. Okay. So that makes sense. Now It's totally reasonable. I say this and when I say it, hopefully roiling when he sees it goes Yes, that makes sense and feels that sense of urgency without feeling disrespected, without feeling pushed too much, but still pushed a little bit. I'd better I'd better do this, right? That said, that said is very similar to but, or however, the function is pretty similar to. But. So I said something that would slow things down. Something that drags the process, something that makes everything slower. But but even though that's happening, even though that's going on, and I could use even though as well, even though we're very busy, even though there are all these orders coming in because it's the busy season, even though all of that is going on, I need to make sure that you get your order in time for your event. Because that's important to us as a company. That's very important. And I'm committed to making sure that that happens. So I'm showing that I understand you, but I understand that what you think is important, is important, that your deadline is important, that you chose us. And that's something that I'm happy about and we as a company are happy about. So you should feel pretty good about that. Knowing that I want you to be happy with your order and I want it to be on time. All of this is building that up. So now that you have that background and you feel that this person is really committed to helping me. They really want to help. Now, I make the request to that end. To that end, our printing and materials department has asked me a couple of things going on here too. That and to that end, this is sort of like in order in order to make sure that happens. Kind of like that. That's an a in order to make sure that happens. What is that? What is the thing that's going to happen? That is this. We want to make sure you get everything you need in time 0, That's the thing. So to make sure that you get everything on time, now I need your assistance. So I've framed my request. So now you can receive it and you feel pushed to action. Okay. So in order to help me do that is another way to say that in order to make sure that happens, in order to help me do that. So that we can make sure that happens or two that n, which is shorter, sounds. Once again, I'll make an arrow to formal sounds, somewhat formal, still very clear. Be careful when you use this. Only use it in formal settings, somewhat formal settings. It is not usually used for a casual email. To that end, our printing and materials department has asked me to confirm a few of your order details. Now, I'm not saying that I need this. So it's less personal. I need this. You need to tell me because I'm curious. No. No. If I say that our materials and printing department or rather our printing and materials department has asked me, now I'm kind of in the middle, but it also tells you something interesting. By referring to the other department. It tells you that something is in process, something is moving, there's something happening with your order. They're working on it. So that also gives you that sense of urgency. If I just say Can you please tell me this and I don't explain it. I just say I want to know. Well, why do you want to know then? Yes, I will tell you, but I might not have that sense of urgency knowing that someone is working on it in another department. But they've had to pause because I'm now holding up the process definitely gives them that sense of urgency, that push. They're going to picture a person in a room trying to complete something and then thinking, I can't do this because I need more information. Now that's a little bit exaggerated. But if you can create that picture for someone so that they see that little movie in their head of that person pausing on the orders line because they don't have the information that only you have that I need to confirm it so that they can continue. Then you're going to find you have a lot of power to push people to do things. This is not only useful for this sort of customer service situation. You can use this in many situations when you want to encourage someone to move a bit more quickly, to have a bit more urgency to respond to you because they know that they're the only thing holding up the process. And it doesn't make you sound rude. It's sort of just like explaining the situation. This is what's going on. Oh, okay. I'd better respond. Okay. Just in case anything may have changed since our last conversation on the phone. So I'm referencing that just in case it may be true, it may not be true. But this also tells you this just in case tells you, well, this is a very responsible person, Neil, because he wants to make sure that there are absolutely no issues because he knows that if something is not quite right and the order needs to be redone, then that's inconvenient for the company making this, but also it might cause another delay during a busy season. There's a pressure here because if there's a mistake, then it's going to fall back. It's not going to be done on time because we also have all of these graduation banners to complete. So I want to make sure it's absolutely accurate that there are absolutely no mistakes. And to have someone like Neal to confirm this, even though it's probably correct, shows me that this company really respects me. They really respect my time, and they want to make sure that they meet my needs, which is to get it right the first time. So don't be afraid to confirm things. It's always a good idea to confirm things. Just in case something changed. Maybe one person didn't get an update, something did change, but someone didn't hear about it. It happens all the time, right? So why not confirm things just in case. I often use this phrase when I want to do just that. Say just in case I missed something. Just in case. I didn't understand this correctly. Just in case. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. Just in case, very useful phrase. We use it as a sort of maybe or a kind of if, if, because it is possible if there has been a mistake, if something is wrong, I want to make sure that all bases are covered and because it's a custom order. So this is another reminder that this is not a standard thing. We're not just completing this. What you've selected. It's different from the norm. You've changed a few things. I'm reminding you here that this is a kind of special case. So for that reason, we need to give you a bit more attention because the risk is a little higher. The risk of making a mistake is higher when things are custom, usually. And then finally, just to give roiling this feeling of hey, this company really wants to get this right. They really care about making sure, I'm happy this guy, Neil's very responsible. He's really considered and thoughtful. We want you to be completely satisfied with what you're getting. Now you might say, does that sentence really have a function? Does that really accomplish anything in the way that the other sentences and phrases we talked about have. Maybe, maybe not, but why not give them that good feeling, that assurance, especially for customer service, as long as it doesn't take up too much space. If you spend three or four sentences talking about, oh, we really want to make sure you're happy and we hope that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay? Yes, maybe too much. One simple sentence for assurance is often a good idea, especially when you want this formal, this formal tone, and especially when it comes to customers and clients. Okay, so that's the first part. Let's now look at the second part of this email. 52. Confirmation and CTA: Continuing with Niels email to Royal, and now we get to the conformation itself. Customer order details, colon. And now here there's a space. You could have the space, Maybe not have the space. If you wanted to make this bold font, you could do that too sometimes that makes it stand out. Be aware of using bold too much. If you use bold too much, it starts to lose its function. There are too many things to focus on which one is supposed to stand out. The bold thing is the thing that's supposed to stand out. So one, maybe two things in an e-mail, just be very careful using bolt. You might use that, maybe not here, okay, Then we have the list. Of course we could do it as hyphens, we could do it as bullet points, we could do it as no bullet points because each thing only takes up one line. Now I would strongly recommend using bullet points. If these are a bit long, if there are any longer than this and they might take up two lines, especially if someone is looking at it on their phone, then it makes sense to use a bulleted list because that will still make it quite clear if it looks like this and there are no bullet points. And one thing goes down to the next line because someone is looking at it on their phone, then they might get confused. Have it says material colon low gloss, and then the next line says Canvas. Is that another item or is that part of the first one? I'm a little confused. So to play it safe, maybe use bullets that you can use hyphens or dashes. And if you're pretty sure that it's not going to go to the next line. Fists not going to be pushed the next line then. Okay. Just keep it like this. All right. So this is not so important actually. I mean, it's important for their back and forth, but not for our purposes of understanding. These are more just details related to the order, details related to printing banners that we don't really need to understand, right? We certainly don't. Material low gloss Canvas, durable, size 240 inches by 720 inches. That's what that means. Inches. Hardware, hemes and grommets. What our hems and grommets don't worry about it. That's related to banners. We're not talking about banners. It doesn't matter. I wish I didn't know that. You don't need to know quantity 3, font, Roboto. Ooh, that's a good font. Love Roboto. What's your favorite font? Let me know. Roboto is one of my favorite fonts, but this is not in Roboto. Do you know what it is? If you can guess, I'll give you a million imaginary loop points. Please let me know if the above specifications are correct so that we can start printing and get your materials to you well, in advance. I would appreciate it if you could get back to me by the end of today, if possible. Best wishes. Neil bloop, banners specialist. At this they bloom. It's not easy to come up with fake company names. It's really not. It's a lot of hard work. Believe it or not, bloom. I think that might be my favorite ones so far. And I work at bloop. All right, so what is going on here for this part? We've already talked about it. We want it to be very clear. We don't want to use full sentences. We may want to use bullet points. We have to just make sure it cannot be misunderstood. So this is where it is crucial, very important that it be simple, simple, clear, simple, clear sentences, not necessary. Lists. Absolutely. If you make this into a sentence with about three of them or something like that, no, no quantity three. Keep it as simple as you can. Very important. Other than that, we don't need to spend much more time on this because we've already talked quite a bit about making lists and how to make those clear. Lists are often part of clearly written e-mails, especially when it comes to requests, especially when you want to inform someone or confirm something. Very, very useful. But since we've already talked about bulleted lists, we don't need to spend much more time talking about this part, which is kind of ironic because this is really the conformation itself. And in the next one, as I said, we're going to talk about a simpler way to confirm details. Okay. Then we reiterate or repeat the request. Very important because we said it earlier, but not in a very simple way. So let's just make sure at the end we state clearly what we need. This is the call to action. This is the C, T, a, a confirmation must have a CTA, must have a. Call to Action, because you're confirming something you need to let the other person know what they need to do next. Don't assume the other person will know what to do when they see your e-mail. If you don't have a call to action, never assume that because other people do not live inside of your head. I always tell myself this when I write emails, they don't live in my head. So I have to make it extra clear. So let's state the call to action. Please let me know if the above specifications are correct. That is the call to action. That's where it is. Now. You could make it even simpler. You could say something like R. These specs, ESP, EECS. All correct. Or the specs all correct. Specs is short for specifications, which means the details of something. When you go onto a website to buy something, you look at the specs. What are the details of that? What does it include? So we say specifications or specs. This would feel a little more casual, not so formal. This one is a bit more formal because this is a slightly more formal sounding e-mail. But then, but then we want to reinforce this. So we've repeated the call to action, the thing that we said we needed earlier, very simply. Then once again, we reinforce it with the reason why Why you could stop it right there. You could just say please let me know if the above specifications are correct, then stop right there. Done, finished, call to action. That's it. But this is a slightly more formal sounding e-mail. I want to make sure everything is clear. Maybe I've guessed that this guy that I'm talking with, he doesn't he doesn't always read things carefully. So I want to make sure that it's really, really clear why. So that, so that is our common phrase as we've talked about for y to explain reasons. So that now you could say in order to, I think so that works here. It's pretty simple. We can start printing. Now you know where we are in the process, we are ready to print. It is in a pending state. We are right at the edge of the printing stage. Maybe there are five stages in this whole process. I don't know how many stages there are, but we've done step 1 and step 2, we're ready to do step three, the printing part. But you need to then tell us something so that we can. Then you say the stage. This again suggests that feeling of pushing a little bit of giving a bit of urgency without being rude. We're ready to do this. We're ready to complete your order. Now we need you to do something so that we can start printing and get your materials to you well in advance. What does well in advanced mean? This doesn't just mean on time. This doesn't just mean by the date. This means with plenty of room to spare. Room to spare. Why would we want to have room to spare? Well, if you know that your order might be late or it's very close to the deadline. You ordered something that you need for an event and you're not sure if it's going to arrive on time or maybe it's going to arrive one day in advance. That's a little bit scary. It causes stress. And in the back of your mind, you're thinking, is this going to be here? And when it does arrive, I have to put it up very quickly. Am I going to have time to do that? This is not a good feeling, right? So I want to make sure I'm Neil. I want to make sure you get this very quickly. I want to make sure you get it promptly. So if you respond to me quickly, we can get that taken care of. And the reward will be what? Well, well in advance, not just in advance, not just two days before, a week before, two weeks before. The faster I can confirm these details, the faster I can confirm this order, the faster we can print this order, the faster we can send it to you, the faster you're going to get it. So you have a strong incentive, incentive to work with me promptly, and I'm about to in fact give you a bit of a deadline now that I've explained myself a little bit, now that I've given you this incentive or reason to work with me, a thing that you can get a little reward. What's another word for incentive or reward? Getting it very early, which means avoiding stress, which is a reward for you, which means you're happier, then I'm going to make a request. I would appreciate it if you could get back to me by the end of today. So I'm telling you that this is actually quite urgent. I'm telling you without telling you, that if you don't get back to me today, then this could be delayed that you're competing with a lot of other people trying to get their orders in and I'm making space for you. I'm really trying to get this order in. I'm trying to get it printed. I'm trying to help you. So you need to respond very quickly in a way it's all kind of been building up to this moment. Because if you don't give that context, if you don't clearly explain the reason as we did in the first part. If you don't provide an incentive or a little reward for working with me more quickly. When I say, I would appreciate it. If you could get back to me by the end of today, if possible. That still sounds a little too direct. And some people, even though it's worded very politely, I would appreciate, if possible, very polite language, very respectful language, even if it's written very politely and respectfully like this, they still might feel you're being a bit too direct, maybe even rude. So think of it like this. You have to kind of earn something like this if you're going to say something like this at the end, if you're going to apply pressure like this right at the end of the email. That is the final thing. That is the tone I want to create a sense of urgency. It's important that you act very quickly. I have to earn that with my explanations, with a little bit of reward or incentive that makes the other person want to respond very quickly. That's kind of the key here. Then, best wishes. Very polite. Neil, you could put this in parentheses or not. It doesn't really matter. Sometimes people do, sometimes people don't. And you could have a phone number under here perhaps. I know that these are not numbers, just squiggles, but you get the idea. What we're doing with this email is using suggestion to apply pressure. I want roiling to feel a little bit afraid. I want him to feel afraid that if he doesn't act now, something bad will happen is order might be delayed, that would be terrible. So when he feels that pressure and believes that pressure, that he wants to respond quickly without feeling that I'm a very rude person. It's very delicate, it's very sensitive. You have to be careful so you can use the phrases and methods that we've talked about in this email to apply a bit of pressure when you need to. Okay, let's now go on to our recap. 53. Recap | Confirming Order Details: Let's quickly recap Neil's email to Royal and about his custom canvas order. Some of the main things that we talked about, including the phrases and the key methods for pushing someone to respond quickly and to make them want to do that. And also to give you accurate details, as you know, helps frame the e-mail and serves as a reminder. And that reminder will be the basis for the request, the foundation of the request. You know the situation about this being this season, the busy season. So this is the background that I'm reminding you of that I know you know, that then I'm going to use to push you a little bit. But I want to make sure you know that first so that you don't feel I'm pushing you too much. Then using that said, very similar to however, but a bit more formal, this helps to switch from this reminder, which is a little bit negative, kind of bad news in a way where in the busy season things are kind of tough right now to a positive statement, a proactive statement. I'm here for you. I'm going to help you. Let's do this together. We can switch from one tone to another using that said, we talked about To that end. And just in case, remember, just in case is a way to say, I very responsible, I'm very proactive. I want to make sure that this is perfect and there's a 5% chance that it could be wrong. So because I'm so responsible, because I'm so proactive, I'm going to make sure that this is correct. Very useful phrase to that. N is a way to get you on board with me so that we can accomplish this to make you feel like we're on the same team and to make you more willing to do what I request, which is to give me, as I've said, 1 million times accurate details in your confirmation, to accurately confirm and to get back to me quickly and to want to do that because you see that we're on the same team and that actually if you help me, You're the one who benefits most from that. You really benefit by helping me because then you'll get your stuff on time. But it's not so pushy that it comes across as rude or makes you feel like actually we made some mistake and I need this from you because we made a mistake. This background explanation explaining the reason for all of this and that it's a custom order makes you feel special that were willing to help you to work with you to get this done quickly. But this is a unique situation because of the time, because of the busy season, and because this is not a standard order, it is unique. So you should feel a little bit special because we are going above and beyond, we're doing extra to make sure you get your materials in time well, in advance. We're not asking because there's some sort of problem that you've done something wrong or that we've done something wrong. We're asking because we care and we want you to be happy. And we want you to have a good experience and get your stuff. That's why. So you should feel good about that. But then when we actually give the details or specifications, as we've talked about quite a few times. These are extremely simple, no sentences, short, simple, clear, cannot be misunderstood in any way. That's very important. Finally, remember at the end, Neil says By the end of today, well that's a little pushy, that's a little straight, a little direct. So it must be urgent. It must be very important. Otherwise, I wouldn't push you in that way. But I'm not just throwing this in at the end. This is not shocking to you because I've earned it. I've earned the right to ask you to get back to me today by building up the context, building up the incentives that reward that you get for getting back to me quickly, the explanation, the reason, right? All of these things have been prepared so that when I say respond right away, you feel yeah. Okay. I will. And then you and then you do. So make sure that when you put in something that's like this at the end, especially something that pushes somebody to do something, especially if you want them to do that thing. Now, make sure you earn that by explaining it and giving it a proper context. Okay, so that is our recap for this e-mail. For the next one, we're going to be talking about another confirmation, but it's going to be shorter and simpler. So we can do a really basic confirmation in case you need to confirm something quickly with an e-mail. Not so much detail, not so much context. 54. Scenario | A Simple Confirmation: Last time we talked about a somewhat complex confirmation email where we have to provide background and reasons. A lot of different things we need to think about. But what if you need to confirm something with a friend, someone you know well, a colleague you work with often and you don't need all of that. You don't need all of that formal language. Someone you connect with regularly. You want to quickly and simply confirm a few things and that's it. Nothing more. He went to say what you think is true, the things that you believe to be true. And then he went to know whether or not those things our true. So we approach this kind of email much differently than we would approach the previous one. When you're talking to a customer, when you're using formal language. That's only for that sort of situation. Well, we might find ourselves in that sort of situation much less often than we would in a situation where we need to just quickly confirm something. So let's look at our scenario and then get into the e-mail. Luba, a consultant, will be working on a project with a financial company for the next few months. Okay. Pretty simple. I don't think there's anything to explain. Their consultant is someone who may move from project to project, usually different companies. A consultancy is a company that works with other companies and their consultants may then work with those companies and it's sort of like temporarily working with them before going on to the next thing. And usually the next thing will be either a different kind of project completely or a different company. Okay, So this is what Luba will be doing. She wants to confirm a few important details before getting started, before starting the role. So this is going to be someone she's going to be confirming with someone who knows these things. Of course, otherwise, she wouldn't be emailing that person. So she's emailing the person who knows the reality, knows the situation. She thinks Luba thinks she knows. It's good to confirm because if you're just starting a project and you get something wrong, you misunderstood something, then people might judge you. They might work with you in a different way. They might think, Oh, you're not a very careful person. So it's very important to make sure that you're aligned and on the same page with everyone else right from the start. That's it. Let's look at the e-mail. 55. Full Email | Using a List to Confirm: Let's look at our confirmation e-mail from Luba to Lisa. Lisa knows the reality, knows the situation about this project. Luba thinks she does, but wants to confirm. So let's read through it and then talk about it. Here we go. Lisa. It was nice speaking with you this afternoon as a follow-up to our meeting, I'd just like to confirm a few specific things. One, who will lead PM or project manager. Who will the project manager for this project B. You mentioned Franny to the budget proposal will be sent by Thursday? Correct? Three. Will Wendy and Glenn be at the next meeting? Thank you so much for your support, waiting for your response. Best regards Luba. Okay, so let's talk about this whole email. We have the whole thing here. We're looking at the whole email. Amazing, right? First, Lisa, is this formal, informal, neutral? I would say it's more neutral, but I would say it's neutral, familiar. That means we have a somewhat close relationship. That doesn't mean we're best friends were colleagues, and we're on a first-name basis so we can talk to each other like this. We don't need to say Hi Lisa. It's okay to say Hi Lisa. Hey, Lisa would be okay. But that might be a little less formal. Dear Liza, probably too formal. That would be something that you would say to a customer or a client you don't know well, or someone who you're sending an email to for the first time. So Lisa works well here. It was nice speaking to you this afternoon. This is a very quick reference, a quick reference to the last time we communicated. It can be a very good icebreaker, Whether you're talking on the phone or in an e-mail to mention the last time you communicated with someone. So this afternoon was the last time they all had a meeting together. And to reference, that might be a good idea here to number 1, set a friendly and kind of personal tone, but also to remind you that I was there and to get you Lisa, in the right frame of mind. Okay. I know which project we're talking about. I know which thing we're talking about. We were just there, so I know which meeting I should be thinking about. It was the afternoon meeting, not the morning meeting. So I know what you're talking about. This helps click this person into the right frame of mind, frame of mind, the right background to understand what follows, because Lisa might be extremely busy. Who knows how many teams She's involved in? Who knows how many meetings she has, who knows how much stuff she has going on. If you can reference something relevant like this, it can help avoid confusion and questions. What does this about? What are we talking about? Who is this meeting? What now she probably remembers, but we don't want to assume that. So it's better to help Lisa to get into the right frame of mind, makes things clear. Okay, now, we get into the confirmation as a follow-up to our meeting. This is very useful. This creates a connection between this thing which you've referenced, this thing that I'm now thinking about that happened in the afternoon and whatever it is that you're about to talk about, in this case, a confirmation. So now I'm really in the right frame of mind. You've got me to think about the meeting, okay. Then as a follow-up to that. Okay. So now I know what this e-mail is going to be about generally. Now I really have the right frame of mind as a, as a show of my gratitude, as, as a quick reminder about. So this is a way to say it's this kind of thing. That's what as a something is, we use this way to say, this kind of thing is generally what I will be doing now. It's a way to kind of signal, Hey, I'm going to do this now. Hey, I'm going to talk about this now. Hey, I'm going to say this now as a show of my gratitude, I'd like to take you out to dinner as a quick reminder about the deadline coming up this Thursday, then you say something like that. It's a way to just reference that, hey, I'm about to do this thing. I'm about to say this thing as a follow-up to our meeting, okay. Now I know what's coming. I'd just like to remember. It just makes it sound a little bit less direct, little softer. We've talked about that. Softer, less direct. And if I were going to restate the word just I might say no big deal. No big deal. It makes it sound like no big deal. So the other person doesn't feel stressed or pressured. It's a way to soften the pressure by making it a little less direct. I just like to confirm a few specific things. Wow, we've jumped right into it. Not all this background stuff, not all of these reasons, these long explanations, we don't need it. This is a quick thing that I want to do. I've referenced the thing I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about now, we're on the same page. You're in the right frame of mind. Then I quickly and simply with a numbered list doesn't have to be a numbered list, but sometimes that's a good idea. If it's three things, it feels like only three. I say what I think is true. Now, notice with each of these numbered points, I ask a question. Now the question should be a full sentence probably. So I said before, don't use a full sentence unless you have to. Here, maybe you have to, because questions are best stated as complete sentences. But notice they're not very long. We still try to keep them relatively short because we want to confirm information. If each point is too long, then whoever is reading this could get lost. And that's not a good thing. Does it have to be a numbered list? No, it does not. Okay. Who will the PM Project Manager for this project B? You mentioned Franny. Now, note that I have this after, very important, but I'm going to read through the rest of these. The budget proposal will be sent by Thursday, Correct? We'll Wendy and Glenn be at the next meeting. So these are pretty simple, but note note, we could respond to this whole email if they're all correct with yes. Everything you said is correct. Everything you said is right. So we have here three questions. Not just assumptions, not just statements about what we think is true, but questions. This can draw the other person in to what you're asking. And questions can be a great way for you to say what you think is true. But each of these is doing it in a slightly different way. So let's talk about this. Who will the PM for this project B. If we just have that, then Lisa has to answer with a name. But if after my question, I have my assumption you mentioned Franny, then your answer can be simpler. That's correct. That's correct to Franny. Okay. So question followed by simple assumption. The next one, the budget proposal will be sent on Thursday, Correct? Well, that's a very simple way to do it. Correct? So this is correct. The answer can be correct. This one is correct, the answer is correct. Yes, Yes, Correct? Correct. Okay. We'll Wendy and Glenn be at the next meeting. Yes. Correct. So the answers to these questions can be very simple because I'm in each of these putting my assumption into it. This one is perhaps the easiest one to do. All you do is make the statement. You say the thing that you think is true, and then you say correct or right, right. Correct. Right. And you could do that for all of them. You don't have to do each one differently. I wanted to show you what different styles look like. But if you said, for example, Franny will be the PM, right? The budget proposal will be sent by Thursday, correct? Wendy and Glenn will be at the meeting, right? That would be okay. Then the answer to the whole email could be yes. Correct? And that would be the answer. And that would be okay too, because we're busy, people leases busy. She wants to quickly reply. So whether you use just this one or just this one, or just this one or a mix of these, try to include your assumption in the question so that for the person who has to answer, It's very easy. And they don't need to think a lot. They don't need to write a lot. They can quickly reply. That should be your goal to think about how to make it easy for the other person to respond. And using any of these would work. This one is just as simple but a slightly different style. Number 2, we make the statement then say, right, correct. For this third, when we have to phrase it as a yes no question. A yes, no question would be Do you will you can we can i r We are they is it will Wendy will they will he will see. All of these are yes, no questions. A great way to do it. Again, we could do all three of these in yes, no questions. We could say, is Frannie the PM for this project? Very simple. Then the answer would be yes or no. Will the budget proposal be sent out by Thursday? Very simple answer would be yes or no. And then we'll Wendy and Glenn be at the next meeting. The answer yes or no. So then maybe the answer to the e-mail is yes. Those are all correct. Thanks, Lisa. And that's it. So whatever style you choose, just remember to try to keep the bigger point in mine. I want this email to be very easy to respond to. That's my goal. Then we close this email with something very simple. Thank you so much for your support. So you're just showing appreciation. That's a good note to end on waiting for your response. Now, that depends on how you want to say it. Looking forward to your reply sounds a little bit softer. Softer. Software would be looking forward to your reply or I look forward to hearing back from you or something like that, you could end with, thank you so much for your support. And stop there. Remember this last thing is just the last thought that you want to leave with this person. The tone, how it ends. This one ends with appreciation plus a reminder that I am waiting for you to get back to me. I do need to know this. Waiting for your response means I'm sitting here. It gives you the feeling that I'm like this waiting. Let me know. I need you to confirm without being rude. It's not rude in any way. It's not to direct. This is a very common way to end an email when the other person needs to respond. And when you want to let them know that you're kind of waiting for them. So it's relatively simple to do this kind of short confirmation email. Let's now go on and do our recap. 56. Recap | A Simple Confirmation: Let's do our quick recap of lupus email to Lisa to confirm a few basic things about an upcoming project at the very beginning of the email to set a friendly tone and perhaps more importantly, to get the other person in the right frame of mind. Luba quickly mentions the last time they talked. They had a meeting this afternoon. A quick reference to that gets the other person in the right headspace. So that then the next thing makes more sense. She then uses numbered bullet points to ask questions that include the assumption or the understanding that she has. And we talked about the different styles of questions. But the important thing is that those questions are very easy to respond to so that Lisa can, when she goes through those, maybe add a little bit of detail if she wants to. She can also do 1, 2, and 3 and add a bit of detail to each if that's what she wants to do or if she just wants to confirm that everything is true because the assumptions are in the questions or attached to the questions. She can just say because she's very busy. She doesn't have a lot of time. She wants to quickly respond to a lot of emails. She can just say yes, all of that is correct, which is very convenient for her. And now she's probably thinking of Luba. This is a very thoughtful person. She writes emails in a way that makes it very easy for me to respond. I barely have to do anything. I can just confirm because everything's in there. Perfect. Or I can add a few details or I can correct a few things if needed. It's also important to note that unlike the last email, this one is very short because you don't need to make something longer than it needs to be. The last one needed. That context and background. This one does not. It's a very simple confirmation. It's meant to be something that the other person can read in 20 seconds and quickly respond to. Not meant to be a long formal email. Sometimes the long emails are much better. Sometimes very short emails are better. But when should you do The longer style and when should you keep it very short and simple? Well, if you're writing emails back and forth very often with someone, if it's a colleague, someone you work with, even a customer, and you're regularly communicating with them. If you're writing long emails every time, they're going to feel exhausted. So what I use as a good rule of thumb for myself is the more I communicate with someone, usually, the less I need to say I can keep it simple, keep it short. But if I'm e-mailing someone for the first time, especially someone I don't know very well, then maybe I need to say a little bit more. Maybe I need to be a bit more formal, and that's not true in all cases. Sometimes the first email can be very casual and very freestyle. It depends on the situation. It depends on your relationship. For this one and for many work-related e-mails, especially between colleagues. Short and simple is generally the best option. All right, that is it for this email. In the next one, we're going to talk about confirming time. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 57. Scenario | Confirming a Time: We're going to continue in this section confirming information to talk about how we can confirm time. So we're going to be looking at a time confirmation e-mail. Let's go through the scenario. Then. We'll look at the email and talk about it as usual. Here we go. Karina is a secretary in an HR department and is responsible for scheduling applicant interviews. Applicant is someone who wants to get a job to apply for a job. If you're doing that, you're an applicant, you're completing an application. And usually the person in HR will be helping you, someone in the HR department. Now Secretary, maybe they just arrange things, scheduled things. They might not actually do the interview. She wants to provide karl a range of available times and have him confirm which one is best to avoid many emails back and forth. Now this is something that we've talked about throughout the course. What we want to do when we communicate effectively is we want to make sure the other person knows what we mean. Of course, very clearly they understand and they know what action they need to take. And they don't need to respond with questions because they didn't understand the first thing. Because if they have questions, they'll respond with the questions. Then the other person has to respond with the answer to the question. Then they might have to be reminded about the original question because really what they wanted was a confirmation. Then there's another back and forth. This is a mess. We don't want this. So in general, and especially when you're confirming something with an e-mail. In general, try to reduce as much as you can the need for a back and forth by putting yourself in the other person's shoes. And that means providing options in a clear way. That means making sure that something can't be read in two different ways. And we'll talk about this as we look at the email. But I just want you to keep this in mind. This is a really, really important thing when you went to write effective clear emails to avoid the back and forth. Because that can cause a lot of problems and a lot of misunderstandings. So let's take a look at the e-mail. 58. Part 1 | Proposing Acceptable Times: Here we have our email from Karina, the HR secretary, to Karl, the applicant for this job. Let's read through the first part. This is not the whole email. This is the first part where we explain things a little bit and we provide some available times. So let's read through it. Hi Carl, Sorry for the delayed response. Our scheduling system is down, so things are taking a bit longer to approve. We would like to schedule an in-person interview with you sometime this week, if possible. Please let me know which time is best for you. Available times this week. Wednesday at 330 or 430. Thursday Anytime from 130 to three, Friday at ten AM or one PM. Monday at two PM or five PM. Wednesday anytime from 02:00 PM to 04:00 PM. Okay. So here's our first part. Let's explore it a little bit. Here we have the HR secretary Karina's email to Karl, the applicant for this job. Let's read through it. Hi, Carl. Sorry for the delayed response. Our scheduling system is down, so things are taking a bit longer to approve. We would like to schedule an in-person interview with you sometime this week, if possible. Please let me know which time is best for you. Available times this week. Wednesday at 330 or 430. Thursday Anytime from 130 to three PM. Friday at ten AM or one PM. Next week. Monday at two PM or five PM. Wednesday anytime from two PM, 04:00 PM. Okay. So this is our first part. We have the times and a bit of background information. Let's talk through it. Here is a common standard greeting. Hi Carl. It's not very formal. It's not very informal. We already know about this. We've talked about it. This is okay if she wanted to make it more formal, what should she use? Maybe, dear Carl. If she wanted to make it less formal, what should you use? Maybe just Karl without anything in front of it or, hey, Carl, maybe not a good idea for somebody who haven't really talked with that. Often, someone who's applying for a job that might not come across as very professional. Okay. Sorry for the delayed response. Okay. So something is off here. Carina is recognizing that something is wrong. Normally, she might have responded more quickly, but for whatever reason well, for this reason, she has responded a few days late. So she's recognizing it. And this is an important thing. If you know that someone might be slightly annoyed by something rather than avoiding it, you can say it right at the beginning. That tends to communicate a sense of responsibility. It communicates trust, honesty. So it can be a good idea to just recognize what we call the elephant in the room and call that It's a common expression. Elephant in the room. In general English we say, is no one going to mention the elephant in the room. This is the obvious thing that everyone's thinking about, which nobody wants to mention or talk about directly because it's a little awkward. Well, it might be a little awkward that there's a five-day delay on the response from Karina to Carl. Right? Okay. But if I just say honestly at the beginning that I apologize for that and I recognize it. Actually, Carl might feel better, but I still want to explain it. Now notice here, Karina explains it without making a big excuse. So she says, our scheduling system is down, so things are taking a bit longer to approve. Okay. Now I understand the reason. Totally reasonable. This tells me that things are a bit backed up, that I'm not the only candidate who got a late email that all of the other candidates are a few days delayed, or at least everybody is a little bit later than they should be. So that makes me feel more comfortable. Now, hopefully this is true and this is actually the reason and it seems reasonable enough. So it doesn't sound like an excuse. Usually you'd want to make sure it doesn't sound like a bad excuse. Like you're just trying to avoid explaining why something happens so you make up something. This seems pretty reasonable. Okay. We would like to schedule an in-person interview with you sometime this week. Very clear. Now Carl knows the purpose of this email. I thought they weren't going to get back to me. They got back to me. That's exciting. And right at the beginning here, they tell me why they're getting back to me after they explain the elephant in the room, then they clearly state the purpose. That's what the first part is for, right? We say why we're writing the email. It's necessary before we go into the details. So we want to schedule an in-person interview. Sometime this week, if possible, please let me know which time is best for you. This also is very helpful because it's giving me some options if I'm Karl now I have some options. If they just say your interview is on Thursday at four PM, I have to clear my schedule. And that's a little bit a little bit scary because I have to be there at that time and if something goes wrong or something unexpected happens, I don't know. So it's nice to have some options. Well, that's what we're doing here. We're confirming the time. So Karina has gone out of her way to make sure which times are available, which times are free for Carl to choose. She could do it the opposite way. She could say, we want to do an in-person interview with you. Could you please provide four to five time windows that are available for you within the next two weeks. We could call those time windows or sometimes we could just say please provide your availability for the next two weeks. Your availability for the next week, your availability for the next two weeks, then basically he would sit down and do the same thing as a reply to what Karina has done here. So sometimes it goes this way where the times are provided, sometimes the other way where the times are requested. And it's kind of the same thing. It's actually just one more step. Now, is it possible that car will not have any availability for these times? Well, hopefully not because there are quite a few. She said this week. So she's suggesting by that the preference. So what do you think Carl is going to choose? He's going to choose some time here probably, right? This is the preference. Karina has got the availability for the people who would do the interview. And it's pretty clear that this week is going to be better for them. And obviously Karl wants the job, so he's going to do that sometime this week, if possible, is sort of like nudging Carl had Carl please choose this week. But the other availability here leaves it a little bit more open, just in case Carl has absolutely no time. This week, a bit more flexibility, and that can be good. But again, it does suggest that this is better, that this is preferred, that this is the one that the HR team and the people who will do the interview really want. They prefer this week because they say this week if possible. That's how you can hint it. And at the same time, seemed very open, seem very flexible. Honestly. I do it all the time. I say here is my availability for next week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. These are the times, but it would be great if we could chat on Monday or Tuesday, if possible. And if possible leaves room for the other person to say, Well, I absolutely can't. I have something going on. It leaves room for that. It accepts it, but it's still pushes them the other way, pushes them toward the preference. Now let's talk about the availability itself, these two. Now notice here that these are written in two different ways. Remember I said you make a rule and you follow your rule. Lot of different ways to write times. There are a lot of different ways to do bullet lists. We've looked at quite a few so far. So what is the rule here? Well, clearly, carina is putting the day first, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday. Okay. Very good. Now notice some of these have AMP m and some of them don't. Okay. What's going on? 330 or four thirty one thirty to three PM AM PM. Ten a 1 pm, 2 pm, 05:00 PM, 2 pm to 04:00 PM, or to 4PM. So it looks like the rule here is if Karina gives a 30 minute or a minute time, if she adds minutes to it, she doesn't give AM or PM, and she assumes that Carl understands that they're not going to do an interview at three o'clock in the morning, but she uses AM or PM when she gives an exact hour. Ten a M, 1 pm, 2 pm. Now, of course of course, car will not assume that two means two AM in the morning, and that five means five AM. So even if she wrote Monday at two or five, it would probably be okay. But maybe she feels that adding it because it doesn't have the 30 after it just looks better. It makes more sense. She prefers that. Maybe that's her rule, so she sticks with it and that's okay. That is okay. Once you make your rule though, follow it, stick to your rule. If you wanted to do AM and PM after all of these, fine. If you wanted to write five like that, you could probably do that too. I think that's a little weird if you don't have minutes after it. So I think it's probably better to do AM and PM for everything. If you want to do a capital a m and capital PM, that's okay too. If you want to include the time zone like EST or GMT plus three or something like that. Est or sometimes time zones are given like this. Gmt, Greenwich Mean Time plus five, something like that. You can do that. Maybe at the beginning you say all times are given in GMT plus 5, all times are given in EST, Eastern Standard Time. Then you say all the times, so you don't have to write it for every single one. There are a lot of different ways to write times. And so it's kind of okay as long as it doesn't break some rule about how to write time. This is pretty clear if it's between these two. This is pretty clear if you want to write exact times and it's not between those two. Okay? So again, I'll say make your rules, then follow your rules. Don't change it up. Don't do things differently because then it will get confusing. And the last thing you want is to cause confusion, okay, follow your rules. Now, let's look at the second half of this email. 59. Part 2 | Special Instructions and CTA: Let's now read through the second and last part of Karina's email to Carl. Here we go. Please confirm your availability a asap as soon as possible so that I can schedule the interview. Choose one time. Please. Pay attention to that. Also, just to inform you, we are doing some remodeling in the office. So be sure to use the side entrance when you get here. Okay. Looking forward to hearing from you and good luck. Thanks, Karina. And we've talked about thanks. We've talked about these salutations, the ending salutations. So we won't get into that, but I want to focus on two things here. Okay. The call to action, the CTA, this has to be very clear, right? Is this the last thing that we're leaving Carl width? Well, it's pretty close. We have a, by the way. And this, by the way, we'll talk about too. But this is the important call to action. This is what we want to make sure that Carl does next. What action should he take? Confirm your availability. But Karina has gone a step further. She has placed herself in his shoes. And what did she find when she put herself in his shoes? She found that Carl might might might see a bunch of times and then confirm all the ones that are okay for him. Because he wants to really be respectful and say, well, many of these are okay for me, this one and this one and this one. So then there's need for yet another back and forth to confirm it. Actually, Carina wants to be very clear. All of these times are okay. So what I want you to do Caro, is to pick the one that suits you best. But I recognize that if you are reading this quickly, you might not pick one, and you might instead pick the ones that are good for you. So I want to be very clear and I don't want any misunderstanding because I've put myself in your shoes. I'm going to add this little piece here. So in addition to the please confirm your availability asap, pretty clear call to action. Polite, respectful, also suggesting that speed is better soon, That's good. In addition to that, to add something that might cause confusion, to make it absolutely clear. So think about this. When you give the other person that call to action, is there any way to read it twice or to read it in two different ways? To understand what you said in two different ways. Is that possible? If so, think about either rephrasing your sentence, your whole original thing that you wrote. Think about doing that so that it can only be understood in one way. Or add a little piece, maybe inside of parentheses like this here. To just clarify it. Something like this doesn't have to be a whole sentence. Either. Choose one time, please. That doesn't have to be a whole sentence. It could be just one time only, please. Now, there is a small risk of that sounding a little direct, but I think it's a very small risk. I don't think that Carl will feel offended by that at all. In fact, I think he will appreciate the clarity. So always remember to try to stand in the other person's shoes, see things from their point of view. And you might pick out a couple of things that you can do to clarify to make sure there are no misunderstandings, either rephrasing your call to action, your original instructions in the main part of your email. Or to add a little piece just to make sure then there's a kind of, by the way, statement here. Okay, by the way, now, should we use, by the way? By the way, well, that sounds very conversational. So it would be okay to do it if you want to sound very conversational. By the way, comma, I just want to let you know. Or by the way, when you get here, I think it's totally fine. So if we use, by the way, when you get here, that's fine. But Carina wants to be perhaps a little bit more professional sounding. So she says, Also just to inform you. Also just to inform you. But this signals that this is not the main call to action, that this is a side information kind of thing. Extra information. Just so you know, the real call to action, the really important thing is here. So pay attention. This, this is the thing that you need to pay attention to. Okay? Just to inform you, somewhat formal sounding here, we are doing some remodeling in the office. So be sure to use the side entrance when you get here. Okay. That's just a reminder. Maybe she pastes that into every single email she sends related to interviews. Probably a good idea because if they're shaking the front door because they can't get in or things look closed because they're remodeling. Well, that can avoid some confusion. Now if this is scheduling and online interview, a video chat, maybe it's scheduling a meet up with someone. It's kind of all the same thing. If there are any special instructions related to that Video meet up or video meeting or interview or whatever it is you could do also by the way, just so you know, and then say the thing that you want them to know. Now you might then ask, what about PS? I've heard about PS at the end, even after Karina would say PS, probably not. This is usually used for handwritten letters. It's really not used anymore for emails. I would strongly recommend avoiding using postscript or PS, not something we're going to be spending much time on in this course. If you want to add information, it's okay to put it in this part of the email, just make sure it has something which marks it like also or by the way, or just. So, you know, finally, the last thing we want to leave with Carl here, looking forward to hearing from you and good luck Looking forward to hearing from you. This is something that we've seen before. Looking forward to hearing from you kind of pushes you to respond. I am waiting for you to respond. So it helps to reinforce or support that in a very friendly way. Also, this Good luck is relevant to what's going on. I hope you do well in your interview. I won't be interviewing you. Someone will. I hope you do well. So anytime someone is doing something that they might succeed or fail at, maybe it's a good idea to add good luck and adds a nice little note of support. And remember, this is really our last impression, the last thing that we leave with this person. So why not ended on a very positive, optimistic note. Then, thanks Karina. So that's it for this e-mail. Let's do our email recap. 60. Recap | Confirming a Time: Now that we've looked at Karina's email to Carl to schedule a time for an interview, to provide options to confirm a time. Let's go over some of the key phrases and the main ideas, the main takeaways from this email. Remember sometimes right at the beginning you want to identify the elephant in the room. Identifying the elephant in the room like a delay, something that's not quite right. A mistake that can relieve tension and allow the other person to relax. Why was this five days late? This is why let me tell you, or at least I'm going to recognize that it happened. So Karina has done that and provided a reason. Just be careful when you're providing reasons. Reasons should be clear and they should be honest. Don't make up a long and complicated reason that takes two paragraphs to explain. That sounds like an excuse. So Karina explains the delay without making it sound like an excuse. And if it might sound like an excuse that maybe don't explain it, just say, I'm really sorry for the delay. You've acknowledged the elephant in the room. Now we can go on to the main point of the email, and that's probably okay. Now one of Karina's main jobs is to eliminate the need of many back and forth e-mails. Because she's a secretary. She wants to make sure that everything is efficient and there isn't a lot of unnecessary back and forth communication. So she gives only one time and that doesn't work for Carl. Then they have another e-mail and another so she wants to provide as many times as possible. Now remember, we talked about this as well. She could ask Carl four times and then Carl can provide as many times as possible. If she says it in the right way, please provide your availability for the next two weeks. But she's providing some possible times, not just for one week, but for two weeks and quite a few times as well. So she's provided the times and now Carl can choose the time that suits him best. But remember when she does that, she can still suggest a preference. We would like to interview you this week if possible. And then also provide availability for next week. This week if possible, is a pretty strong suggestion. So keep in mind, even if you offer broader availability, you can still provide a preference that someone else is probably going to accept if you state your preference, especially if you add if possible. If possible. I'd really love to discuss that on Monday or Tuesday, if possible. Or Monday or Tuesday would work work best for me. They would work best for me. But the other times are available as well. If they weren't, I wouldn't give you those times or you can simply state. I would prefer I would prefer Monday or Tuesday. Okay. Now, when she gives the times, she follows a clear rule, there isn't only one way to write times. You can write time ranges, time zones in a lot of different ways. There are many ways to do it. And different countries have different norms. In America, it's kinda flexible if you write all capital, AM and PM or lowercase, it's kind of okay if you use a two instead of a hyphen between a time range like four to six or four hyphen six, maybe that doesn't matter. But the important thing is that you make a little rule in your head and you follow that rule. Once you do something, Don't change it, Don't do it in a different way next week, be consistent. Follow your rule. Why? To avoid confusion, the whole purpose of this email is to confirm time. So the time is the most important thing. So we need to make sure that's very clear. There were communicating effectively. So we went to avoid any confusion by being consistent. Very important. Now the call to action, you also want to think about, ask yourself, my call to action very clear. Could someone understand it a different way? Probably not, but maybe if so, you might add something like choose one. This supports that idea that I just want you to pick one thing just in case you misunderstood. Or as we talked about, the other option would be to write it a different way. But sometimes putting something like this, choose one inside of parentheses can be enough to clarify it. You don't always have to rewrite the whole thing. In fact, sometimes this is the best way to do it just to make sure that the other person doesn't misunderstand. Now in this one, Karina decides to use good luck. Just be aware of when good luck is appropriate and when it is not appropriate for an interview. It definitely is. Why. Because he could fail or succeed. So just think about it that way. If somebody is doing something and they could fail or succeed, and you're writing an email to them in some way related to that activity. Maybe you can use good luck. It's a good way to end things on a positive note. The last feeling that you give this person the last impression is a good one. Good luck, it's very good, but don't use it when it's irrelevant, when it doesn't work, when it doesn't make sense, when it has nothing to do with failing or succeeding, right? Then it's a little bit awkward. So just be aware, ask yourself, are they doing something at which they could fail or succeed? A proposal? Yes, absolutely. Someone will accept it or reject it. Big exam? Yes, definitely. Of course, that would work as well. A lot of different things. So I hope all of this as clear, try to work all of this as we go into your own e-mails, you should be practicing this stuff as we go along. I want you to try to use it in your daily life. In your emails. Whether you need to confirm time, whether you need to confirm something else to give someone information. We're going to look at other things, of course, in the future. But in the next lesson we're going to continue talking about confirmation. If one more confirmation e-mail to look at before we go on to the next section. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 61. Scenario | Confirming a Project: In the last lesson, we looked at an e-mail to confirm time. Now I want to look at something which is a bit different, but we'll follow some of the same basic ideas. I want to make sure you really know how to confirm things. We've looked at certainly a few different types by looking at all of these different types, I hope you will feel really confident when you need to confirm whatever you need to confirm because it is such an essential part of sending clear and effective e-mails. So we're going to be looking at a school assignment. Think about a school assignment. I get an assignment. My daughter comes home with an assignment and I want to make sure I understand it before she starts it. Because if she starts it and finishes it and it's the wrong assignment, she's doing the wrong thing. She misunderstood one or two parts, then she's going to get a bad grade. So I as her parent, one, to make sure that everything is correct, That's pretty reasonable. But remember, we're also trying to apply these things to our own e-mails. You should be taking the things that we talk about in this course and applying them to your own emails in your own situation, right? So what kind of situations overlap with that? Your team got a project and one of your teammates has already started working on it. But you want to make sure that no effort is wasted. You want to make sure that everything that everyone is working on is actually productive. So you'll talk to that person, the person in charge, the stake holder, to confirm that. It's the same thing. Whether it's your daughter's assignment to your daughter's project or a project at work or whatever, you'll get something. You want to make sure it's right, so you need to confirm it. So here's our scenario. Grace Young is the mother of nectar, a middle Schooler. Nectar has an upcoming science fair project to create and has brought home the guidelines. Grace needs to confirm a few of the details to make sure she hasn't misunderstood. Some things might be worded a little bit unclearly, or maybe maybe she's reading them in one of two ways and she's not sure which way is correct. That happens quite often, right? Things are not quite clear. So here's our scenario. Again. Think about how you can apply this to your own work, your own life, your own emails. Let's look at this email from grace to nectars teacher. 62. Part 1 | Essential Context and Questions: Let's take a look at this email from Mrs. Young to Mrs. Gillan Catie. Mrs. Young is nectars mother. Mrs. Gillan Catie is nectars teacher. This is about the science fair requirements which nectar has brought home from school. Okay. Here we go. Good morning, Mrs. Gillan. Catie. I am nitrous mother. Mrs. Young. Nectar brought her science fair requirements home from school and was a little confused about the requirements. After reading through them, I just like to confirm a few things with you before helping nectar my questions. One of the projects need to be approved by February 19th, but the actual completion deadline isn't until March 3rd. Is that right? To microbiology projects must include an actual microscope at the table rather than pictures, correct? This should be familiar. 3, the guidelines mentioned that grades will not be affected by how well students place in the fair. Can you confirm that? Okay, so we have some clear questions here. These questions should be familiar because we've kind of talked about this before. This is a little bit more detailed. The setup is a bit different. The level of formality is a bit different as well. So let's talk about this. Good morning, Mrs. Gillan Catie. I'm acknowledging that she's probably reading this in the morning. Maybe this is sent out in the evening. So this is sometimes okay if you're pretty sure when the other person is going to read the e-mail, maybe you send it out in the morning, maybe you send it out the evening before. But do you think the other person is unlikely to see it until morning? It's okay if you say Good evening, It's not really a big deal. If you say good evening and you write it in the evening and they don't see it until morning, it's fine. It's not a big deal. So this is friendly. I'm his mother, mrs. Young. This is simply identifying her because it's possible that Mrs. Gillan Catie doesn't remember Mrs. Young if she just says My name is Mrs. Young at the beginning. Okay. I know who you are, but I don't have the proper context. Remember what we want to do at the beginning of an email is make sure the other person is in the right frame of mind. So how can you put this person in the right frame of mind? Well, she might teach three different classes. So I want to make sure she's thinking about nectar. Nectar is a student that she has, so she will know which class this is which student, this is which parantheses, which project this is, this will kind of unlock all of the information that she will need to have in mind as she then reads the rest of this email. So think about that. Identify yourself based on the important detail that is going to give the other person a clear oh, yes. I know what this is so that when they read the rest, they are in the right frame of mind. Okay, then a bit of context. So this is really important before we actually ask the questions. If you go directly into the questions against, you might feel a little bit confused. She probably has lots of students. This is another case of stepping into the other person's shoes. When I step into your shoes, I realize, oh, teachers have many students. This person is very busy. They have a lot of things to think about. If I jump immediately into the questions and just say, I have some science fair questions. Well, how do I know that she's only teaching nectars class? Maybe she also has students in other grades and they have science fair projects. And their requirements are different. So empathize, try to look at things from their point of view. Try to stand in their shoes and ask yourself, what information would I need to fully understand the situation so that I can provide correct answers, accurate answers, useful answers to these questions, okay, So what's the context? Well, a little story, but not too much. If you provide a long paragraph that tells a story and uses flowery language, then you're doing too much context. It should be enough so that it's clear, but not more. Nectar brought her science fair requirements home from school and was a little confused about the requirements. Okay. So I know nectar did this thing. I recognized that I sent the requirements out with nectars class. So I know about that and she's confused about the requirements. Okay. So I know I'm going to be answering questions about requirements. And I'm also maybe realizing that maybe I didn't write these requirements clearly enough because it's not just nectar who misunderstands, it's also nectars mother. So for mother can't understand, then maybe they're really confusing. So maybe that's useful feedback for the future. After reading through them, I just like to confirm a few things. This is another way to say I don't understand these requirements. But for a couple reasons, we probably don't want to say I don't understand. After reading through them, I just like to very polite. This is very respectful language. I'd just like to now, you could you could say just that. I just like to confirm or I just like to check a few things with you, but saying after reading through them suggests that I did try to understand them. I read through them carefully and some things are not quite clear. So it's not just nectar, it's also me, her mother. So before the actual request for the confirmation, we can put in a bit more context before that comma. You should be familiar with that by now. After doing this, I just like to, That's a great structure. After some action comma. I just like to, if you can remember that structure, you can do all kinds of things. It's a very powerful structure. It makes the other person feel respected. So it's quite polite and it has that extra context, that useful context. So I'd just like to confirm a few things with you before helping nectar. And you need that part. Maybe, maybe not. But it might tell Mrs. Gillick Catie that I'm helpful, that I'm willing to help my kid do well, and I'm committed to that. So usually teachers like that when parents are helpful and involved in their kids activities, right? So maybe it's just a little, by the way, sort of thing to add. I think it could be there or, or not. Okay. Now the questions she starts off very clearly separate. Of course. Of course we already know that that's very important. And then clearly, my questions colon, very simple. So Mrs. Gillan Catie looks at this and she knows, okay, there are three questions I need to answer. And maybe like with the other email we looked at, maybe I can just say yes, that's correct. Yes, that's right. Yes. To all of them. Because of the way she's going to write this. Now there are a little bit more complicated than the other one we talked about, but similar in some ways. So this should be pretty familiar. Okay. The projects need to be approved by February 19th, but the actual completion deadline isn't until March 3rd. Is that right? So she could write in her reply one? Correct? If she wanted to write it like that, she could or That's right. Or yes. They are due on March 3rd. Maybe she wants to add a little bit more. Yes, they're due on March 3rd or in fact, if she wants to correct her, she could say 1. So when you're responding, you can answer with numbers one. Actually comma they are due on March 23rd, not third. Then maybe I realize I made a mistake when I, when I wrote this. Okay, so that might be useful. Feedback to microbiology projects must include an actual microscope at the table rather than pictures, correct? We've talked about this one adding a comma followed by correct. After we state what we think is true, let me write the sentence. The light is going to be here tomorrow. Correct. And that's fine. It's a very good way to confirm information. She thinks this is the case. We don't need to talk about what microbiology is or a microscope is. Don't worry about that. That's an unimportant detail. When she responds to this, she could say to yes, comma microscope is needed at the table. Or in fact, which is a polite way to say no, to correct someone or to say no. You don't need to have a microscope. If maybe there's a video that you could use, something like that, okay? Now know might be a little too direct to respond to this. In fact, might be a little bit too straight. I wouldn't use no, I would say in fact or actually three, the guidelines mentioned that grades will not be affected by how well students place in the fair. Can you confirm that? Now? Should I say, can you confirm that or this doesn't matter so much, I think confirm that. Confirm this. Can you confirm all of these should be okay. Again, this should be pretty familiar to you because we've talked about how to do this. What do we do here is we make a statement and then in some way, either a separate sentence or included in the same sentence with a comma, we ask a question so that the person can respond very simply. Yes. All of those are correct? Yes. Everything you said is correct or one? Yes, That's correct. Two, in fact, three? Yes, that is correct. Simple. So it's very easy for the other person to respond. It's not confusing, it's not mixed up with the paragraphs. This is a separate peace with the three questions. It's very hard to misunderstand this. Mrs. Gillan Catie will probably appreciate how clearly Mrs. Young has written this email. I do want to point out one simple thing here before we move on to the last part. This rather than, rather than sometimes when we want to provide the other possibility we can use rather than we've talked about this a little bit, okay, So I want to make sure it's a not B. So what should I say? It should be a rather, then B, right? It should be a rather than be correct. So why would I say both of them say a rather than B? Because I want to make you aware of what the other option would be. You know, the other option. I know the other option, but I want to make sure I communicate to you that I know what the alternative is. So by putting them both there, it makes it even more clear. Sometimes you want to do that. If you want to let the other person know that you're confirming between two things. This rather than that, right? It's a very useful way to clarify details, to confirm information. Okay, Let's look at the last part of this email. 63. Part 2 | Closing Respectfully: Here's the end of graces email to Mrs. Gillan Cuddy. Could you shed some light on these questions and let me know if I understand the rules correctly. Thanks a lot. I know how busy you must be. Regards Grace Young. Okay. Now, what have we done here with this last thing? This is to confirm the call to action. She's already stated what she wants Mrs. Gillick Catie to do to answer these questions. But as we've also talked about before, to reinforce that, to support that, we might state it very clearly after the questions. Now there are a lot of different ways we could do that. We could state it in the same way as earlier in the email, but I wouldn't recommend that because that's a little repetitive. So maybe try to say it in a different way. What would be a different way to say that? How about shed some light? This is a very useful phrase to shed light on something is to give more detail, to explain something, to answer questions, to clarify. And in fact, you could say any of those things too. You could say give detail, give more detail. Could you provide some more detail? Could you give more detail? Give detail. Explain. Helped me understand. Confirm Of course. Clarify. Expand on. Now if you say could you please expand on these, that means say more about them. That would be a little bit different if you say expand, I want you to explain further to give more information. So that wouldn't be as simple yes. That's correct or no, that's not correct. That would be to to explain things in detail. Okay. So shed some light. Very useful phrase. It means something is dark, I can't see it clearly. So when you shine a light on that, you have shed light on it. Now you can see it more clearly, but it means is please answer my questions. Please explain this a little bit more. Okay. So shed light on these questions and let me know if I understand the rules correctly. That's kind of saying the same thing. We could just say, could you shed some light on these questions? We could just say, could you let me know if I understand the rules correctly? Either of those by themselves would be okay. Maybe Mrs. Young wants to really reinforce this to make it absolutely clear what the call to action is, that she needs to know the answers to these before she helps her daughter with her project. So there's room for some creativity here, as long as it's at the end and it's not something that can be misunderstood. I think this is totally okay. Then. Thanks a lot. And then adding this, I know how busy you must be. Now, I want to be very clear. I added these here parentheses as an option. So if I were really using this, I would not have these here. I would say thanks a lot. I know how busy you must be as another sentence probably. If I don't want to include it, I'll take that out. Maybe I want to empathize with Mrs. Gillan Catie, and let her know that I know how many emails she must be getting from other teachers and how much he has to deal with and that she has to grade papers and do all of this stuff. So I'm trying to show a bit of empathy and that's the last impression that I want to leave. Maybe I just want to have this last impression be my gratitude. Thank you a lot. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. Or I want to add to that, Hey, I realized by answering this, you're not doing something else that you could be doing and you're a very busy person. So I appreciate that. So this is kind of supporting or reinforcing this empathy that I feel for you, making things more clear for me. So Mrs. Gil Catie will probably feel very respected by this at the end. Then simply regards Grace Young and there's nothing special about this ending. We've talked about these before. So that is it for this email. I hope now you're feeling really comfortable with these conformations because we are going to be going on to something else in the next section. But for now, let's do our recap of this email. 64. Recap | Confirming a Project: Let's do a very quick recap of our confirmation e-mail from Mrs. Young to Mrs. delicately about her daughter's project. Remember at the beginning, mrs. Young identifies herself as nectars mother. And that's the important way to identify yourself. Why? Because she recognizes that Mrs. Gillan cutting maybe very busy and has a lot of students to think about. So connect yourself to the person that, that person knows. If you have to identify yourself and identify yourself when that is necessary context for that person to understand this email. When they need to know who you are, before they can fully understand the situation. Before they can then confirm things or answer your questions. Make sure you do it, and make sure you do it in the right way, can be very, very useful to put the other person in the right frame of mind. So as usual, put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself, do they need to know who I am to completely understand what I'm asking about. Yes or no. If yes, how do I say it? Who do I connect myself with? Should I just say my name and maybe not? Maybe my role, my identity related to this person that they know, something that they know, they know some person in this department. So I'll connect myself to them. Then they know who I am now, so they can be in the right frame of mind. So the key is to put yourself in their shoes to empathize we use rather than when we want to identify an alternative. Sometimes I want to make sure that you know, that I don't mean that other thing, but I am aware of it. I'm aware that there's another possibility, but I wanted to let you know that. I don't think it's that I think it's this. So it's this rather than that. And then when you confirm, you're at least aware that I know about the other possibility, the alternative. So hopefully that will reduce misunderstandings, reduce potential confusion. That's why rather than is so useful. Remember, like the other email we talked about, grace wants to confirm what she thinks is true. So state what you think is true. Don't just ask questions. If you ask questions, the other person has to say a lot. If you state what do you think is true and then you add a question to the enlight, correct or right. Or you add a separate question as a separate sentence, then the other person may just have to correct you or say Yes, that is correct. And then maybe give a little bit more detail if you suggest that's what you want. So this is a great way to confirm things and also a great way to reduce the need for back and forth, which is usually a good thing. Finally, grace uses shed some light to the phrases we use can tell people what we want. Shed some light depending on how Mrs. guilt that he feels might mean. I want you to explain a little bit more, but at least means I want to understand clearly. Now if we just say could you please confirm Mrs. gorilla cutting may just say yes or no or not, provide any extra details. If you say could you please elaborate on this? Could you please expand on this then that tells Mrs. Gala Catie, I want you to say more. I want you to explain more. So just be careful when you're saying what you want. Choose your phrases carefully. I think shed some light is good for this one because it is respectful and it kind of leaves it up to Mrs. Gillan Catie. It might mean I want a little more. Might mean just tell me if I'm correct or not. Confirm it for me please. So just choose your phrases very carefully. Because what you choose can determine what you get back in the conformation or in fact in the request. Okay. So that is it for this e-mail, that is it for this section. In the next section, we're going to be talking about requests, emails to request things very important, should be very interesting. Make sure you're practicing, make sure you're writing your own emails, working the things that you learn in this course, into your own emails. Let me know if you have any questions and I will see you in the next section. 65. Scenario | Getting Requirements: In the last section of the course, we looked at emails for confirming things, to confirm information, simple conformation, how we can make sure that what we think is true, or find out if it's in fact not correct. In this section, we're going to be focusing on emails to request things. Maybe we need to request details. Maybe it's just a simple request. Maybe we need to request other information. We need to get something from others. So there's still a call to action. The other person still needs to do something. But it's a little bit different than a confirmation. I'm requesting that you do something for me. I'm requesting that you give something back for me that I don't know anything about, perhaps. So we're going to be looking at a few emails in this section and we're going to start with an email about requesting requirements. We need to get some requirements from someone else. Now in some ways, this is similar to the last one we looked at. Remember, grace needed to email her daughter's teacher to confirm some requirements related to the school fair project. What she really wanted was to make sure she understood the guidelines, the requirements she was given. So she was really just confirming a few things. When we get into requests, we typically need a bit more. We're asking for more from the other person because we don't know. I can't confirm something because I don't even know what I should confirm. I need you to tell me. That's my request. So usually it's a little bit more involved. Now, it depends on the situation. For this one. It's going to be quite formal. In fact, the person who's writing this doesn't even know who the recipient is by name. It could be anyone perhaps in this department. We'll talk about how to deal with that. Maybe you've been wondering, okay, well, what if I don't know who that person is? What should I do? And what we're going to talk about that. Let's read through the scenario quickly, then get to the e-mail. Hugo is ready to apply for his PhD, doctorate degree in the sciences and needs to find out the steps for sending an application to his dream school, UW. And here are UW is going to be university of whatever. It's important that his request is not missed by the busy recipient. So the person who gets this, we assume will be quite busy. Now I want to add to this that Hugo does not know who this person is exactly. He doesn't have a name. He's sending this to a department. He's sending it to a group of people any of whom may get back to him. So that's the situation. He needs this information before he can apply for his PhD. So what do you think that tone is going to be? Casual? Formal. What do you think? Probably quite formal. Let's jump into the email. 66. Part 1 | Setting a Very Formal Tone: Let's get into Hugo's PhD requirements, request email to the University of whatever, not a real university, of course, I made it up to whom it may concern. I hope this e-mail finds you well, I am writing to inquire about the application process for the PhD of astrobiology with UW. By way of introduction, my name is Hugo Anderson and I've just completed a master of organic chemistry at CY bolder in Sydney. This would be the campus or the university in campus. And this is the city. Don't look it up, please. I'm trying to come up with just fictional things here. It's not important. The important thing is how it's laid out, the tone, the structure, and the phrasing. Of course, UW is where I want to continue my education. For me to complete the application process, I would appreciate if you could provide one requirements for the PhD of astrobiology program to the due date for applications. Three, a list of documents needed for online submission. Okay. So this is the first part of the e-mail. We're going to look at another little part at the end. But what do you notice here? What's the tone? Well, I'm sure you've probably picked up on the very formal sounded has very formal. What makes it sound formal? Well, let's, let's get back to this in a second. This To whom it may concern. That is, but I want to talk about that separately. I hope this e-mail finds you well, I would label that as very formal. Okay. When you don't know this person, you might start with this to set the tone, to have a kind of friendly tone, but also a formal and respectful tone. I am writing to inquire about. Well, anytime you use the word enquire, it's going to be more formal than ask about, right? I'm writing to inquire about. It means ask about, but it's more formal. So I would also mark that as very, very formal. I'm writing to inquire about only use that in very formal situations when you need information from someone else. Why is he using this tone? He's writing to the department that he wants to apply to. This is for a PhD program. It's academic, it's serious. This is a university. He doesn't know these people personally. For every reason. It has to be formal and respectful. He wants them, when they read this email, to view him as a serious person who really wants to apply for very serious reasons. He doesn't want them to think of this as just a joke. This guy's a loser, pays not saying, hey, there, I need the requirements. Or hey, University of whatever, please tell me the requirements. Even though that's polite, it's still not formal enough. It's not what we need for something like this. When you are inquiring and it's to an institution or someone who you want to take you seriously, then having this formal tone is probably a good idea. Another formal phrase, by way of introduction, Wow, this is very formal. My name is, instead of just starting with, my name is my name is Hugo Anderson and I have just completed a master of organic chemistry. We could have that, we could use that. But to add that tone, that stuff is all about tone. I'm writing to inquire. This is my purpose. I'm telling you my purpose right at the beginning. That should be very familiar to you by now. But I feel like there is needed context before I make my actual request. So I need some context. So I've given you a general statement of my purpose, but I haven't asked you specifically for anything yet. So you're prepared mentally for what I'm going to ask you. But before we get into those details, you need a bit of context about me so that your answers, the information you give me can be accurate. Because you might give different information for different types of applicants, different situations, right? Different kinds of students from different universities. It could be different. So ask yourself when you're thinking about whether or not to include context. Does this person need the context in order to give the correct information? And if they don't have the context, could they possibly give me the wrong information? Because I haven't given them the context. Well, if you go asked himself this question, then his answer would be yes, they need the context and once they have it, they can give me accurate information. So that's just like the confirmation. We did ask yourself that first, do they need the context? If they don't need it, maybe cut it out, remove it. But I think it's very helpful to have here. By way of introduction though, is a nice and polite and formal and respectful way. To do that, only do this if you want to be very, very formal. Do not use by way of introduction unless you want to have that very formal tone. Okay, and don't worry about what astrobiology is. If you don't know, it's not important, okay, as long as you understand what he's doing, he is inquiring about the application process for this this program. Okay. My name is Sue Anderson and I've just completed a master of organic chemistry at CY boulder. That's the important context. I've just finished this master's degree program at this other university. And now I want to go here. So now you understand, now I'm going to ask you for the information, okay? But I also have a statement of intent here. U w is where I want to continue my education. This sounds more like a job application, like I want to let you know that I'm not applying to other schools. This is my first choice perhaps. Now, you could leave that out if you wanted to. But perhaps this person, Hugo, he wants to let the people in this department know that this is his top priority and that might give them even more reason to take him seriously. And maybe, maybe might make them want to bring him into the program more, make them want to help him during the application process, okay? Then the request itself. Now notice how simple the request itself is. A lot of this stuff. It's not very simple. We've added a lot of stuff for tone, formal and respectful things to prepare the reader for the request. We've taken up quite a bit of space with this. But then when you get to the meat of it, when you get to the actual requests, you still want to keep those very simple. You don't want to use too much language. You don't want to over-explain. And we've talked about why that is, because if you do that, details can be missed, questions can be missed. Things can be skipped over. So you still, even in a quite formal email where you're using a lot of formal language, you still want to keep the request. Very, very simple for me to complete the application process. I would appreciate if you could provide for me to do this. Now this is a great way to connect intention or purpose with the request. It's a great way to do it. What it means is if you don't give me this information, I cannot complete the application process. I'm telling you that your information that you have is standing in my way. And once I have it, I can do this thing. So it helps to put a little bit of pressure and it helps to make it clear why I need it for me to do this. I want to do this, but in order to in order to apply, I need you to tell me about 123. Now you see, so I'm playing a role here. If I delay a week or two, then I'm standing in this person's way. I'm the only one standing in the way that will make me feel quite bad. I want to help. So this might give me a sense of urgency. If I'm the one receiving this, I don't want to be the bottleneck. Someone who's getting in the way we often call a bottleneck. You don't want to be a bottleneck, then I would appreciate if you could provide. Now, what's the difference between that and just saying, Please provide which one's better? Well, I would say I would appreciate if you could provide is better because we're going for this very right and one more time, very formal tone. We want to make absolutely sure that this person feels that this is a really serious person who's taken a lot of time to craft this email because he's very serious about applying here. So I would appreciate if you could, sounds more professional, sounds, more polite, sounds more formal than Please provide. So putting these altogether, and I would suggest that you practice these on your own because it really is a useful structure for me to do something for me to. And then what I want to do. I would appreciate if you could do something for me to do something, I would appreciate if you could do something for me to do this. I would appreciate if you could do that for me to better understand your financial situation. I would appreciate if you could tell me about your spending this month. Very respectful, very clear. And that's all I want to know. Then you tell me about that and you feel respected. You feel I'm very polite, then the numbered list itself really should be quite familiar. All we do is state what we need. We don't have to worry about whole sentences. We just state the thing. One, requirements for the PhD of Astrobiology Program. That's the number one. Maybe that's most important to the due date for applications. Okay. When is it due? When do you need it? By August 30th. Whenever the date is three, a list of documents needed for online submission. So that tells you how I want to apply. I want to apply online. I don't want to apply by mail. By mail. I don't want to apply by mail. I want to apply online. Okay. So tell me what I need to provide if I want to apply online. So then the answer would be, thank you very much for your request. We wish you the best of luck in your application. Here is the information that you requested a colon 123. So that could be pretty simple. And notice for these three, there's no fancy language. I'm not adding extra phrases to be polite. I'm just stating the thing because when it comes down to the communication part, there can be no room for misunderstandings and you want to keep it as short as possible, okay? Now, the question that you've been thinking about all this time, hey, what about this? What about this? To whom it may concern? I wanted to go back to this at the end because I wanted to go through the whole email first and then talk about this one. When should you use it? Number one, you use to whom it may concern. When you don't know which person is receiving the e-mail. A perfect example would be a department and agency accompany. You don't know which person is it going to be Kevin or Tina or Darrell, who is going to actually read this? I don't know. I don't know any of the people that work there. So used to whom it may concern. Now, is this formal or casual? I would say it is on the formal side, but is not extremely formal. In other words, for almost any business or any department you would want to write an email to, even if the whole email is not meant to be very formal sounding, you could use to whom it may concern simply because you don't know which person will read that email and respond to you. So it's more about the function and the utility rather than the tone. Now if you really want it to be casual sounding, then you might say simply hello, right? And that would be okay. But that would give it a much less formal field. I would say it's on one side of neutral. It's a little bit more formal to say To whom it may concern, but it's more about this function, using it when I don't know which person will get my e-mail. Now note for this, each letter is capitalized To whom it may concern. Capitalize each letter. That's just the way that it's done, something that you just have to learn. Okay, Let's look at the rest of this email. 67. Part 2 | A Polite CTA: Now the last part of this email is pretty simple, but I want to go over a couple of things that help to reinforce this very formal tone and support the call to action, which is please respond to my requests. University to whom it may concern. Please respond at your earliest possible convenience. And should you have any follow-up questions, please let me know. Now, using the same word, please, please. Pretty close together is not something that you would usually want to do, but they're each used for a different purpose, so I think it's okay here. Please respond at your earliest possible convenience. At your earliest possible convenience. Now this is like saying as soon as you can, It's really the same thing. It's really the same as saying as soon as you can, It's pretty much the same as asap. But what does that feel like when I say please respond asap, how do you feel? And I say please respond asap, you feel pushed. I'm a colleague on your boss. I'm your teacher. I'm someone that you're working with on something doing something with and I'm pushing you a little bit asap and you feel, okay, I better hurry up and respond. Is that the feeling that we want to create? Well, with this email, we're trying to be an a you've heard it a thousand times. Respectful is a very formal e-mail. It's not casual in any way. And while we want to give the feeling of pushing a little bit, we want it to be very respectful, very polite. So an alternative to asap, if you want to be very respectful is please respond at your earliest possible convenience. Possible is not necessary. You could get rid of it at your earliest convenience and it would still be very polite. This one pushes it a little bit more saying, I really need this because I want to apply for the PhD program. So it pushes it a bit more, but still has this formal feeling. So whenever you need to do that, use this one, please respond at your earliest convenience or your earliest possible convenience instead of asap, because this feels a little bit direct. It could feel a little bit pushy. And it could be a little bit maybe sometimes to urgent. We have some urgency with this one. But this one might be a little too urgent for some situations like this one. And here's another part that sounds very formal. You're probably getting sick of this guy's formal tone, but he's really trying to be respectful. Should you have any follow-up questions, please let me know. That means I'm happy to respond or provide any more details or background information or contexts if you need it. Now this is like saying if you have or if you need if you need any other information, if you have any follow-up questions, that would be a kind of neutral way to say it, to use simply if, if you need any other information, if you have any other questions. If if if I'm not going for a neutral tone, am I know I'm going for a very formal tone. So I replace if with should, should you need any help from me? Should you need any other information? Should you need any other details? Should you require any assistance? Okay, very formal. What we're looking at here is different ways to say, more formal ways to say the same things that we would say in a normal e-mail and a normal request over the phone or in a conversation. And we're going to look at more of those in the next few e-mails. But I wanted to start with this formal one to give you a sense for it. Just be careful. Just be careful. You don't want to use it too much. You don't want to use it in the wrong place. You want to make sure that you're writing an email to someone who will appreciate that formal, very respectful tone. Because if you send a super formal email to someone and it's your colleague, they're probably going to be annoyed by that. Even your boss will probably be annoyed by that. A friend will certainly be annoyed by that. And think what does this. So just be aware of when to do it and when not to do it. Now, let's do our recap for this email. 68. Recap | Getting Requirements: Let's do our quick recap of the main ideas and key useful formal phrases used by Hugo in his request email to the University of whatever. Now remember when we start with the salutation to whom it may concern, it has a bit of a formal feeling to it, and all the letters are capitalized, To whom it may concern. All capitalised. Also, we looked at the phrasing I'm writing to inquire about, rather than I am writing to ask about. Why did we use this to give this very formal feeling. This is only to be used in situations where you want the other person to see you as a kind of formal, serious person for applications and things like that. You want them to see you as very serious, very professional, very polite, very respectful because you don't know them and you want to show your respect. So you would use something like this rather than the word ask, ask about, inquire about. The only difference is in the tone. Some other formal phrases we talked about. I would appreciate if you could, very formal at your earliest possible convenience. This one is to stress the time that it is somewhat urgent and the rest of it can be used by itself at your earliest convenience for that formal tone. And should you have any follow-up questions instead of if you have any follow-up questions. All of these strike that formal tone when you need to use it. Now, this should be familiar to you by now, but note that we separated the paragraph that has the request itself. It's very tempting sometimes to include it in the context, to include it in the background information or the greeting. Sometimes we feel if I just put it in there, they'll see it. Separate it, make sure it's its own paragraph. Every different idea can be its own paragraph and it's okay to break up an e-mail and two more sections. That is totally fine. Now if every single sentence is its own paragraph, yes, that's going to look a little bit strange, but that's quite unlikely. So for this one, we had a basic greeting, we had a general purpose or intention, the reason for the email, then a bit of context, a bit of personal context, but only relevant personal details. If too many details had been provided, then some information might have been lost. So you're not telling a story, you're giving necessary context. Then you go on to request and you probably want to number that by priority. What's the most important thing? What's number two? What's number three? That's not so important, but organizing it in a list, you know how to do that by now is very important. Again, if it's two things, you probably don't need the numbers, just make sure it is separate. Okay. So I hope this is all clear. If you have any questions, let me know. Practice writing a formal sounding e-mail, send it to someone, gets some feedback. If you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next lesson. 69. Scenario | Requesting Role Details: Last time we looked at a very formal email to request information. For this e-mail, are going to be also requesting information and be requesting some details about a role. But in a much more daily, ordinary way, not so formal. So this is something that might be much more commonplace in the workplace. With colleagues, people you work with. We don't need the same level of formality, but we still need to make it clear what we need. So let's go through the scenario before we look at the email. So here we are, our role details request scenario. Kelly, a design contractor at a company called digital, is trying to get a few more details about the project. She is about to begin. Cassandra, this is the other person will likely be able to give the details since she is in contact with the client company. So Kelly and Cassandra work at digital. Digital does projects with other companies. Cassandra has already been on this project for a while and Kelly is joining it. She's about to start this project. So Cassandra should have the information she needs, maybe a little bit more. Cassandra will likely be able to give these details since she is in contact with the client company. Move sound familiar. Wgu, nice. So the client, they're sort of like the customer, the ones that digital is doing the project for. Okay. Kelly decides to use bullet points on 23 bullet points and also wants to leave the door open for additional information that Cassandra may want to include. Have you ever heard the expression? I don't know what I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. What does that mean? It means that there's probably stuff that I'm not even aware of that I should be asking. So anything that you Cassandra might want to add that could be very, very useful. We're going to talk about how to say that too. So let's get into the email itself. 70. Part 1 | Getting Specifics: Let's look at the first part of Kelly's email to Cassandra, who was on the valve project and can provide some details to Kelly who wants to know more about it. So here we go. Greetings Cassandra. Interesting, I'm the new UX UI designer here at Digital. Yesterday I completed the last step of my onboarding process and I've already been assigned to a project starting on June 15th, food ordering portal. I'm wondering if you could look into the role and let me know a bit more about it, any information would be useful, but especially office location. My point of contact at the structure of the team as well as workflow process. So here we have our first part. Let's talk through this. Greetings Cassandra, formal, informal. Sometimes it's seen as formal, sometimes it's more neutral. It really depends on the situation. So actually, Kelly and Cassandra, our colleagues, maybe Cassandra is a manager. Maybe not. She doesn't want to be so formal. She doesn't want to use dear perhaps. I mean, it would be okay to use dear. But since she doesn't know Cassandra well, she wants to say a little bit more than Cassandra. Cassandra might be a little too familiar, just the name by itself. Maybe Cassandra has heard of Kelly, heard about this new higher that's joining the team, knows about the rule, but they haven't actually had a conversation before. They haven't had any sort of communication. So for the first email, the first time you contact this person saying hello, saying greetings, those would be perfectly acceptable. Now, she doesn't want to say greetings back. Usually it's just the first time the first-person has contacted this other person, not coming back. She might then say, hi Kelly or hey Kelly, even now that's a little less formal, but remember their colleagues. So maybe it's okay. We usually don't want to be overly formal with our colleagues. I'm the new UX UI designer here at digital. Now notice this common trend throughout the course where we need context that helps the other person understand what's going on so that they can get back to us with the right information. We provide details, we provide the context, but where it's not relevant, we don't say it. So just ask yourself, does it help this person to know that this is who I am, the new UX UI designer? Yes, it probably does because I'm asking about the role now that suggests one. So she probably knows who's joining the team. Maybe she doesn't know the details. She doesn't know this person's name. Perhaps. They haven't talked before, but she knows varies. A new designer joining the team. Now, bit more background information. Be careful here. You don't want to give too much background information. You don't want to tell a long story and bore the other person or make them feel like their time is being wasted, say what is necessary. And no more. Yesterday I completed the last step of my onboarding process. Okay. You're a new employee. That puts me in the right frame of mind to know that you probably don't know much about this company or this type of work. So I might need to give a little bit more information to help you, to make you feel welcome and to make you feel like you know what's going on, I've already been assigned to a project starting on June 15th. And we assume that Cassandra knows about the project because otherwise, Kelly probably wouldn't be asking her. Right. But then just to make sure it's clear which project she puts that in parentheses here. Move ordering portal. Now you also want to think about this. Do you need that to? You need to label the thing you're talking about. If so, do you need a whole sentence? Do you need to say it will be the ordering portal? Maybe, but maybe not sometimes once you state the thing, just putting the name of it in parentheses at the end of the sentence is totally enough. That's not really an arrow, is it? Here? Let me do it like this. That's my arrow, right? So just be aware of the other person's time, of their awareness, and how much time they have to read something, how much energy they have to read something, right? And make sure they know what they need to know and not more. I think it helps to have the name, but doesn't need a whole sentence. I think probably not. This context background information part here for the greeting. There's one thought that kind of helps me figure out how much detail to provide. So there's a little sentence that I tell myself. Other people don't live inside my head. Other people don't live inside my head. So if I just say hi, I'm the new UX designer, please tell me about my new role. That's not enough context. Then Cassandra probably feels a little frustrated while there are a lot of people working here, lot of roles, lot of projects, a lot of companies. And you think I just know automatically what you're talking about. On the other hand, Too much time wasted. So find the right balance and remember, other people don't live inside your head. So you have to tell them things so that they can be in the right frame of mind so that they have the correct context to then give you what you need to reduce the need for back and forth emails. Okay. Then politely, Kelly requests I'm wondering I'm wondering, okay. This suggests I want information. Very useful phrase. It's sort of like please tell me, but please tell me is pretty direct. Please tell me the answer. It's a little straight, it's a little too direct. I'm wondering, sounds quite soft. It's quite gentle. And I use it for everyday conversations. Instead of saying, tell me where I want to know. I often instead say, I'm wondering, I'm wondering if you could look into code is also software here, wondering if you could look into the role. So that means I'm recognizing you may not know it immediately. I'm asking you to go and look to find the role to get some details that you have that I might not know yet. So that would be looking into it to research it a little bit more like research, understand more about IT, spend a little time finding it and then getting the details that I'm asking about. What details? Okay. That's coming up and let me know a bit more about it. That's pretty general. So what should I say? What do you want to know if I just stop there? Cassandra will probably feel a little frustrated. What exactly? There's so many different things I could tell you You haven't been specific. So we have to find the line between leaving the door open for anything that might be useful and being specific so that Cassandra has a starting point and some clear things to share with Kelly. Any information would be useful. Ah, so I'm open to knowing anything. I want to know as much as possible. Okay? That tells us that I want general information. I want any details that might be useful to someone like me. If you find them, if they stick out at you when you look into it. Oh, that would be useful for someone doing the role in that and that and that. But especially to be specific, I want to know these things. Office location, not a sentence. My point of contact at who've that could be a manager. Maybe a project manager. Maybe that's just someone who works at who's in charge of coordinating things. Not a manager but an assistant or something, someone who I will talk to regularly to figure things out. If I need a laptop or I need to get some applications to get the stuff that I need to take care of, the stuff that I need to have, everything that I need to do this role successfully. I need a point of contact. Okay, So that's point number two, and that is not a complete sentence structure of the team as well as existing workflow process. Okay? Now, this is a little bit more vague in one way, not super clear because what is structure? What is the workflow? Different people might have a different understanding of each of those. But maybe maybe Kelly is okay with that. Maybe Kelly thinks that that's enough so that then Cassandra can decide how to share the information. But that would be something like are there to managers, three managers, is IT manager, supervisor, and then a team or everything's very flat and everyone's just working together on their own thing. What is it like? Help me understand the structure of the team. That's what I want to know and the existing workflow process. So workflow is usually about steps. How to teams work together on things? Is it agile? And you can look up what these mean. Is it waterfall? Does the team build a basic version and then get a bunch of feedback? Is there a lot of research involved? And there are a lot of different apps, or is there one central application or platform that everybody uses? That's the kind of thing I want to know. So it's a bit broader, but maybe she can remember the phrase, shed, some light. Shed some light on the workflow process and the structure of the team. So she's been specific. Now, she needs to go on and reinforce a little bit that if there's anything else that might be useful, she wants to hear about that too. So let's go on to the second part of this email. 71. Part 2 | Leaving the Door Open: Let's continue with the second part of Kelly's email to Cassandra to get more information about this role with V, move beyond these, any relevant information you could pass along would also be valuable as I want to hit the ground running. Thank you so much for your time. I'm looking forward to hearing from you best. Kelly, UX, UI design consultant, digital. Alright, so let's, let's go through a few of these things here. Beyond these, beyond these comma, this phrase, very common, lets the other person know that I want to know about more than what I just said. So those things I just said, those are the most important. This, this, and this, but in this case, this, this and this. Once you've answered these, if you feel that there's anything else that's useful, maybe things I don't know, I don't know. Then you can share those and I hope that you do share those. So we use beyond these. Now you could say the opposite with it. You could say beyond these if there are any other details, please don't tell me about them. That would be as strange to say, but that's the phrase we would use to talk about other things outside of the points, outside of the things that we're talking about. We say beyond that, beyond this, beyond these Beyond means more than past, further than I've talked about these three things. Well, if there are things more than these beyond these, then please give me some information and I don't even know what kind of stuff that would be, but I hope that it's relevant. If it's something that you feel based on your experience working at digital, based on your experience working on this project with food. If there's something that's relevant, relevant means related to me. If someone says that that's irrelevant, that's not relevant, that means it has nothing to do with what we're talking about. It has nothing to do with me and has nothing to do with you. If it's relevant information, it is related to me. It's related to me somehow. It's related to the situation. Somehow. It's related to the role that I'm talking about. Somehow. That's of course subjective. So Cassandra gets to decide what is relevant and what is not any relevant information you could. That makes it sound quite soft. You could, CAN is alright, you can use CAN, but could is a little softer. You could pass along. Similar to give me, but let's say both of those and see how they sound. Any relevant information you can give me. Any relevant information you could pass along. What sounds nicer. It's not about being formal, it's just about being polite, respectful, and irrelevant information you can give me. This is good for friends may be very casual situations, but to say things less directly could is often a great way to soften things, pass along to replace. Give me, these often are softer, gentler and give the other person a nice impression of us also using words like what could and would these generally soften language? Any information you could pass along would also be valuable. Now you might say, okay, but she already said that that's true. She said earlier any information would be useful, but especially, but that was to suggest it. And then focus on the points, on the key details that I want to know. The information I want to know. This is to reinforce it, to make sure you remember that I want more than that and that I would be very grateful if you give me more than that. So it's okay to repeat things. If you feel like maybe someone would have read what you wrote earlier a little quickly because they were trying to get to the key points, right? So it's definitely okay to repeat yourself as long as you know why you're doing it and you feel doing it will actually help you get what you need. We'll actually accomplish something in your email. There's no rule that says you can't repeat yourself. But if you do, I would strongly suggest using even slightly different wording. Just make it a little bit different. And that should make it feel less like clearly repeating yourself, okay, would be valuable as I want to hit the ground running. Now you could cut that part out. We could just say would be valuable, but using as here, or you could also use since helps give Cassandra reason. Why would I want to give you extra information? Because if you give it to me, then I can hit the ground running. If you don't, I might be missing some things that I might struggle to get on my feet in this project. To hit the ground running means day one, I'm ready to work, I'm ready to go. I know everything. I know what's going on because of Cassandra and her very useful information that she gave me. So to hit the ground running as a great phrase to add on, you can use a little add-on like as I want to hit the ground running or since I want to hit the ground running to just give a bit of reminder about why you should give me this. Because it's going to help me in some way to figure out what I'm supposed to do on this project. That can be good. Thank you so much for your time. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. This is a pretty standard way to end an email for a request. The final impression of gratitude, I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. And then a slight push. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. I'm waiting for your reply. I don't want to push too much because I know you're very busy, Cassandra, but I am waiting. And that's a little reminder, but still sounds very friendly. Okay. Then best Kelly, and she puts her role underneath. And you can put that in brackets. So you could put it in parentheses or maybe it's below in a footer. There are a lot of different ways to do that. So whatever you decide, it's probably okay. All right. So that's it for this e-mail. Let's do our recap. 72. Recap | Requesting Role Details: Let's just quickly talk about the key ideas and some of the useful phrases that we talked about for Kelly's email to Cassandra about the upcoming role at v. So here we go. Remember that Kelly really tries to put herself in Cassandra's shoes. Cassandra probably has to deal with many requests for details throughout the day. Maybe that's her job or she's probably just dealing with a lot of people. She's quite busy. So she provides context and doesn't assume that Cassandra lives in her head and won't know what she means if she just says, Please tell me more information about my role. What is that? So try to give a bit of context, but only as much as you need. Remember people don't live in your head. Then you can leave the door open for more information if you want to. Now, depending on who you're sending an e-mail to, you want to think about the phrases that you choose and how those phrases create your tone. If you say, I'm wondering if you could, That's not necessarily overly formal, but it is quite respectful. It is quite polite. The other person feels respected by that. If you say, I need you to do this, Well, that makes you sound like a somewhat impatient person that you want to kind of force someone that it's kind of urgent are very urgent. You're pushing them, you're poking them with your finger. Maybe a boss would talk like this. Someone who doesn't have the time or patients to be very polite for every little thing. I need you to do this by Monday. I need you to do that by Tuesday. Thank you. So it's still polite, but it's definitely different. It feels different. So be aware of how the phrases you choose affect the tone of your requests. Now, Kelly wants to walk this delicate line. She wants Cassandra to provide any information, but doesn't want to leave it totally open. She does have some specific things she wants to know. So that helps Cassandra because then Cassandra knows where to begin. She knows the minimum that she needs to provide for Kelly will the minimum would be to explain number one, number two, and number three. So three bullet points. But if there's anything else, any information would be helpful. That reminds Cassandra, Oh, yeah. This is a new person. She doesn't know that much. Maybe I will provide a few things. Now. I'm going to empathize with Kelly and stand in her shoes and think about what would be useful for her to know about this project before she begins. So then she can probably think about some really useful things to share which Kelly will appreciate and remember also we can use would and could to soften language would include typically are used to soften. And then finally, we talked about hitting the ground, running. Well, why she's saying this? Give me this, please. It would be great if you could give me this, it would be great if you could explain this stuff to me. Don't say give me this. That's the meaning, but don't say it like that so that I can hit the ground running. I have a reason now, a reminder, a little reminders so that so I can so that I can then hit the ground running, begin without conflict, without issue. Well, that's good for the whole project. If Kelly comes in and she knows what's going on, then everyone sees that and appreciate Cassandra for providing that information, for helping her understand everything she needs. That's better for the whole team. And then of course, Kelly fields, grateful, and maybe Cassandra's job is even easier after that because Kelly was able to hit the ground running to start right after she got on the project because of Cassandra's help. So very useful phrase and also a good way to give someone a reason for why they should help you and hopefully why they should help you soon and not wait a week because the project is starting now. Okay, so that's it for this e-mail. I hope you found this one interesting. Practice, practice, practice. See if you can use what you learn in this one in your next email request, just be aware of your tone. All right, I'll see you in the next lesson. 73. Scenario | A Simple Request: In the last lesson, we talked about writing an email for a detailed request. In this lesson, we're going to focus on a very simple request. Now, simple does not mean that there's nothing to learn about. In fact, we may have more to learn from the simple e-mail then the longer emails. Simple when I say a simple request, what I mean is it's relatively short and the thing being requested itself is not overly complicated. We need this thing and that's it. And we don't need to write a long email. So that's what we're going to be doing. Let's go through the scenario and then look at the email. So here we go. Psi once Maria to give her an inventory document in the form of a PDF. Okay. She also wants her to know that it is actually at the request of someone else. Ingrid. So Ingrid is the one that's really requesting this. And psi is kind of in the middle, asking Maria for this thing. She separates each piece of information so that nothing is missed. That should be very familiar and keeps it as simple as possible. Remember, don't say what you don't need to say. We want to try to keep it simple. If it can be simple. If we need to say more, Sure, let's say more. But is it necessary? If the answer is no, then don't add more for no reason at all. And inventory document, just to explain this a little bit, it's not very important to understand. It's not the purpose of our email, but this would be related to the inventory in a warehouse, products in a warehouse or materials in a warehouse or in a store room. The stock of a product available that's not out on the shelves in the store. That's usually what inventory is about. Okay, So that's the scenario. Let's take a look at the e-mail. 74. Full Email | Short and to the Point: Let's take a look at size simple email request to Maria, who has size colleague. So let's read through this. Maria, Ingrid wants to review our inventory report prior to our expected Q2 quarter to bump in orders. Okay. Please pass along the full documentation, PDF, prices, quantities, and current supply, either as an attachment or a Google Drive link. I have a call with Ingrid at six, so please send it as soon as you get the chance. Thanks. Saj. Okay. Pretty simple. We haven't often had the whole email on one page here, halfway. Well, let's explore this a little bit. What do you notice from the beginning? Is she being very formal? No, not really. What's the tone? The tone is, I would say if it can be a tone, efficiency, simplicity. Efficiency, Not being rude, Not being polite, just communicating and not saying more than what is needed. If that can be a tone, that's the tone. But we have to sort of go through this piece by piece to really understand what's going on here. Again, looks simple, is simple, but there are some things to talk about, some things to understand. So she just starts off with Maria. That is standard for colleagues. No need to say hello. No need to say, Hey, you can certainly it's okay. But when you have colleagues or let's just say People you regularly correspond with, you don't need any more than the name. That is the kind of standard greeting. Just use the name. That is what I usually do when I email my colleagues, when I send emails to people that I know quite well, especially, especially if we communicate pretty regularly. Now, we know that their colleagues or at least to have a pretty close relationship. Because she says here, Ingrid once, well, who's Ingrid? Well, Ingrid must be their boss or someone like that. So this is the person who is in charge of both of them, or perhaps she's in charge of psi and psi is in charge of Maria or maybe not. Maybe they're in two different departments anyway. They both know who Ingrid is. And that's the important thing. We have some shared knowledge because we work in the same area, we work on the same kind of stuff or both involved in inventory somehow. We have shared knowledge, shared understandings, and that allows me psi to say less, to use fewer words. I don't need to explain as much. I don't need to tell you who it is. I don't need to explain what an inventory report is. I don't need to tell you why it is that we're expecting a Q2 bump. Everybody knows everything. At least, you know it and I know it. And so for that reason, I don't need to spend a lot of time building up your understanding, providing a lot of context. We've been talking about how to create a context to put the other person in the right frame of mind so that then they know how to answer the question properly. Yes. But if it's a colleague and you regularly communicate, you already have that from the beginning. It's built into your relationship. So you just get right down to business. You get down to business. Rather than having a greeting here that explain some background context or her general purpose, she says what she needs. In the first paragraph, Ingrid wants to review our inventory report prior to our expected Q2 bump in orders. Well, there's a lot there, but it is the purpose of the email and it is the thing that she wants. She says it right from the beginning. She doesn't waste any time. Okay. So Maria knows who Ingrid is. She knows what an inventory report is. I'm going to provide a little bit of detail afterward because I want to make sure I get it in the right way. But at least I know that Maria knows what that is and she probably understands this expected Q2 bump in orders. Q2 would be quarters, so Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, and then a bump would be sales numbers going along or order numbers and there's a bump there. They go up for a little while. We're expecting that to happen. And you were in that meeting, so I don't need to explain that either. Right from the beginning. Say what you want. Especially when it's with colleagues, especially when you know that they know what you're talking about, especially when you communicate regularly. So you have to think about this stuff before you write an email. You're writing to a university, you don't know who's going to read it. You just know that department there is very little shared understanding there, so you have to be more formal, explain more, give more context. So why not just stop there? She said what she wants and she's given a little bit of context so that Maria knows why. Because our boss, Ingrid wants it. Before this thing happens. Okay. I understand. I understand why that makes sense. She could she could stop right there and the e-mail and that would probably be okay between colleagues. Very short email's fine. Even if you don't put your name afterward, even if you don't use their name in the salutation, that's usually okay to, of course, it depends on how often you communicate. But psi wants to say a little bit more because there are some details that matter. She wants to make sure that she gets the document in the correct format and she wants to make sure that the right things are included in it. Then she wants to give a bit of time pressure, and she wants to make sure that that time pressure makes sense. So please pass along the full documentation, PDF, prices, quantities, and current supply, either as an attachment or a Google Drive link. So either one of these is okay, this, you can attach it to this email or you can give me a link in Google Drive and that would be okay. But I do want it as a PDF. I want it as a PDF. You could say please pass along the full document as a PDF, as a p, d, f, or as a Word file or whatever format you want it in. This is about the format, send along a Word file, send along a Word file, please send me a Word file. Please send me a PDF now, documentation PDF. Okay. She wants to include that. Probably not necessary, but okay. Why not include it? But PDF replaces the Word document. Pdf is a document and so you don't need to say it. All right, so you can just say a PDF. Now it's a little bit different depending on the format, but that's one way that you can make your language a bit more efficient. Think about replacing a general noun with a more specific noun that can replace that general noun. Document replaced with the format, which is also a type of document. Now, she puts prices, quantities in current supply in parentheses after commas, like a list rather than bullet points. Now why do you think she does that? We've talked about doing things as a bullet list. We could write it like this, right? Prices, quantities, current supply. Maybe it's because she's pretty sure that Maria knows what is included in the full documentation PDF, or the inventory report. She's pretty sure, but she wants to make sure. So she doesn't want to make it the whole point of the e-mail. The whole point of the email is to get her to send this thing that she knows about and to make sure she does it pretty quickly and hopefully that she knows why she's doing it so that she feels she's doing something useful. But not that it has to include these three things. It does have to include these three things, but you might write it this way when you're pretty sure the other person knows those things and you just want to make sure we're on the same page. If I'm pretty sure that you don't know what is included, this this and this in an inventory report, then I'll probably use bullet points. So that's what you might want to ask yourself. When you're deciding to use bullet points or not, are you making sure that someone knows something that they probably already know? Or are you telling them something that's probably new information that they really need to pay attention to, because if they miss it, it could be very bad. Let's look at the last part of this, either as an attachment or a Google Drive link. Think about this as well. How do you want to receive something? If you actually don't really care, then you can put this or this and that's usually fine because you really don't care. But if you have a preference, then don't include the other one. Just say Please attach the full documentation PDF. I wanted as an attachment, nothing else. Don't provide options if you prefer one. Only if you don't care, it doesn't really matter. Should you provide options? Because adding more things is again, not necessary. Okay. She could say if she wants it to be a Google Drive link absolutely. And it should not be an attachment. She could say please pass along the full documentation, PDF, prices, quantities, and current supply as a Google Drive link or in a Google Drive link, either one of those would be okay, because that's how I want you to send it. So also ask yourself that, do you care or not? Then finally, what are we doing with this last thing is this to be friendly is to create a positive tone, to wish the other person a good day and a good week? No. We communicate too often for that. We know each other too well for that. I want you to feel a little bit of pressure, a little bit of Urgency. I have a call with Ingrid at six, so please send it as soon as you get the chance. This is pushing, this is urgency. And ask yourself if that's okay. If you could tell this person directly to their face because you know them well, please give it to me today. I really need it. Then you can probably do that in an email. Don't be more polite than you need to be. Be as polite as you need to be. Because in many cases, for work, efficiency is more important than politeness. So just be clear and be efficient with your words and don't say more than you need to say. And when you're done, then you're done and you can stop, right? So always be thinking about this when you're communicating with people. Ask yourself this before you even start. Now, how is PSI giving a little bit of pressure to Maria here? What is she doing? Well, two things. Number 1, she has a clear deadline, so she's giving a deadline of six PM today so that it's absolutely clear. Asap means this. It doesn't mean tomorrow or the next day. Good. So she's been clear with her time deadline, but she's also brought in the name of, I guess this is their boss, Ingrid. She's mentioned Ingrid twice. So she's giving a little bit more pressure using the Ingrid power. Ingrid will be upset. It's our boss. So you don't want our boss to be upset if she finds out you're the one who didn't send me the report, then you're going to be the one in trouble, not me. I know that sounds a little bit silly, but that might be the thing which pushes her a little bit more. It's not just you asking for this. You are asking on behalf of another person who is up here, maybe my boss. And so I will definitely make sure that you get it on time because I don't want to look bad and I don't want you, my colleague, to look bad. So I'm gonna make sure you get this on time because I want us to continue to have a good working relationship that's important to me. But oh, Ingrid, once it so it's giving me a bit more pressure. And it also tells me why if I'm Maria, not just that I have to do this. It's always a good idea to tell people why they should do things, not just tell them to do things. I need you to do this. Okay. I'll do it, but I don't really know why I'm doing it, so it seems a little bit pointless. And if I maria, then think about that. Oh, yes, we have these orders coming up. We're going to have more orders and that's going to be good. And I'm going to play a part in that. And so I better get this report in so that everything runs smoothly. So now I understand why I have the bigger picture, but also think about the other things like, should I give them a bit more detail if I have any specific requirements, maybe yes, maybe no. Should I keep it very simple or should I add a bit of length? Why would you add length? Do you need more? Do you need more information? Do you need more context? If not, leave it out? Do you need to give a bit of a push? Do you need to give a deadline? Do you need them to feel a sense of urgency? Do you need to let them know who actually asked for this and that it's not just you, but someone else to provide even more pressure and a bit more context. Think about all these things when you're writing your emails. And now let's go on and do our recap. 75. Recap | A Simple Request: Let's do a recap of size. Simple request email to Maria. Remember, this e-mail is not longer than it needs to be. Once you've said what you want to say, once you've communicated, what you want to communicate, stop. And I know that can be a little bit difficult sometimes though it's quite apparent from this email, but it's true for all others as well. It's true for writing, and I would say communicating in general. Now, what about the overall tone, the way that size communicating with Maria, the level of formality of this email is quite low. So think about that also before you start writing. Do we have a pretty close relationship? Do we work together very often? Do I need to use polite phrases like we've talked about earlier in this course. Would you mind? Could you please do I need to do that or can I be a bit more direct? And in fact, our colleague, this person will probably appreciate the time saved, the efficiency. Tell me what you want. You don't need a lot of contexts, you don't need all of these phrases. Communicate effectively with me. I appreciate that. And if it comes across as a little bit direct, That's okay. Now we also talked about preferences for a method or a way of doing something. Remember, this is a request. So the other person has to do something for us, maybe that send a document. If you have a preference, then don't give the other person options. If you don't really have a preference, you don't really care, then you could provide a few different options. You could send it as a PDF. You can send it as a Word document however you want to send it. Or maybe you have three options and it has to be one of those three. But if you care which one of those three it is, then don't give those three. Only give one. Please send this as a PDF. Please send this in PDF format. Please send this as a something. Please attach a PDF. You say clearly how you want that person to fulfill or complete your request. That's more like instructions, then Preferences. Always be careful with providing options and only provide them when you really don't care which one it is. And finally, we talked about pressure and psi provided two kinds of pressure. Number one, time pressure, she has a very clear deadline. Have a meeting at six with Ingrid. Ooh, there's a deadline coming up. I'd better hurry up. I'd better get this to you before six or well in advance also it's Ingrid. Ingrid is the source, the origin of the request. And also psi mentioned that too. So two kinds of pressure. One being where it comes from. It's not just for me, it's from Ingrid who? It's from Ingrid and six o'clock meeting. I need it by then a hard deadline. I need it by the end of today, not tomorrow. By the end of today. And also if you can include anywhere in there the reason for this request, not just what you need, but what do you need and why, even if it's just half a sentence, that's usually a good idea. It gives people a sense of the bigger picture and what their actions actually mean. Okay, So that is it for this email. Let me know if you have any questions. We're going to go on and look at one more request e-mail before going on to the next section. So I will see you in the next lesson. 76. Scenario | A Complex Request: Before we move on to our next section where we talk about emails for sending things. We have one more request to look at. Now this request is kind of complex, so it will share some similarities to the more detailed request email we looked at earlier in this section, but we'll have some differences as well. So let's read through the scenario and then get into the e-mail. This is Luke, not me, of course. Nami, a different Luke, not this loop. A different Luke. Luke needs to find out from the Department of the cursor at the University he's about to attend. How he can get the scholarship money that he has qualified for? The answer may require several steps and be somewhat complex. So Luke provides as many details as he thinks the cursor's office may need to answer his question. Remember, we want to try to reduce the need for a back and forth. The bursters department at the university, they're responsible for tuition, for payments, for paying for the education that you are about to get at the university. So they would also be probably responsible for things related to scholarship payments. If you get awarded some money as a scholarship, they would be the ones you'd you'd want to talk to. But what are they going to need? Well, I don't know for sure. So this one is going to be very useful for situations where you have a request that you need someone else to complete. And you know that they will need information from you, but you're not quite sure which information or maybe how much information to provide. So you want to provide enough so that they don't have to email you back and say, We need this, this and this, and then we will complete your request and then we'll we'll deal with this. So how do you do this? How do you make sure they have the information? How do you try to avoid that need for a back and forth? That's the goal and of course to be as clear and succinct as possible. So let's jump into the email. 77. Part 1 | Providing Key Background Information: Let's take a look at the first part of Luke's email to the bursters office of the university. He's going to here we go, To whom it may concern. Okay. That should be familiar to the cursor's office of Q CC and this is the university, perhaps k. So either one of these, and we'll talk about that. I'm a freshman at the main campus and have a few questions about scholarships. My information, colon, then a space name, Luke pretty, student ID, 5, 1, 2, 4, 1 a counselor, Pablo Borg, space. Here's my issue. I think I should have received a $7 thousand scholarship because my high school grades qualify me for that according to the scholarship page of the website. However, I'm not sure, but the process for claiming my scholarship. Now that could sound like a question, but we want to be a little bit more specific here. We're just sort of preparing the ground, the foundation for that. Now, which one of these is better to whom it may concern? Or the cursor's office of QC. I would say this one is a little better here To whom it may concern. That's fine. But that's generally when you really don't know who's going to be reading it, we wanna make it clear that this is for this department, this office, and nobody else. There might be two or three people working here. I think it's a little better here. Again, if you use To whom it may concern, I think that would be totally fine. We don't know the person, the name of the person, so it is okay. And it has a formal feeling because Luke pretty whoever that is, hasn't emailed this department before or hasn't been corresponding going back and forth with them? Probably at least recently. Okay. So the formality is appropriate, sort of formal here, like the other one we looked at at the beginning of the section. I am a freshman at the main campus and have a few questions about scholarships. Okay, So in this greeting, There's some basic background information provided which may or may not be necessary. And the general purpose of the email. This is something you should be quite familiar with by now that we provide often a general reason for the email. Nothing too specific in the first part. The first thing. So what is the background information? Well, what would they need to know? It might help them to know I'm a freshman, which means it's my first year. And it might help them to know that I'm at the main campus. Maybe there are four or five different campuses, same university, different locations. And maybe they need to know that. I don't know if they need to know it or not, but they might. So I say it and that's the thing I really want you to take away from this email example. If you don't know what they may need provided, especially if it seems quite possible that they will need it, just provide it. Because otherwise, if they do need it, then they need to get back to you and get that information before answering your question, before providing the information you need, right? Okay. Then my information very clearly, this is stuff I'm pretty sure they need to know. So I want to provide it in a place that's very obvious. Now, usually we haven't had a space here after the, after the colon. I'm going to put it here because I want it to stand out. I want this to be a very obvious thing. I want them to see that right up front in case they need to look me up. They can look up my name, they can look up my student ID. I don't know that they need both of these. I'm guessing they need this information so that they can look me up. I'm a student at this university, look me up and then give me the information I need. Now this is a this is a maybe do they need to know who my counselor is? I'm going to include it because why not? But I'm putting this in its own little section because I want it to be very easy for them to find if they go back to the email to check it again, they don't have to search through a bunch of paragraphs to find it. Boom, there it is very clearly separated. So this is kind of a case of making my own rule just because I want it to be quite obvious. Okay. Then I go on to the background information of the problem. I haven't stayed in my request yet, but i'm I'm getting very close to doing that. Here's my issue. Now pay attention to this. Actually, that's what this is doing. That is making someone, whoever is reading this, pay attention to what I'm about to say. If I say just I think I should have received, that's fine. You're starting the new topic. But using a marker like this in front of a colon can be a great way to grab someone's attention. Whoever is reading this, they're immediately going to pay attention and say, Okay, here's the problem. Because if I have quite a few paragraphs, I might not notice exactly where. Background information ends and the problem begins. So here's my issue. Here is my request. This is the problem. This is what I'm wondering here is what I've been thinking to market in some way like that. It's a very powerful thing. Pay attention to that and use it when you went to grab that person's attention and make them focus on it. But make sure you word this carefully so that they know what the thing is that you're about to say generally, I think I should have received a $7 thousand scholarship. That means money given usually as an award for good academic performance because my high school grades qualify me for that according to the scholarship page of the website, this is useful background. What does it tell the person from the bursters office who's reading it? Well, it tells them that I know the rules that I'm up to date on the website. I've looked at the website. I've tried to get answers from the website, but I haven't got those answers. Sometimes telling the other person what you've done when they would have told you to do that first before answering your request, can be a good thing to get to the next step more quickly. Because if they want to answer, well, you should check the website. But before that you told them I've already checked the website. Then they will go to step 2. First, there, step 1 will be step 2. Does that make sense? You went to anticipate the first solution that they might have in mind? It's very clearly listed on the website. Yes. I'm referencing the website. So you know that I already saw the website. So let's get to the real solutions. Okay. Let's get to my real request. I want you to explain something for me and answer some questions, okay? According to, according to is the useful phrase we use to say where we got something according to my friend. Maybe not very reliable if you say according to my friend, but if you say according to this well known and respected newspaper, if you say according to 90 percent of all doctors in this area. Ooh. Okay. Where did you get this information? Use according to, to cite or reference that it's a very easy way to do it. Okay. That's where I got the information. I didn't hear it from someone. I didn't see it on some poster on the street. I saw it on the official website. So now we know what we're talking about. You know, where I'm coming from, you have the context. However, I'm not sure about the process of claiming my scholarship. Now, this isn't the request, but it's very close to it. It's the statement before the request comes sometimes at the end of the paragraph to explain the background, you make a general statement about what you're wondering or what you're thinking about, or what you're worried about, or what your request will relate to the general idea. I don't really know the next step in the process. I don't completely understand how the rules work. Okay. That's just a statement of ignorance. You have stated that you're ignorant about something, hence the request, but you have to state the request more clearly than this. You can't just make the general statement. Now it's time to be more specific to state the questions, to state the request after you've said, However, I'm not sure about the process of claiming my scholarship. Then we go on and state it. 78. Part 2 | A Clear CTA and Gentle Push: Now we go on to the second part of Luke's email to the bursters office of his university about his scholarship. I'm wondering if you could tell me the best way to access my scholarship money. Will it just be a deduction from my tuition payment or should I be expecting check in the mail. Looking forward to your reply or please get back to me at your earliest convenience, how would recommend one or the other of those? Not probably not both. That's a little little bit repetitive. Thank you, Luke. Pretty non-meat. Different loop pretty. So there are other there are other loop pretty he's in the world. I'm not the only one, probably. Okay. So let's get into this first. I'm wondering if you could would we do that with size email? I'm wondering if you could know, remember, psi had to be a little more direct to be more efficient with her language, to communicate very effectively. Well, do we often communicate with the bursters office? No. So even though Luke has used hears right. Which is a contraction instead of here is, which is a little bit less formal. Still respectful language is here. There's a bit more formality, not extremely formal. And the use of some of these more polite sounding, respectful phrases. Perfect example, I'm wondering if you could tell me. I was wondering, maybe maybe too soft. I'm wondering if you could tell me. Okay, instead of please tell me or tell me, that would be more direct, psi might say something like that. I'm wondering if you could tell me the best way to access my scholarship money. So there might be more than one way. I don't know. I'm asking you to use your experience to explain to me the best way. And this might have several steps which I'm okay with. I want to hear about it. If it's a seven step process, tell me the seven steps. I've given you my information. I want to know the best way. I'm a little confused about this. But then there are some questions. Now, these questions are more like guesses. So the person reading this could ignore the questions and instead, just focus on the explanation of the steps. Do this, this, this, this step 1 through 5, right? The questions are here to provide a simple guess to say, I've been thinking about this. I'm wondering if it might be this way. Maybe my guess is correct, in which case you can tell me if that's right or wrong. It's not quite a confirmation because I'm not that confident. I'm not pretty sure about it, but I'm providing a few guesses to sort of encourage you to correct me if I'm wrong, or perhaps add a little detail to it. If I am correct with a few steps inside of it, will it just be a deduction from my tuition payment or should I be expecting a check in the mail? In either of those, there may still be steps. So even if it's one or the other of those, it may not be as simple. Yes. It may be, yes. There is a deduction from your tuition payment. In order to do that, you have to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So what I'm trying to do, Not me, but Luke is trying to do here is leave room for an explanation. It's very close to a confirmation email, but without the confidence of that, the certainty of that. So that's why the information is given, That's why the context is provided. This now leaves room for this person to respond with the necessary details because they have the information they need and they have the permission to explain the best way because that's the real question here. That's the real request. Even though this is not a question, I'm wondering if you could, you could easily change it to a question. Could you please provide the best way to access my scholarship money? Okay. That's a question. But to differentiate it, the request as a statement, which is fine from the two guesses after. To make it a little bit different, to say that's the most important thing. And then here are a couple of guesses that I have. Those are my, my questions. Then here at the end, it really depends on that final impression that you want to give. Looking forward to your reply, that would be pretty standard, pretty normal. Please get back to me at your earliest convenience, quite polite. We've talked about that one quite formal, but also a bit of a push. I do want a response because I need to figure my finances out or Luke wants to figure his finances out. It's not me. It's not me. Right. So depends on what you want to do. Either one of those should be fine. You're pretty familiar with how to use those by now? I think. So. That's it for this e-mail. Now let's do our recap. 79. Recap | A Complex Request: Let's do our recap of the main ideas and useful phrases for Luke's email to the bursters office of his university. So remember if there are basic details you want to provide and you want to make sure that those stand out, that they're very obvious and that this person can go back to that e-mail and easily find them. Just separate them, simply have a line between that information and everything else. Have a line above, have a line below. So that it's really obvious and there's some flexibility there about the format that you choose. Whether you have the part with the colon included in that or not. People do it different ways as long as you know why you're doing it, just ask yourself at any point, why am I doing this? And that can provide a lot of insight and guidance. It's a good way to develop self-awareness to, here's my issue. This clearly separates the now thing I want to focus on from the background information I went to clearly market. Here's my issue. This is my problem. This is what I'm thinking. There are a lot of things you can say there. It depends on what the email is about, but the point is that it separates it from the stuff that goes before the context and very clearly marks it as a kind of fresh beginning. Okay, now we're getting down to business. What we really want to talk about, this is it, I'm marking it in this way. Now remember we also looked at according to, you can use according to when you want to reference where you got something. And often that can tell the other person that you've already taken the first step, the most obvious step, so that then they don't have to provide that first obvious step in their email. They'll give you what you really want. So it's quite useful for that. And really for anytime that you want to reference your source, where did you hear this? Where did you learn this? Because that can make people respect this information or perhaps not. If you say, according to two of my classmates, well, maybe it depends on the situation. Or if I say, according to the president of the university, people might say, Okay, he said it. She said it, wow, more impressive. Again, it depends on the situation. But this, according to can be a very powerful way to reference the source of information so that other people have a broader context and then may be more likely to believe you or take an action that you would like them to take, maybe to complete a request, like tell you the steps of getting your scholarship. Now in the main paragraph that included the request, there were two questions, but it's quite clear that those two questions are just guesses. I'm telling you. I don't know. So I'm not trying to confirm something. I really don't know. I'm just guessing. My guesses might kind of push you to want to say it very clearly. While this person is guessing, they have no idea. But let me explain the steps very clearly. So that might be a good way to push them a little bit. But the sentence that comes before is the most important part. That's the clear request. I'm wondering if you could tell me. Nothing could be more simple than that. Again, you could write that as a question or not. Sometimes it's better to not write it as a question. I'm wondering if you could tell me. I'm wondering if you could explain. I'm wondering if you could help me so that the person reading it knows exactly what they need to do. And so that then if you do add questions, it's quite clear that those are different. Maybe I can ignore those. Those are just some guesses. And if they're wrong, just forget about them. What I really want to know is the process. Please explain it to me very clearly. So hopefully then that encourages this person who works at the bursters office to sit down and very seriously, very carefully, right. An email back that answers the question and email back that fulfills the request. So that is it for this email. If you have any questions, let me know, make sure you're practicing this stuff in your own emails. The best way to learn is to use what you learnt, that is the best way. It's also the end of this section. We are now done with requests and we're going to go on to sending things. So I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson. 80. Scenario | Sending a Resume: In the last section of the course, we talked about requesting things, how we can write an email to request simple things or more detailed things, and a few other types of requests as well. In this section of the course, we're going to be talking about sending things via email. There are a lot of different things that we could send, of course. But the idea is when you need to send something to somebody else, how should you do that so that they receive it in the right way so that they understand why you're sending it. Now we'll be focusing on a few different things in this section. But for the first part, we're going to talk about two very important things related to getting a job, sending a resume and sending a cover letter. How do you do that? How do you make sure that you present yourself? Well, especially for a cover letter. Now if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it. We will get into it. We're also going to be talking about how to send a link. I want you to watch something. I want you to open something. Here it is, but I can't just send that by itself. I need to give it some context. I need to explain it a little bit to make you want to receive that, to make you want to click on that to make you want to open it and read it. Now in this first lesson of this section, we're going to be talking about a resume. Now actually, we have the accents here, usually a resume we're not gonna talk about how to write a resume, but a resume is something you would send to a potential employer. That's your background information, who you are, your age, your field, your previous work history, your education, that sort of stuff. And you need to send that to potential employers so that they can make a decision about whether or not two interview you. So whether it's a CV or a resume, we're going to talk about how to send that to a potential employer, someone who may interview you. Okay. We're not talking about the resume itself. If you want to learn more about writing a resume, if you want to learn more about getting a job, for example, in the United States, I would recommend checking out my other course which is completely focused on the interview process and getting a job. Different course, different focus. Here, we're just talking about sending things to this potential employer. So let's go through our scenario and then get into the email. So here's our scenario. Kendra is a dentist who wants to apply for a new position at a hospital. Some hospitals have dental departments, right? It's a dentistry department within the hospital. Often though in the United States, for a dentist you would go to a small clinic rather than a big hospital. But still some hospitals have the History Department. Okay. So her main purpose is to share her resume with the regional head of the dental department. But she also wants to include some details about her experience and skills. Now, you don't want to provide too much detail there, because if you do that, then you're doing with the resume is supposed to do. And that's probably too long. It probably takes too long to read, but you can still provide a few things to make this person want to open the resume and read it to give them a bit of insight into who you are. Now that might be your cover letter. We'll talk about that next. Okay. So she wants to include some details about her experience and skills. Doing so will increase the odds that Dr. hertz this is the head the regional head of the dental department at this hospital or this group of hospitals doing this will increase the odds that Dr. Hurt's will open the attachment and look at her details. So the resume is not going to be part of the body of the e-mail. The resume is going to be attached because it's usually formatted in a certain way, it looks a certain way. Typically, a resume will be a PDF document or something else, could be in different, different formats, but you wouldn't want to try to include it in the text of the e-mail itself. Now you might do that for the cover letter, but not for the resume. Okay. So this is the situation. Very simply, Kendra, the dentist wants to work at this hospital and is sending her resume to an important person. That's it. Let's look at the e-mail. 81. Part 1 | Expressing Interest in the Position: Let's now look at the first part of Dr. Kendra eagles resume e-mail to Dr. hertz. Now note here that I've included the subject. I didn't want to do that for every email because usually it's something quite simple and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. But I wanted to show you what you might use for something like this to send a resume. Because you want to make sure that whoever's getting this is going to click on it and open it and they kind of know what it's about in general. And that might give them a sense of urgency or a feeling that this is important. So this is our subject inquiring into the dental care department director position. Okay. We'll talk a little bit about why we might choose that and what other options there might be. Dear Dr. hurts, my name is Dr. Kendra eagle and I have been working as a general dentist at the VAC, So dental clinic in Cabot Cove, California for over 10 years. I am interested in the dental care department director position that I believe is available at your hospital. I have some management experience and have been recognized by my peers for excellence in diagnosis, examination, and the treatment of oral diseases. I believe I'm qualified for the position. Okay. So here's the first part of our email before the main call to action. What is this? Well, this is background information. We have to ask ourselves, is this good context? Is this too much? This person, Dr. Hertz is going to need the context in order to know that this resume is worth looking at. Why would I open this attachment if I don't know why I should open it, I'm a very busy person. I have a lot of things to do. I need a reason for all I know, you've just finished dental school and now you want to apply for the director position. Well, no way. There's no chance. But if I know you have 10 years of experience and that you've been recognized by your peers. I have some background information, then I'm more likely to click on it and open it and read it and be impressed and think I have to interview this person and immediately take action. So that's the idea. Had always ask yourself, do I need this context? Does this person need to know this stuff or not? Now I know I've said that several times throughout the course, but it's very important. Include what you need to. Don't include what you don't, and think about it for every single e-mail you send. So let's start with the subject here. The subject, what is the purpose of the subject? To make the person wants to click, to make the person want to read it. But it can't be so exaggerated and extreme that they think, Oh, this is ridiculous. Maybe this is spam. You don't want to make it sound like spam. Like 10 reasons you have to open this e-mail or something ridiculous like that. Don't make it extreme. Focus on being clear so that when I actually open it, my expectations are met is what I thought it would be based on the title, but maybe don't make it so boring and so simple that it is just a description of what it is like Resume for dental care department position. Now that's okay. You could do that if you want to be safe. If you want to play it very safe and be sort of cautious, you might just have a descriptive title. It'll probably be okay, but think about adding something that gives it a sense of movement that makes it feel like, oh, I need to do something. This is an ongoing thing. I have to take action on it. So an I-N-G verb at the beginning can be a very good idea. Inquiring into, inquiring about, Oh, this person is actively trying to figure something out and I need to respond. Okay? Or they're actively trying to do something that feels a bit more active and that's a bit more interesting and clickable. But something you might be more interested in clicking on, or you might prioritize in your inbox, right? So those would be two options. A simple descriptive title when you want to be safe, otherwise, try to find that balance between clear and totally extreme. You don't want to be totally extreme so that it sounds like or looks like spam and you don't want it to be so dry that what is what is this? I don't know what this is that a person send this to me or a robot, right? Inquiring, starts it off, I think, with a positive and active tone. Okay. Then Dear Dr. Hurt's we use deer because well, they don't know each other, right. So it feels quite formal. We've talked about this. My name is Dr. Kendra eagle. Now, why would you start with a name? Well, think about how you introduce yourself in person. This can be a great way to begin this sort of email. You certainly don't want to do that if the name is not important. But for job-related things, especially. Starting with a full name is a good idea. Maybe Dr. Hurt's wants to search Dr. Kendra eagle on LinkedIn or maybe there's some other place where dentists can look each other up to make sure, oh, this is a real dentist and their experiences is real, maybe. So it can be a good idea to include it and it just feels more personal. Now she also includes in the same sentence, and I have been working as a general dentist at the vaccine, so dental clinic in Cabot Cove, California for 10 years. There's so much useful information contained in this one long sentence. It includes how long she has been a dentist where exactly geographically maybe that's a consideration that Dr. Hurt's would have location and not wanting to make someone move far away. I don't know exactly which company which clinic she works at. Maybe it's a good clinic, maybe not. I went to look that up. So all of these questions that Dr. Hurt's might have before opening the resume itself are probably answered here in one long sentence. Now I'm not recommending that you always use one sentence. But in this case, it's very effective. It includes pretty much everything. She's a dentist. She has ten years of experience. This is where this is which clinic? This is my name. Wow. Okay, So that's a great way to start things off. And it's quite friendly, even though it's still a little bit formal, even though it's still professional. This is what you might say to someone when you introduce yourself. So think about it in that way. Now, what is the intention? So this is still context, but now we're getting into the intention. And this is going to be a little bit like a cover letter. We might even call this a kind of mini cover letter. Now we're going to get into cover letters are going to talk about them in more detail. But background information can also include why you're a good fit for the position, what your intention is, because maybe there are quite a few open positions. If you're very clear about which one you want to get, which position you're applying for, then Dr. Hurt's has the right frame of mind when he opens your resume, he knows which position you're applying to. So everything he reads there will then be fit into that little box, the box of, Oh, this person is applying to this position. So as we've talked about with previous e-mails, you want to put yourself in the shoes of the other person so that you can see what questions might pop up in their mind. As they're reading your background information, as they're reading this sort of context, the greeting, so that you can then answer those questions proactively in that context. So that when the person gets to the thing that you really want them to get to, the resume. They don't have questions and they can focus on that instead of being distracted by all the questions rattling around in their head. Hopefully, Kendrew Eagle has done a good job of anticipating the questions that Dr. Hurt's might have in his mind. Okay. I'm interested in the dental care department director position that I believe is available at your hospital, something could have changed. I'm acknowledging that I believe is available that you might have hired someone this morning. I don't know. It's possible. I don't have full information. My intention is to apply for this position. I'm interested in this position. I'm interested in this role. And you name it and you name it exactly as it's listed on any job application, website, or any sort of place that you see it, you copy that title exactly. Because there might be another role with a similar name. And if you use that one instead, then you're going to confuse this person. So be very, very clear which thing you're interested in and then make sure you've got it exactly right because that person might be hiring for 10 different jobs, you don't know. So this first sentence here is intention very clearly stating the intention and which position exactly. The second one is going to go on and talk a little bit about why I Dr. Ken, were eagle am a good fit for the role? Not too much. You don't want to say too much. It's going to be very short and sweet. Let's call this a mini cover letter. That's what I'm going to call it a mini cover letter so that you know, that I probably am a good fit because I'm going to tell you a bit about my experience and skills, but I'm not going to overburden you with information because you'll see that when you read my resume. Okay. So how do we do that? I have some management experience. To be a director, you would need some management experience and have been recognized by my peers for excellence in and then these three areas of dentistry. We don't need to talk too much about that. But why is that important? Well, it doesn't have to be your peers, but Kendrew Eagle has decided that these things are relevant. It's not just, I think I think I'm a great dentist. I'm really good at diagnosis. Don't just say, I think I've been recognized by my peers is more objective. Objective, not subjective objective. So I really do have management experience. That's probably something you're looking for. So I want to mention it. It's going to catch your eye. And then I want to let you know that it's not just me who thinks this. My peers think this as well. They think that I have skill in these areas and maybe I know that these areas are important for this role. So these are just things that Kendra thinks will impress Dr. Hurt's things that she thinks will catch his eye. But it doesn't have to be these. It could be anything else. But you don't want to choose too many things. One or two things that are relevant. One or two things that are going to be kind of impressive and catch this person's eye. And then you want to get into the call to action because you don't want the email to be too long. Right now if it's a cover letter, that's a little bit different. Okay. That's a bit different. This is kind of a mini cover letter. It's not a job application. Put in a couple of things here, very simply, short and sweet that are going to catch this person's eye and make them want to open it, provide some background that they might want, that they might need to eliminate questions? This is a very powerful first sentence as the greeting here. Then intention, if you have an intention stated very clearly, very simply, then something that's going to pique their curiosity to peak someone's curiosity means to make them 12 who I want to do. The next thing I want to open this thing. I went to read it, I went to check it out because my curiosity, my interest has been piqued. All right. Let's now look at the second part of this email. 82. Part 2 | Implying a CTA: Now let's look at Part 2 of Dr. Kendra is e-mail to Dr. Hurt's to send her resume to him for a job position. Here we go. I have attached my resume below and would love to come in for an interview if the position is still available. Thank you very much. Sincerely. Dr. Kendra eagle, dentist advect. So dental clinic. All right. So this is our call to action. This is our last thing. What are we doing with the call to action here? I have attached my resume below. Okay, so what is the call to action? The call to action is please read my resume. Now you might say, well, that's not a real call to action. I thought a real call to action is please read my resume, please open the attachment below. It doesn't have to be it can be an implied or suggested call to action. If you say I have attached my resume below, that means please open the attachment. You don't have to say it exactly as an action or an instruction to the other person. You can suggest it, you can imply it. What else could that mean? I wouldn't have attached it below if I didn't want you to look at it. So of course please do that. And in fact, if she's too obvious and says something like, I hope you will read the attachment below that is my resume or something like that. It's too much. Yes. This is a formal email. She doesn't know Dr. Hurt's personally true, but she wants to come across still as friendly, even though this email is still formal, you can be formal and friendly at the same time. And I would say this is friendly. This is a polite way to say, this is what I want you to do by implying it, because I have attached it without saying it as some kind of instruction and would love to come in for an interview if the position is still available. So this again, if the position is still available, this is her acknowledging that maybe it's been taken already. If it has not been filled. I'm acknowledging that, you know, things could have changed since I recently saw this position opening. But I am very eager and I really want this job and I'm showing my eagerness, my enthusiasm, my proactiveness by telling you that I would like to have an interview. It might show some confidence as well to say, I would like to have an interview. Confident, very confident. Not too much. I would say it's a pretty good balance. Please read my resume and then if you like it, call me and ask me for an interview. That's the real call to action here. It's not said in such a direct way, right? It's not quite that direct, but it's saying about the same thing. Now, should we add more here? Ask yourself, do you need more? No, you don't. You don't need more because you want the call to action to be very clear. The call to action is check this and then call me if you like it and schedule an interview with me or send me an e-mail and schedule a time for the interview and that's it. And if I say a lot more stuff and I would like to add a few things about my experience. Note, this is not the time. That's the kind of stuff you can say in your interview. That's the kind of stuff that will be included in the resume itself. So don't add what's not needed at the beginning of the e-mail, the background, the context is necessary. But for the call to action, we want to keep it as simple and clear as possible. Then thank you very much. Pretty standard, nothing special about that. It's a common way to end an email sincerely. Okay. Pretty standard. And then at the end, Dr. Henry eagle, Dr. Hurt's may look that up if he has time holism, very well-known clinic in the area and it's got very hi reviews. So it must be quite prestigious and that's a good thing. So you must be a good dentist. So I will then read your resume and then probably give you an interview. So these are the kinds of things that show some confidence. Now, this is something that you can include any way. But having it there as a little reminder in case Dr. Hurt's wants to look something up, wants to verify this person and where this person works. It certainly can't hurt. All right, that's it for this email. Remember, you can send other things in this way as well. Follow the same basic structure. It works for a lot of different things. Next, we're going to do our quick recap before going on to cover letters. 83. Recap | Sending a Resume: Let's now do a quick recap of the main ideas and some of the key phrases we talked about for Dr. eagles resume e-mail to Dr. hertz. So remember, the greeting at the beginning is actually an introduction, but an introduction that contains a lot of information. Now, you can decide how much information is relevant, how much you want to include. But if you're writing an email to someone and you want to make sure that they know a little about you so that then they can be in the right frame of mind. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what question marks, what I have before I would take some action related to this person. And then as an answer to that thought that question, put that in your greeting. And it certainly doesn't have to be a single sentence. But forcing yourself to put everything you want to say into a single, not too long sentence, but a single sentence can force you to keep it fairly simple. But if you allow yourself a long paragraph with a bunch of sentences to introduce yourself, you might be providing too much detail and that might cause this person to lose interest, to not want to read all of that because it's excessive. So forcing yourself to keep it in a sentence, maybe two is probably a good idea. And again, just ask yourself, what questions do they have in their mind? You might want to share who you are a bit about your experience in this case, where you work, but depending on what kind of email here sending relevant information as background when stating the intention or the purpose for the email. Starting with something like, I am very interested in, makes it really clear what is this email about? What is the purpose. Okay, I see this person is interested in this position, and in this case, starting with, I'm interested in this position. Naming the position exactly sort of acknowledges that. Yes. Dr. Hurt's may be very busy. He may be trying to fill many positions. So I wanted to be as clear as possible so that he is in the right frame of mind when he reviews my resume. So being specific and stating your intentions very simply at the start is often a good idea. Kendra also decides to include a couple of things that might encourage or Push Doctor hurts to open the PDF in a way like a mini Cover Letter. Cover Letter is to explain why you're qualified for this position. But in this case, not long at all. Just a bit of a push to encourage this person to do the thing that you want them to do, to open the thing that you have sent them, the PDF or whatever it is. And if you're sending other kinds of things not related to a resume, just think about one or two, maybe three things that you might mention that would encourage or push that person to want to open whatever it is that you've sent them. Now finally, she uses the phrase, I would love to come in for an interview. This shows that she's very proactive, that she's eager and she's excited to go to the next step. This might help to push Dr. hurts a little bit, but maybe more importantly shows what kind of person she is, her attitude that she's proactive. So that's it for the recap and that is it for this resume e-mail. In the next lesson, we're going to be looking at cover letters, kind of a special lesson. I hope you're looking forward to it. I'll see you in the next one. 84. What is a Cover Letter: Let's talk about and look at an example of an email for sending a cover letter. But before we do that, we should talk about what a cover letter is. Exactly. This is something that's part of the process of getting a job. Not every process. You don't always have to send a cover letter. But fairly often when you apply for a job, you have to write a cover letter. So the purpose of a cover letter is actually a few things. Number one, you went to let this potential employer know that you would be a good fit for the role. You want to talk about. Why you want this role, why this job, this role, this position is interesting for you and connecting that to you being a good fit. You then want to give a high level or broad overview of your qualifications. That is your skills, the things that are unique about you, maybe your certificates, if those are relevant, maybe something about your personality, maybe something about how the way that you work your personality is a good fit for this company. You might want to talk a little bit about your background and your experience. All of this stuff might be said directly or suggested in a cover letter without getting into too much detail. Now that's not really the purpose of the cover letter though, is it? Well, the real purpose of the cover letter is to make the person reading it understand in general whether or not you're a good potential candidate to get a pretty good picture of you as a possible candidate for this position, which will, if it's a good cover letter, hopefully make them want to read your resume, maybe contact you for an interview. Okay, That's the general reason you want to make this person's say, wow, wow, a lot of potential here. This person might be a perfect fit for this role. I'm going to do the next thing. And the next thing might be contacting you. The next thing might be reviewing your portfolio. The next thing might be reviewing your resume or your CV. The next step, the idea is the cover letter is the thing that represents you in relation to the role that pushes this person, the manager hiring manager, person in HR, whoever is reading it, pushes this person to take the next step. Now, we're going to be looking at a cover letter as part of an email. But it doesn't have to be an email. It could be an email like the last one we talked about with the cover letter attached. Or maybe as part of the application, you submit the cover letter in the application form on their website or their platform, or their app, or wherever. There are a lot of different ways to submit or send cover letters, you might attach it as a PDF, in which case, the email might be similar to the last one we looked at. It might be a submission on that company's application page, on their website or somewhere else. There are a lot of different ways to submit a cover letter, and certainly not all jobs require one. But pretty often, we're going to be looking at an email cover letter or a cover letter as part of an email because this is an e-mail course. Okay, So just to be clear, we're looking at it as part of an email. But you could write a cover letter that is not part of the e-mail itself and may instead be an attachment and attached document. So that's why this lesson is a little bit different, a little bit special. Now, if you want to learn more about job interviews and how to handle the questions and how to meet the interviewer and all that stuff. Certainly check out my other course on the topic. We're staying focused on emails. Now, when you write a cover letter, a good rule of thumb to follow is like we've been talking about for this whole course. Don't say more than you need to say. Usually a cover letter will be a little bit longer than your average short email or the mini cover letter we looked at in the last email. It will be a little bit more detailed. You want to express some things completely and make your qualifications and your fit for the role quite clear and we will look at an example. So just be aware that if it's too long, then the person reading it feels like it's a chore and they didn't want to read it. So if it's way too long, it's bad and nobody's going to read it. Now, if you have to choose between following a set structure for cover letters and expressing yourself so that you stand out among all the other candidates. You should definitely choose that one. It's better to be unique. It's better to stand out to express who you are and why you're a good fit rather than saying to yourself, oh no, no, I must follow the guideline that I have to follow these guidelines very clearly. Now, of course, have to spell things correctly and follow a lot of the basics that we talked about at the start of the course. Of course, that's very important, of course, of course, of course, right? But, but keep that in mind. Individuality is a good thing. Standing out is usually a good thing. Express yourself. I'm going to show you an example of course, but that doesn't mean you have to do it this way. And we're going to talk about structure here, how we build it generally. But I'm not going to say, okay, you'll say this in this paragraph and this paragraph, you say this part. I'm not going to tell you that because there's so many different ways to write a cover letter and you have to think about it because there are so many different ways to write a cover letter. There's so many different ways to write anything. There's so many different ways to write an email. You have to think about what impact do you want to have? What effect you want your writing to have on the other person or people reading what you wrote. That sounds fairly obvious, but just thinking about that first can give you a lot of insight into how to write it, how to structure it, okay, so I'm not going to give you any clear rules about what you must do in terms of structure. Don't be afraid to stray far away from the example I give or any of the guidelines out there. Nothing is set in stone. So don't don't assume that you have to do anything any certain way. Okay? So that's the general idea about what a cover letter is. Let's now get into some basic things that you probably want to include in a cover letter and a bit about guidelines and structure. But nothing, of course nothing is set in stone. Let's, let's go on to that. 85. Structure of a Cover Letter: When you write a cover letter, there are a few things that you should probably keep in mind to include so that whoever is reading your cover letter feels it is complete and comprehensive. That it makes sense, that it's compelling, that it's interesting, and that it accomplishes what a cover letter is supposed to accomplish. We're not going to be doing a scenario for this one. Again, this is kind of a special lesson, but I do want to make sure we cover it because many people send their cover letters as emails. So we have to think, we have to talk about it, the things to include. Well, you want to mention what job you're applying for and maybe maybe how you actually discovered it. Where did you find it? Were you referred by someone. And what is the what is the role? I'm if I'm an HR person, there are 25 different positions were hiring for. Tell me which one this is four. Helps me organize things and I feel like you understand my situation. Always try to put yourself in their shoes. What is their shoes? Dealing with? A lot of people, a lot of cover letters, a lot of open positions. That's HR, That's a manager, that's that's an employer, generally speaking. So always try to put yourself in their shoes. In that way, it's usually a good idea to give a general statement about why you're applying for this role. And then something that's kind of eye-catching about your qualifications. If I had to tell you my main qualifications, the most unique, special thing about me in two sentences. What would it be? Well, that would be what you would say. Okay? So you want to say the reason that you want to be here and you want to say the thing that you offer. Now that's sometimes tough to do. So you have to really think about that. But it's something that can grab this person's eyes and make them say, Hey, I've got a checkout, their resume, then this is very important. You want to connect your skills, your value, your qualifications, to the role directly. You want to show how those skills, your uniqueness is relevant to the position. And if you're not quite sure what I mean by that, we'll get into the example. But essentially, don't make me guess why these skills are necessary or would be useful for this role. Explain that to me. Paint a picture for me of you in this role and how these things that you're good at can make you good at this role. That's pretty simple, right? Well, it's not so simple because it's really how you say it. And you don't wanna do it by writing a whole book, writing 15 paragraphs about, about how good you would be in the role, right? So you want to be concise. You don't want to waste words, but you also want to make that very, very clear. It might be the most important part of the cover letter. Very important. Now, for a cover letter, it can be very tempting to talk about all of your experience, all the things that you've done in the past. You have to be really careful with this one. It's good to mention your experience overall to talk about how much experience you have that certainly valuable to many employers. But if you make it basically the same as your resume, then there's an issue. It shouldn't be very detailed because that's what your resume is for. Your resume and your cover letter or your CV and your cover letter. They should really work together as one thing. Resume or CV is more detailed. And the cover letter is that wow, statement about you. Wow, this person, amazing. That's what it's for. It's kind of an advertisement. So give a general high-level, simple overview of your experience connected to the role itself. If that's if that's possible, if you can make sure you always connect it back to the role, why it's relevant. And then stop and leave the details for the resume. If you find yourself wanting to include dates and your cover letter between this year and this year. I know you've gone too far. Don't do that. Do not do not do that. That's a big no-no. Then you may want to include something about how you would be a good cultural fit for the company. You understand the culture of the company, how the company works, the values of the company, and you feel that you're a good match for that, not just the role, but the company itself. If you can explain that simply, you may want to include that it should be natural. It shouldn't sound fake or forced, right? You should, you should really understand this company's working culture and how you would fit into that if you can describe that pretty simply and pretty clearly than it might be a good thing to mention. It's up to you. Now this is the only thing that I'm telling you should be in a certain place in the cover letter. Notice I haven't told you for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 where they should go exactly. You must do this here and do that there. No, I want to leave it pretty open because it's not written in stone. But this one should be at the end. To final impactful, clear, vivid statement. You understand a call to action by now, this is the thing that you should do and it's connected to this impactful final thing. I want to leave in your mind at the end of this cover letter that makes you say, Yes, I need to take action on this. I need to read this person's resume. I need to contact them. I need to interview them. So like with many of the emails we've talked about so far, the thing that you want to leave with them, the impression that you want to leave them with at the end. That then pushes them to act to do something. So of course that should be at the end. That's something that's quite important. And that's the only structural thing that really has to be in a certain place. Okay, so now that we've talked about the things to include and a bit about the structure. Let's look at our example. 86. Part 1 | Stating Intention and Role Fit: Let's now take a look at the first part of our cover letter. This is going to be Kelly sending a cover letter about a design shop. That's really all you need to know. We're going to really focus more on the language that's used and some of the techniques used in the cover letter. But first, as we usually do, Let's read through this first part, then we'll go back and we'll talk about it. Here we go To whom it may concern. I am very interested in the product designer position with sodium posted on LinkedIn. After researching more deeply and reviewing the requirements of this position, I am confident that I would, if hired, be a great asset and believe I could fit into photons professional yet cool culture of excellence and innovation. And then in parentheses, finally, a new way to do healthcare. 13 is a healthcare company. Please read on values. Tools are the means to an end. Great design is all about creating powerful user experiences. Deep level collaboration and creative problem-solving across disciplines are what get me out of bed in the morning. My design philosophy, colon, deep thought. Simple design. Okay, So this is our first part. What is your overall impression? What do you think about this person? What do you think about Kelly so far? Think about it. What's your impression? Do you get the sense that she's lazy? Do you get the sense that she's clear minded? Do you get the sense that she's a professional? Do you get the sense that she's done some research? Really, really done some research, and not actually pretended to do some research. Do you understand a bit about who she is, what kind of person she is? Just questions to think about, but let's go through it and talk about some of the things that Kelly has done here. Number 1, we've started this with a long sentence. Now, I'm not saying that you should do that, but sometimes a long sentence right at the beginning can kind of suck a person in and get them engaged. They have to be very careful. It has to be punctuated perfectly. You have to be very confident in your ability to arrange a long sentence. But it can be a powerful way to start something if it's engaging. However, a long sentence at the beginning can also be a big turn-off if it's very boring, if it's not interesting, if it doesn't grab them. So it's a little risky. If you want to be safe, maybe just short sentences or medium to short sentences. Always remember, syntax is important. Syntax. This is variation in your sentences and your sentence patterns and your use of the language. We don't need to talk about this To whom it may concern. I'm pretty sure you know how to use that. We've talked about it. It's just a formal way to write a letter or an e-mail to someone and you don't know who exactly is going to be reading it. Okay. Then very clearly upfront, like with the last one, a clear statement about the intention. I'm very interested. Okay. This is related to a job, the product designer position with sodium. This is what the position is called, product designer. If it were called junior product designer or senior product designer or anything else, then we would have to say that you have to say exactly what the title is because this could be to an HR person or an employer who's dealing with a lot of applications, a lot of cover letters, and they don't want to figure out what you might mean, which position you might be applying to. They want to know immediately right at the start. Who are you and what are you applying for now? She hasn't said my name is Kelly. We looked at that with the last one. You can do that. You could do that for a cover letter, maybe not so necessary. It's okay if you do that, but I would recommend starting with a sort of powerful thing that grabs this person right at the beginning and clearly stating what you're applying for here, we have also posted on LinkedIn. This tells this person where Kelly is coming from. So they know most of our, most of our applicants are coming from this place or that place that is actually useful information for an employer. After researching more deeply and reviewing the requirements of this position. This is a statement that shows that this person, Kelly, is thorough and careful and isn't just randomly applying to a 1000 jobs. She may be applying to many jobs, but for each one, she's writing a different cover letter. Every cover letter should be unique and it has to be reflected in the cover letter itself, the language. So you don't want to just state after research and reviewing the requirements of the role, you then have to say something that reflects that you actually did that. Don't make empty statements. If you say it, you then have to show it. Don't just say it, say it, and then show it. I am confident that if hired I would be a great asset. A great asset. This is a very valuable thing. Part of a company are at a very valuable part of a team. For example. And believe I could fit into 13s professional yet cool culture. So maybe after research, watching videos, trying to understand this company, Kelly has a sense that this company is very serious about what they do, their products and so on. But there are also people who are innovative and young and they're not just professional people, they're cool people, there are real people. And this company has a kind of vibe or a kind of culture. And Kelly has picked up on that and has proven that she's done her research by describing it hopefully accurately, sodiums professionally a cool culture of excellence and innovation. Now that's pretty general, pretty broad, but she then follows with this parentheses here. And this is a way to now really prove that you've done your research to show that you understand some of the products or the type of business, to show that you have some insight. K Finally, a new way to do health care. I understand and appreciate that voting is not just a standard health care company whenever your average giant healthcare companies, but as innovative tried to do things differently, fresh in a way. And I know that. And I see that. And I like that. And that shows that me and what I think is interesting and cool kind of matches with the values of the company. So that does two things. It shows fit, that this person might be a good fit for the role. And it proves that Kelly has done at least a little bit of background research to understand what this company is all about. Then this please read on this is, this is just a thing to sort of push this person to the next paragraph, right? To say this was my this was my overview, this was my my main statement. And now I'm going to give you a bit more detail. I'm going to break things down a little bit more. So that's the overall idea of the first paragraph. There are a lot of different ways to do it. Certainly you don't have to start with a long sentence. You can mix it up, but still it's important to think about syntax and having variety. You want to, if you make a statement, backup that statement was something that hints that you really understand what you're saying. You want to generally say clearly that you think you're a good fit. And it's also very important right at the beginning to let them know what role that you're applying for. Now we get into the more specific stuff, values. Now this is sort of interesting choice of labeling the paragraph. And you'll find for the next couple of paragraphs, each one is labeled by category. This is why I say nothing is set in stone. You can approach a cover letter in so many different ways. There's no one way to do it. So for this one, Kelly has decided that she wants to break it down clearly into sections that are titled. That's very interesting, that's kind of innovative. Maybe she feels that that will help her stand out a little bit. And maybe she feels that that will help the other person read through her cover letter a little bit more easily. Again, it's a creative choice, it's an individual choice. It's to maybe bring out that uniqueness and maybe also for structure. So think deeply about how you went to express. What you want to express. Not only your sentences, not only the phrases you use, but also the structure itself and how you're going to organize your ideas, tools, or the means to an end. So we start with a statement. This is sort of like we might call this a thesis. This tells you in one sentence right at the beginning what I really think. I think that anybody can learn tools. I know all the tools. What it really says is, I know all the tools. So often in the requirements for a job it'll have all of the things that you need to know how to do, right? You need to know Adobe XD and you need to know Figma, and you need to know all of these things. This sort of says in a very dense, interesting way, I know all those things, but I don't think those things are the real things that make design great. So it's going beyond that to say, of course I had, of course I know the tools. I wouldn't apply if I didn't know the tools. But I don't even think the tools are that important because anybody can learn the tools. I want to focus on design, I want to focus on collaboration. I want to focus on the stuff that matters more because the tools are kind of a given. So this might be a very eye-catching statement right at the beginning of the paragraph that grabs this person's attention and then encourages them to keep reading. And what follows then is a kind of explanation or support for that to sort of flesh it out and give it a bit more detail. So if it's not about the tools, What is it? A great design is all about creating powerful user experiences. Why I say that? Well, if you're really good at what you do, then don't just say I'm really good at what I do. That's a terrible idea. I'm good at what I do unless you're going to support it. And in a way, show that you're great at what you do. Well, how would you show that? Should you draw a picture? Well, no, probably not. Unless that's something that they ask you to do. What you should do is say something that demonstrates that you understand the real value of what you do. That you understand deeply your career path, that you deeply understand what it means in this case to be a great designer, what is the real value of design? Is it about the tools? No. No, tools are a means to an end. It's about creating powerful user experiences. Oh, yeah, that's right. That is the deep value because it is about the users. And then the person reading this is starting to nod their head on this person, we share some values. To start with. Values may also be powerful because an employer is looking at what kind of person you are. So maybe start with that. You don't have to. But it might be a good idea because the skills are just one piece. And for many employers, not the most important. But then Kelly wants to add to this. She wants to add to this by saying what makes her excited. Because if she talks about what she gets excited about and that lines up with the values of this company, with the working culture of this company. Well, that's a powerful thing to it shows that she's a good fit for the role, not only with skill, but also how she thinks her attitude. And this is again, often very important for employers to understand, but you don't want to just state it directly. I would be a good fit for this company's culture. Don't say things like that unless you're going to show them later. What is showing me in this case? Well, say what you're excited about, say what your values are, explain them, give examples. And then that shows the person reading this. Oh yes, well that's the same as our values, so right. Good, good cultural fit, right? So that's why she says here, deep-level collaboration. Collaboration means working with others and creative problem-solving. Some people are afraid of problems, but solving a creative problem very exciting across disciplines who that might be a very powerful thing to include because it says, I don't only understand design, maybe I know different tools, maybe I know a little bit of coding, I know a little bit about that. I can work with many different kinds of people. That single phrase there says a lot across disciplines. That means I don't only know design, I know about a lot of things. I understand marketing. I know a bit about marketing and I can work with people in the marketing department. And I know about the tools and I know about development and I can work with developers. I know how to deliver things to developers and ask them the right questions and make sure that they're getting things done on time and make sure that they have what they need on time. I understand all of that. I've worked with the leadership. I understand how leaders think all of that sort of thing would be working across disciplines. And then when she says What she's excited about, one of those things is something that's very valuable to the company. 0. 0, you can work across disciplines. Oh, that's good. And you're excited about that? Well, they get me out of bed in the morning. You could just say they make me feel excited or I get excited about these things, but get me out of bed in the morning is an interesting phrase that we use to talk about our passion in life, the things that we love. Making courses. It gets me out of bed in the morning making email courses. I can't stop thinking about it, which is true by the way, my design philosophy, because this is in the value section, right? But we don't need to say is, you could say is just to make it more impactful right at the end. What do you believe about design? Deep thought, simple design. Very clear philosophy, a very clear attitude about design that tells the person reading this well. This person understands design and their sense of what good design is matches with ours. And wow, this person already I'm thinking is a pretty good fit just based on the values alone. But then we're going to go on, we're going to talk about a few other aspects. Now this is starting to be a fairly long cover letter, but will be about the right length. There is no rule about how long it has to be. But generally two paragraphs, not enough. Usually want a few paragraphs, three, maybe four, depending on what you want to say. As I said, don't make it longer than it has to be. So let's look at the next part. 87. Part 2 | Key Qualifications and Attributes: Let's now take a look at the second part of Kelly's cover letter to sodium, the innovative healthcare company. Now remember in the last paragraph, we started with values colon. Notice the common format here of the other two paragraphs, abilities, colon, experience colon. So clearly she's made a rule for herself that she's following. And that is very important. If it's inconsistent, then it feels odd to have three clear things. These three things are very important to employers. That makes a lot of sense, and they all kind of look the same. The format is the same. So let's read through these other two paragraphs K, I work very fast, but I never sacrifice speed for quality. My understanding of the tools goes well beyond competence. I have a highly efficient workflow which requires seamlessly working between App select, Sketch, figma, or across the Adobe suite. Additionally, I would say I'm good at approaching a project with an open mind in the past, this has given me the ability to draw inspiration from unlikely places and with my team, find the best solution for users experience colon. As my resume shows in greater detail, remember that I have over 10 years of design related experience across industries, including electronics, finance, e-commerce, and education. Five-years of this has been in product design. All right, so let's talk through this. What is going on here with these two paragraphs will notice that the abilities is longer than experience. The resume will take care of the experience. So we really don't want to spend too much time on that. But to explain perhaps a bit more about abilities can be useful. And again, length, It's really up to you. You decide, don't say more than you need to say, say what you want to say, and once you've said it, stop, that's the rule. So to say something good and then assume what the person might be thinking when they read that first part, our work very fast, 0, that means that you cut corners. You don't try your best quality is not important. No, no. I know that you would be thinking that. So I go on to explain, but I never sacrifice speed for quality. Okay? So whenever someone read something and the person who wrote it has anticipated and explain what questions might pop up in their mind that makes people feel comfortable that you understand me. It shows empathy again, that you can stand in their shoes and understand what questions they might have. So that answer is that while you're very fast, but you don't sacrifice quality. Great. My understanding of the tools goes well beyond competence. This is like saying, of course I'm good at the tools. It's sort of supporting the thing that she mentioned earlier. Tools are just a means to an end. My understanding of the tools, yes, of course I understand them. Of course I can use them. It goes well beyond competence. That means I don't just know the tools way more than that. I have a highly efficient workflow. So to focus on something higher than just knowing the tool or knowing how to do the technical thing. Because you have to know the tool or the technical thing or else you wouldn't be able to even write this cover letter. You wouldn't be able to apply for this job. You'd be wasting your time. You're not qualified. So assume that everyone has the basic abilities and then focus on the things above the basic abilities that make you stand out, that make you unique? Well, it's my understanding of the tools that goes beyond competence that gives me a highly efficient workflow. I know how to get stuff done, which is very important. But how do you get stuff done? Remember to show, not just tell, don't just make statements. Support those statements by showing, show that, by explaining it, show it by giving an example, okay, fine. Which requires seamlessly working between apps like Sketch and Figma or across the Adobe suite. So I know when to use the best tool and how to be most efficient with all of these. To mention the names may be a good idea to not just say, I know Figma, I know sketch, I know the Adobe suite to say, I use these things to do something else that's bigger or more important or more impactful for this role. That's again, supporting why I'm a good fit. I'm a good fit because he worked seamlessly between these and I know not only how to use them, but I understand when each one is better than another. And maybe that's very important probably for this role, I would say, now this is an opinion, this is an assertion, a simple assertion. It's okay. But you usually want to support it or back it up with something. Additionally, I would say I'm good at approaching a project with an open mind, but not just stating that, especially for a cover letter. You don't want to just say things. You want to support them. Okay? So let's support that. Approaching a project with an open-mind. Now support that in the past, this has given me the ability to draw inspiration from unlikely places and with my team, working with my team that shows that I can collaborate with others, work well with others. But also that I'm good at thinking outside the box, drawing inspiration from different places. To accomplish the most important thing, which is to find the best solution for users. I went to focus all of this on why my skills are relevant for this position. It's all focused on what is the value of me for this role. So that once I'm on board and once I get hired, I can allow you, this company to better make things for your users or better serve your users or your customers. That's what you wanna do. That's all you're trying to do in the cover letter. And again, you don't have to break it down like this. It doesn't have to be this length. It could be much shorter, could be a little bit longer. But the important things have to be there. The basics have to be there. Always support your statements and try to include several things in that support if you can. This person Kelly is not just able to draw inspiration from unlikely places. She's also able to do that with others, which shows that she's very flexible, which shows that she's very creative. And this might give the interviewer or the person reading this ideas for questions. Tell me about a time when you had to draw inspiration from an unlikely place with your team to solve a problem for users, okay, And then she can give an example in the interview. So this part at the end here, it actually does a lot in accomplishes a lot. It paints a picture of Kelly's skills, of what she's good at and why that matters, and how that relates to the role and to this company's business. Now onto experience and keep in mind the main function of the resume is to provide the background and experience of, of each person. So you really don't want to spend too much time on it and you don't want to provide too much detail. As my resume shows in greater detail though, is a very useful phrase to get this person to go and look at the resume to take the next step. That's going to be the call to action. Do the next thing, check my resume. Well, as my resume says, You'll see this in my resume in more detail. I'm not going to give you the detail now. If you want to see the detail, go check my resume. So this is a good way to reference it right at the beginning, talking about experience, I have over 10 years of design-related experience across industries. Now that means working in different areas. Is that useful? Sure, that might be connected back to this, being open-minded and being able to draw inspiration from unlikely places. Working in electronics, working in finance, working in e-commerce, working in education. These are unlikely places and having a wide range of experience might be very useful. But also, notice she's only given the broad categories. There isn't much detail here at all. We have 10 years of experience, five years in product design, and then these different industries. Well, I'm curious which company you worked for an education, and e-commerce, and finance and electronics. I'm very curious. That is yet another way to get this person to read your resume or your CV. Hey, the details are there, go check it. And that's the next step you want to, you want to make them feel curious. This is the part where you can give them a feeling of who I want to know more. I went to find out more about that. Right. So don't provide everything in the cover letter because if you do that, then there's no point in taking the next step. And also it's too long and it's hard to read. So I would recommend, especially for the experience part, keep it very simple, keep it very short, give very little detail, keep it broad. Give the categories. Maybe talk about a few general time periods or how much experience you have broadly. And then try to interest that person in getting more detail from the resume itself. Because really those two things, the resume, CV, and cover letter, are meant to go together and the cover letter is not supposed to take over the function of the resume or CV. 88. Part 3 | Wrap-up and CTA: Now we get to the last part of Kelly's cover letter to 13. Now I know this has been quite long. That is why often people will choose to send the cover letter as a PDF, as a document so that they can go and read it. We're doing this because I want to make sure we cover cover letters. But I want to make it very clear that a cover letter doesn't have to be in the e-mail itself. And that I'm not even suggesting that you should put it in the email. There are different ways to do it, as I said, and any of them are probably okay. One reason you might want to is if you feel you have a really strong cover letter and you're worried that the person who receives it won't open the attachment or won't click on the link. And you want to grab their attention and make them pay attention to you and why you would be a good candidate. That would be one reason to do the cover letter in the e-mail itself. But of course then the risk is that if it's a little longer than that person will say, it's a little too long, I won't read it. So you've got to find the balance between clear and enough and too long. And that balance is not something that I can give you a clear rule for, other than to say, once you're done saying what do you want to say, then stop. So let's read this last part. There is a great need for innovation in health care. This is a movement I would be proud to join. I believe in working on projects that make a difference. And I also believe that working in a collaborative and fun environment brings the best out of everyone. Sodium has that in parentheses. I hope you will seriously consider me for this role as I have done the same in regards to choosing it. And then as an option, this is not meant to be in parentheses in the email as an option, I would be eager to come in for an interview, maybe include that maybe not best Kelly and then her e-mail address and a phone number. And you might be thinking, wait a minute, e-mail address. This is an email. Alright, well, we'll talk about that in a second. So let's talk about this last third part of this email. This is the first time we've looked at three parts. Okay. So what is she doing here? When she starts off with, there's a great need for innovation in health care. Number one, she's creating a clear separation between the previous three paragraphs and this one to say, okay, I've finished saying what I wanted to say about myself. And now I'm going to make some closing. We could say closing remarks, sort of a closing closing statement or closing remarks. I've said the main body of what I want to say, those three those three titles that I had, I want to wrap up this letter, give a bit of a conclusion about myself in the role and why you should hire me and give you a call to action. Also very important. So to make a broad statement, again, to support the idea that I'm excited to work for this company really. And also that I did my research because I understand that this company is very innovative and I know what the sodium is all about. I know why it's innovative. I know what kind of innovation it is. This is a movement Kelly is even calling it a movement that's usually something social and a large scale that's changing society, that's changing the world. A movement, well, maybe 13 is really part of a movement changing the way that health care is done. And maybe Kelly really is excited about that. It wants to express it. So say it. It's not just a simple statement about how I feel. It's a connection between what I'm excited about, what I'm passionate about and what I understand about this company, which also shows her head, I did my research. So it accomplishes a lot here, would be proud to join the movement. I believe, in working on projects that make a difference. So that means for me, one of my values is I don't just work for money. Of course that's important. Everybody needs to make money. But I went to work on something where I will make money and make a difference. Make a difference is a common phrase that we use when we want to talk about change, when we want to talk about social things, when we want to talk about things that are going to have a positive impact to make a difference. And I also believe that working in a collaborative and fun environment brings the best out of everyone. 13 has that. So this shows that number one, I understand the culture. And if I understand it, that must mean I think I'm a pretty good fit for it. So that shows that. But also, again, I did my research that it's been individually written for this job that shows the employer reading it that, Hey, you actually really want to work here. Otherwise you wouldn't invest your time into writing this cover letter. Which tells me a lot about you. I can, I can see that you take this very seriously and you mean what you say. If it's a very generic cover letter that could be copy and pasted for every single job. It might get you interviews, maybe if it's really well-written. But usually you want to write a unique one for each job that you apply to. Now that's no longer really e-mail advice. That's more like job hunting advice, I suppose. But it's usually a good idea to make it unique for each company and to apply to jobs that you're serious about. Serious enough to write a cover letter for and to actually do the research. Because that makes it more likely that you'll get the interview. Again, that's more like job hunting advice and less about e-mail advice. I've got another course about that stuff, so I'll stop giving that kind of advice now, sodium has that you could include it or maybe not just to state it very clearly, but it is suggested if you don't include that. Finally, the last thing, the final thing, The last impression and the call to action. I hope you will seriously consider me for the role as I've done the same in regards to choosing it. The last impression that Kelly wants to leave with this person reading this email is, hey, I didn't just choose a bunch of random jobs to apply to. I really want to work here. And I think you should be serious about wanting to hire me. So do the next thing is what it's suggesting. It's not saying I want you to call me where I want you to interview me. It's saying, I hope you will seriously consider me. That's the call to action. Well, what does that mean? That means looking at the resume. That means checking her out on LinkedIn. That means doing some more research about this person. That means, that means doing a first, first interview. And if you want it to be a little bit more direct about the call to action, you could say, I would be eager to come in for an interview. So in other words, I want you to read my resume, then I want you to call me or send me an email and asked me for an interview. That's what I want. You could include that, you can leave that out. This last part, some kind of call to action, some kind of final impression that you want to give, that I really want to work here, nowhere else here I'm choosing this company is something that you want to plan very carefully and think very seriously about. This doesn't have to be the final thing and the call to action, certainly there are many different ways to do it, but it is very important to have something like this at the end so that after this person has read and been impressed by your cover letter, they know what to do, they know what action to take and they don't feel kinda confused and lost. Now, what about this at the end? Best Kelly, email, telephone number. Well, maybe, maybe this person wants to call Kelly directly. So you want to provide different options for them to contact you. You could provide the same e-mail just so that it's there in case they want to copy and paste it into another maybe email client that they use, that would be one reason to put your email there or to have a different e-mail in case they don't hit reply, but they want to reply to a personal e-mail or something like that. So it's a good idea too. Have an email there and some other contact information, especially if phone number at the end so that they can reach out to you. Maybe they don't want to hit reply and respond from their work email. Maybe they want to respond from a different account. So that's generally why you want to have the email there. Okay. That is it for this cover letter. I know we've gone into a lot of detail here. Let's do a quick recap before moving on to our next email. 89. Recap | Sending a Cover Letter: Let's do our quick recap of the key takeaways from Kelly's Cover Letter To whom it may concern at sodium. Now remember, she starts off by stating clearly which position she's applying for. Very clear, very important at the beginning to state your intention, whether you decide to do that with a longer sentence or not, that's up to you, but you want it to be engaging. You want it to pull the reader in and make them interested in learning more about you. You want them to see it and not feel overwhelmed though. So be careful not to make it too long. Note that she also has labels for each of the sections where she's talking about herself, values, abilities, experience, this is nice because it makes it easier to reference. If this person wants to show it to someone else, they can find that section and read that section easily. But also it shows that she understands maybe what's relevant for this job. What are the things that you care about? That's again, standing in that person's shoes and knowing what's probably important to them, and then writing your cover letter, writing your email accordingly. That's all it is. Remember there isn't only one structure to use for a cover letter. There are many different ways to do it. So maybe trying something else out as long as it's clear and professional can make you stand out from the crowd. Think about those things as well. Stylistic things that you can do to show your uniqueness, to show what kind of person you are and how you think. Be careful that you don't go too far. And it then becomes distracting though, that's always a risk. Throughout this cover letter, Kelly is not just saying that she understands the business, saying that she understands the culture of the company, but saying it and showing it. And that's really important as a general writing rule. Show. Don't tell, don't just say something. Show it in a way that doesn't mean draw a picture, that means explain it with an example or make some conclusion that you could only say if you understood it. So that's showing, rather than telling, it's true for writing in general. It's true for e-mails and it's certainly true for something like a cover letter. She's demonstrating this throughout and she talks about the innovation by saying, finally, a new way to do health care. And there's a great need for innovation in health care. This shows that she understands the business and she can connect herself in a way to that thing that's important to this business, which is being innovative and that she understands that value. But also throughout the skills that she mentions, the culture, all of those things that she references about her research or related to her research shows this company, hey, this person is very serious about working here. This is not just a Copy and Paste Email. They've taken the time to explain that they understand the company to show it, and also our values and why they're a good fit for that. And in fact, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be writing this cover letter unless this person, Kelly, really thought that she was a good fit for us, that she was really excited about our mission, that she really did fit into our culture. We're going to give her a really serious look. We're going to interview her. We're going to hire her hopefully, right. That's that's the kind of thing you want to get across. And you don't only do it in one place, you do it throughout. You want to make it feel natural, not forced, and show, don't tell, and don't think that you just have to talk about skills and experience. Skills are very important. Usually experiences, often quite important. But what about values? Kelly devotes an entire section to her values because the fit, we say company fit, that is often related to the kind of person you are, to the values of the company and the values of this person applying. So It's probably a good idea to talk about what kind of person you are, your attitude toward life, toward work, toward colleagues, working with a team, collaborating and how you approach problems. That kind of thing is about what kind of person you are, not only about your skills, not only about your experience. Now it's also important not to go into too much detail. So only mentioned things that are relevant. You've done your research, so you know what skills are relevant for this job. Don't mention things that have no relevance or relation to how they would benefit this company if you did get this job, that wouldn't make sense and don't give so much detail that it becomes a giant long book that they have to read. You don't need to go into too much detail. That's not what the cover letter is. Four. That is what your resumes for. That is what the interview is. Four, that is what questions that they may ask you. That's what that's all for. So you want to give an overview. This is your sales pitch for you and why you're a good fit. So don't explain every single skill you have. Don't explain all of your experience. Again, that's not what the cover letter is about, that's not what it's for. And also remember, as I mentioned, make sure you have a strong call to action. My call to action for you is to practice writing. Really great cover letter. Really spend some time on it, whether you're looking for a job or not, it's a great exercise to be able to explain your value, what you can do, what skills you have, your experience. And to do that in a really clear way that gets across exactly what you want to get across. So work on that. That is it for our cover letter. Let me know if you have any questions and I will see you in the next lesson. 90. Scenario | Sending a Link: We've talked about sending an attached resume in an email. We've talked about sending a cover letter in an email. But what about other stuff? Those two are more job-related. What about other things? Well, we're going to talk about a couple more. Next, we're going to focus on sending slides. But for this lesson, we're going to be talking about sending a link. And this is a very common thing. You want somebody to open a link, you want to send them a link. You want them to do something with that link. Yeah, this is a very common situation in work, in life, all kinds of different scenarios. So let's read our scenario for this email before we jump into it. Here we are. Pablo wants to have been sign up for a survey platform so that he can start gathering feedback for a project he's working on. He needs bent to follow a link and pay for the premium plan. Now this might be the name of the plan or because it's not capitalised, it could just be the most expensive plan. It's not very important, but usually if it's the name, it will be capitalised. This is the most expensive one. They have is often the premium one. That might be the Gold plan, that might be the level 3 plan, that might be the Pro Plan, or maybe it doesn't have a name and that's pretty common to. Survey platform would be something that allows you to create a survey, to get feedback from others. So you create some questions. You send it out to a group of 500 people, 1000 people, 10 thousand people, and you get feedback. That's what it is, gathering feedback. So before they work on this project or during the process of working on this project, we need some feedback from a bunch of people, so we have to create a survey. I, Pablo, don't have the ability to sign up for this within my company that I worked for. I can't just use the company credit card, so I need to have ben do it. Ben has the company credit card or Ben has the authority to do it. So I need to ask Ben to do that. And I'm going to send a link to ask him to do that. Okay, so that's our scenario. Let's hop into the email. 91. Full Email | Familiarity, Clarity, and Staying in the Loop: Let's first read through Pablo's email to Ben. Remember Ben is the one who can and needs to sign up for the account. And then we'll talk about the pieces. We'll talk about what's going on. Hi Ben. We had a meeting with Esther and decided to get our initial user data through surveys. Survey donkey, specifically, that's in parentheses. To do that, we need access to a survey donkey premier plan, which is eighty-five dollars per month. Please use the link below to sign up for a company account and give the team access once you have the link colon and then a link that is not a real link. Don't try it. You could try it, but it's not going to work. Thank you, Pablo. Okay. So here's the email. Now, what's the overall tone? Is it very formal? No, not really. Is it polite? Yes, it is polite. And his polite. Is it familiar? That means due. Ben and Pablo know each other. Do they have some things in common? Does bend kinda know what's going on when he reads this? Yes, Absolutely. How do we know this? Well, Pablo doesn't have to explain who he is. He doesn't have to give a long explanation. He doesn't give a very long formal greeting to introduce a lot of things before he says The main thing that he wants to say, he kind of jumps right into it. We had a meeting with Esther. Okay. Who's we? Well, he must know what we means. We doesn't include him. Otherwise, Pablo wouldn't be telling this Tibet, right? So we must be a group of people and Ben must know which group of people that is, right. Maybe it's three people, maybe it's his team and he wasn't there today or maybe they're below him and they had a meeting and they report to him when they decide what to do. Right. Because he's their manager, whatever. But he knows who ester is and he knows what we means. So we know that their colleagues in some way, which means that Pablo might want to be polite, but can also be somewhat familiar. That's the word I would use. Their familiar. They both have this shared knowledge about what's going on with this team. Now, let's look at the first paragraph here. We had a meeting with Esther and decided to get our initial user data through surveys. Okay, so what I'm doing here as Pablo, I'm telling Ben I'm getting him up to speed. This is what I'm doing. I'm getting him up to speed to make sure that he is in the that's a tea. To make sure he is in the loop, gets you up to speed and now you're in the loop. So this opening paragraph is not even a greeting. Greeting is not necessary. What's needed is a quick update to make sure that Ben is in the loop or you could say on the same page. Okay. On the same page. And once he's on the same page and understands what's happening, then he can take some action that's going to allow him to help the team move forward. So if you have a pretty good relationship with the people you work with and they know what's going on, might be a good idea to just jump into it. Provide minimal context, only the context which is needed. Then make the request and then stop because you don't wanna make it too long. So let's draw a little circle here. And this is the shared knowledge of the team. Everybody on the team knows all of these things here. And let's say now we're talking about Ben's knowledge. Okay, everybody knows this, but Ben doesn't know this. He's out of the loop. So with this first paragraph, what we're doing is bringing him in the loop and now he has the same knowledge as everybody else. And this thing is that we decided to use surveys. That sets up then the request. Now you could separate this if you want to. This is so short that it might not be necessary. But this really is the call to action that I want bent to focus on. So I think including this sentence to do that within this context is pretty, pretty okay. I think that's fine. It might look a little bit too broken up if that's a separate paragraph. To do that, we need access to a survey donkey premier plan. All right, now this is a very important part. I've used the parentheses here to introduce which platform we're going to be using, which specific survey service we're going to be using through surveys and then name it, serve a donkey specifically, that's the name. So when I say we need access to a survey donkey premier plan, it all makes sense. Now, if you don't have this in parentheses, the name here, it might take a little bit more introduction. You would probably be okay if you didn't put the name here and you just said To do that we need access to a survey donkey premier plan or you could say to a service called survey donkey and then put in parentheses the premier plan, the name of the plan that you want bend to sign up for. But there's a key phrase here that's very important to do that. So that means we're moving along as a team doing what we need to do. And there's now a thing in the way, boom, blocking. What we want to do, which is to continue working in and get data on. What our users and our users think, right? So this is the phrase that signals to Ben that he could become a problem if he doesn't act quickly. We've talked about this phrase before, but I wanted to try to use it again because it is so useful for pushing somebody to do something. Now, it's like saying, Hey, we're ready to go, everybody's ready to go. Everything is ready to move forward. But we can't do that right now. Where stopped because of what you haven't done yet. This is not blaming someone though. It doesn't sound like blaming Ben. Just means that there's a thing that's preventing us and your action will unlock this thing so that then we can continue. Oh, okay. Well, Ben wants to be helpful. Ben doesn't want to be the bottleneck. The bottleneck is someone or something that's slowing everything down or preventing something bottleneck, right? She doesn't want to be a bottleneck. So he's going to immediately, likely immediately click on the link and sign up, use the company credit card, and then everybody will be good to go after he gives the team access, right? So then comes the call to action. Now notice here we just have context. Then the to-do that the main action that we as a group need to take, then skipping down a new paragraph, a sentence by itself, the call to action. What you need to do now to make sure that Ben doesn't miss it. And if he goes back to check this e-mail later, he can find it very easily. You don't want to include this in this paragraph. This is the clear call to action. It should be separate. Okay. Please use the link below to sign up for a company account and give the team access. Once you have very simple, don't explain more than Ben needs to actually do. Don't give reasons here. Don't add complicated descriptions here. Don't say anything, isn't related to what Ben needs to do because this is the clear call to action. Okay. So we've set it to things, sign-up for the account and give the team access. You could put, if you don't say this in the first paragraph, survey donkey premier plan, you might put it down here. Please use the link below to sign up for a survey donkey premier plan, and then give the team axis. Once you have, that would be okay, that would be fine. So you can add a little bit of description if you haven't already said it, just to make sure it's absolutely clear. Then another space, the link, the link, this also can't be missed. If you wanted to attach this to this paragraph, I suppose it would be okay. I would recommend anytime you send links to send those separately in separate pieces. If you have five different links, it's five separate things. Because if they're connected together, it looks like one big mass of blink and it doesn't look very good and it's hard to figure out which thing to click on. So this is maybe a personal preference, but I like to, I like to do this when I send links by themselves with the link. And if I want to name it the survey donkey link, here is the survey donkey link, something like that. Then colon, then go down one without a space. Then paste the link, and that's it. And make sure it's clickable. Going to make sure it's clickable so that they don't have to copy and paste it. Make sure it is a hyperlink. Now there are different email applications and different applications do things differently, but it should be automatic. You should see a link that someone can click on just make sure it is. Because if it's not and they have to copy and paste it, they might copy it in correctly. It's an added step that you shouldn't make the other person do. Generally a good idea to make sure everything is a hyperlink. That is simple. Thank you, Pablo. This again tells us that these are colleagues. They communicate pretty regularly. There's no need to be too formal. If you say I really appreciate your time. That would be something for a more formal email, someone you don't communicate with as often. If you do that with a colleague, even if it's your manager, but someone you regularly correspond with, it's going to be a bit awkward. It's going to create too much formality, which is often not a good thing. And of course, every relationship is different, but I would recommend a simple thank you for this sort of usually work related e-mail or four people you often correspond with. Now I want to 0.1 thing out quickly. You might be asking yourself, okay, we've been doing a lot of bullet lists in this course. Why didn't we do that for this one? Well, think about these two actions. They're so closely connected. Really Benes to do two things. He needs to click on the link, then the page will open. And then he needs to find the survey donkey premier plan, click on it and sign up. That's all he needs to do to do those two things. And they're very closely connected, one after the other. So if I put a bullet list with those two things, it might make them seem to separate and it's only two things. So generally when it's two things, I would recommend, especially when they're connected together. Just a sentence. That's fine. If it's 34 things, yes, then a bullet list is probably a good idea to things, especially connected things. Probably not. Okay, so now let's go on and do our quick recap. 92. Recap | Sending a Link: Let's do our quick recap of Pablo's email to Ben. Now remember for the first paragraph, especially with a colleague, generally, you don't need to greet them and have something that sets the tone and provide a bunch of context, like some of the other emails we've talked about. You want to get straight to the point, provide the context that's necessary, the information that can get them on the same page to get them up to speed so that they're in the loop. So that then they can take action and action that will make sense to them because now they understand the thing that they didn't know. That's kind of the update at the beginning. So for colleagues and even managers, people who are above you, if you're on pretty familiar terms and you communicate regularly, don't force a formal tone that can actually make things awkward. And they will probably appreciate the efficiency. They will probably appreciate that you just said what they needed to know to get them on the same page so that then they can help. Right? Now we use the phrase to do that. And I know that we've talked about that already, but I want to make sure that you really take that away from this course. If you want to give someone a bit of pressure, give them a push and let them know that their action is required to do the next thing. This is one of the most powerful phrases you can use. And it's powerful because it accomplishes what you want to accomplish to get them to click on that link right now, open that PDF right now. Do the thing right now to take the action right away without making it seem like you're pushing them in a rude way. So that's what's great about it. You're not saying, Hey, do this now. It doesn't feel like that. It's not rude in any way to do this. We need to do this. It makes it more like a machine. This has to happen. And for this to happen, this has to happen, okay? And you're the one who has to do that thing. But I'm not even saying that you're the one who has to do that thing. I'm saying what needs to happen for us to move forward. So it's a great phrase to use. Use it. Don't overuse it. Know when to use it, but it can be very powerful. Then what about the bullet list? Do we need it if it's two things? Remember, if it's two things and they're very closely connected, you probably don't need a bullet list. You don't need a list of items, like we've talked about earlier in the course. A list of items can be a great thing when it's 3456789 things. If it's two connected things, it might be a little more confusing to have the bullet list because it makes them feel separate. So I would avoid it. But think about that. Think about whether a bullet list will help you do what you want to do or not. In this case? I think not. Okay. So that's it for this email. If you have any questions, let me know. In the next one, we're going to talk about sending slides. 93. Scenario | Sending Slides: For our last lesson in this section, we're going to be talking about sending slides. But the important thing for this one is really going to be how do you communicate information fairly quickly and when you want to be pretty direct. And also, of course, when you want to avoid any possibility for confusion, the more people you send an email to, the more the chance that someone will misunderstand it, you send an email to one person. What is the chance that they will misunderstand something? I don't know. Not very high if you're pretty clear, right? But if you send an email to 30 people, what is the chance that one person out of 30 or two out of 30 will misunderstand. It's pretty likely unless your email is so clear and so simple and so direct that it's actually difficult to misunderstand. So that's what this e-mail is really going to be about. Now it's going to be about sending slides, sending a slide deck or a presentation deck to a group of people and then giving them a call to action to do something with those slides, to do something with that deck. They're going to be adding their own slides to it. So how do we do this? How do we make sure that nobody misunderstands? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. Let's read our scenario quickly and then look at the e-mail. So our scenario, Yolanda needs to let her large team know that they should open the attachment and send their part of a slide deck by Friday. That means there's this whole deck of slides, this presentation with many slides, and each person needs to contribute some slides maybe in their area. Okay. This is a pretty common thing to do. Okay. She wants to get her point across quickly. Since she has messaging a group of people, brevity is essential. That means keeping it very brief, not along email, a very short, very simple e-mail with as little information as possible. So we might have to be a little bit direct, and I'll talk about that. Being concise. Being concise limits misunderstandings. So if you're not concise, if you say more, if you use more words to say a simple thing, the chances of misunderstandings go up. If you're very concise and very clear and you reduce the amount of information that you send in one email, the chance of misunderstandings goes down. That's the basic idea, but we need to look at it, of course. So let's take a look at the e-mail. 94. Full Email | Direct and To-the-point: Let's read through your lambdas short e-mail and then talk about some of the methods and phrases she uses to reduce the possibility of misunderstandings and make sure everybody knows what they have to do and when. Okay, So let's read through it. Here we go. Hey team. The slides for the performance review meeting are enclosed. I need all updated slides for your sections sent to me by this Friday. Then in parentheses, the earlier, the better. If you have any questions, please reach out. Best. Yolanda. Okay. Maybe this is the simplest email we've looked at so far. What's the tone? I always ask this, what is the tone? Is it formal? Is it urgent? What is the tone? I would say that the tone is direct and neutral. Neutral meaning, not trying to be too formal, not trying to be casual right in the middle. But very direct, not rude, just direct. The difference between direct and rude is often about what the person receiving it feels. It feel that being direct is is rude. In this case, I don't I don't think it could be direct here just means no phrases have been added to make it softer, to make sure the other person feels that we're being very respectful of their feelings or how they might feel or putting ourselves in their shoes. We're not really thinking about that sort of thing. We're just trying to as clearly as possible say what needs to be said. And that's it. Rude would be then choosing some phrases to try to make the other person feel hurt or bad or under pressure, or in some way negative. We're not going to talk about how to write rude emails in this course. That's what we're trying to accomplish. So that's the general tone. Hey team, hey team. This could be informal or casual in some situations. For this one, it's probably just familiar. It feels familiar. It's possible that some of the team are walking around or even with your lender right now, maybe they're in the lunch room having lunch and she's writing the email. And one of the recipients of the email is someone sitting at the table with her. They're very familiar, everybody knows each other. And hey, team is a fine way to start. It doesn't mean it's very casual. Hey, is often used for casual emails, but in this case, it's still neutral and familiar. Then like in the last email we looked at getting straight to the point. No introduction, no greeting, not necessary. It's basically like walking into this person's office and saying, Hey, I need you to do this, right? That's what this feels like when we read through it, someone is walking by your lambdas desk and she says, Hey, Dennis, make sure you send me these slides by Friday. Okay, lambda sure thing. That's not rude. That's just clear. It's just an efficient way to communicate. So this is kind of imitating a direct conversation. This is imitating the way that she would say this directly to people. And if you set it like that, it also wouldn't be rude. It would just be clear and direct. Okay. So she jumps right into the slides for the performance review meeting are enclosed. That means everybody knows what that is. Everybody knows if one person doesn't know, she has a way of dealing with that, which we'll talk about at the end. But we assume everybody knows what the performance review meeting is. Everyone's on the team. Maybe everyone was in a meeting earlier where we talked about that. And I know everyone was there, so everyone knows about that. We don't need to get everyone on the same page because everybody knows there isn't new piece of information. The thing that I said, I would send all of you the slides. Well, here it is. And I'm telling you where to find them. They're enclosed, they're attached. Okay, So that's the context, that's all the context that's needed. Then the call to action connected to it. I need all updated slides for your sections sent to me by this Friday. This is what you need to do. If you're receiving this, you have slides that you're working on. You need to make sure that they're updated as we talked about before, because everyone knows what's going on, right? Everyone knows about the performance review meeting. You need to update those and send them to Yolanda. Now, if she wants to include a way to send them, then she might say please email them to me or maybe they use another tool. Please send me a something, something Google Drive link or maybe put that in our chat. Maybe they're in a group chat. She could add that if she wanted to or if she felt that she needed to, but this team already knows how to send things to each other. If everybody knows, Don't say it because everybody knows it doesn't need to be mentioned. Because the goal here is to try to reduce the amount of information scent. Really, this is just a memo. It's a memo that has a call to action attached that as something that everybody needs to do. And so. The rule for memo's is short and sweet. Okay, now how about this? I need all updated slides or she could say, I need you all to send me and that would be alright. She could say like that, I need you all to send me your updated slides by Friday. That would be fine. It doesn't that feel a little too direct is and that rude. This is a bit forceful, I would say, but it's forceful because it's important and because we don't want the information to be missed. So it has to feel like a command. If she says, could you please send me your slides by Friday? We might say, Oh, that sounds nice, That sounds good. Maybe we should say that. Think about that. Really. If you say, could you please, if you say, could you please, that language makes it sound like it's not a must. That makes it feel like it's up to you if you really want to or by hope you do, but I can't control you. I'm your boss, I need you to do this. This is what you have to do. Sometimes being forceful is necessary, right? But forceful doesn't mean rude. So this is forceful and direct and it's another method to make sure that nobody thinks maybe I will, maybe I won't know. The language says I need you to send me I need all updated slides. Oh, okay. I'll do it. I have to do it. If I don't do it, I could get fired or get in trouble or it could cause all kinds of problems for my team. So I'll definitely do it. Now. What does she need? I need all updated slides for your sections sent to me by this Friday. Okay. I know what to send I know what to do if more information is needed to explain that. She would say that. But since everybody already knows what that is, she doesn't need to say anymore. Now she adds this interesting thing inside the parentheses. The earlier, the better. What do you think the effect of that is? Well, if Yolanda is the manager of this team, she says The earlier the better. Those who want to make sure that she thinks highly of them and maybe gives them a promotion at the right time. We'll send it sooner. If she says I need it by Friday, maybe that's fine. But everyone might procrastinate or delay until the deadline. But if she puts this in parentheses, it allows her to add some extra information. It allows her to suggest something without saying it's required. It's kind of like saying, if you want me, your manager to be impressed by you, you will send this to me before Friday. You might send it to me on Thursday. You may send it to me on Wednesday. Wow, I appreciate you sending that to me very early. That helps me stay organized and allows me to make sure I'm prepared well in advance of the performance review meeting. So that's a very useful way to add something in there that may not be necessary, but that you want to suggest or any additional simple information, okay? If you have any questions, please reach out. Reach out means to contact me. You can say contact me or reach out. Reach out as more of an American phrase, pretty common. Now, why would she decide to end on this? Why would this be the last thing? Well, she's already said all of the important stuff that everyone needs to know that they need to do. So it should be clear. She could certainly stop there and say best Yolanda and not have this. But if it's a fairly large team, there's a possibility, small possibility that one person wasn't paying attention in that meeting or they weren't there and she forgot that they weren't there. So she wants to leave the door open for the possibility that something is misunderstood, that someone doesn't know what the performance review meeting is, it's unlikely, but to just make sure that this person can ask questions if they don't understand and that they feel welcome to do that. Maybe someone doesn't understand or they weren't in the meeting and they don't know what this is all about. And they're afraid to go up to Yolanda and say, I have a question, maybe that's possible, that happens. So if she proactively, let's everybody know, please ask me questions. If you have questions, if you have any questions, reach out. Please reach out. This shows a willingness to help and support, even though she's been very direct. She also wants to make sure everybody's on the same page and that she will be patient and helpful if someone needs help, if someone doesn't understand. So that's why it's a good idea to put this at the end. If you have any questions, please reach out, please let me know. Would also become an let me know. Whoops. Nino met let let let let let me know. Let me know or contact me. Contact me. Or maybe there's a different one, like talk to one of your teammates or something like that. If she wants to make it clear that it's other people, they should ask if they don't understand something, then best Yolanda. So this is really a memo. It's pretty direct. It's a way to communicate with colleagues. It's a way to let them know things. So a way to make sure they know they need to do things and suggest things on the side so that hopefully everything goes smoothly with the performance review meeting. All right, so that's it for the email. Let's do our recap. 95. Recap | Sending Slides: Let's do a quick recap of your lambdas direct email to her team. First, this is kind of a memo. That means something short and quick, something simple, something fairly direct, no flowery language. There's no greeting. Hey everybody, I hope you're having a good weekend. That's not what this is about. This is for effective, efficient communication. We don't need anything that isn't extremely relevant to what we're all trying to do, which is get this slide deck done. Because we all know each other and we all have the same information. Why do we need to do that? Saying, Hey team, and jumping right into it is probably the best idea. Now remember, Yolanda says, I need, instead of saying Could you please, because she wants to make it very clear, completely clear, no misunderstandings that you have to do this. This is necessary and it's not up to you. Could you please feels too soft, right? Sometimes that's the best thing to do, especially when you want to make it clear that there's no other way to understand this. Now, does that make you rude? Not necessarily. In fact, other people may appreciate your directness because that's more efficient. You have to know the relationship and you have to know that other people know what's going on and that everyone is in the loop. But for this kind of situation, I need is better than Could you please? Absolutely. It's a bit of forceful. Yes. Is being forceful a bad thing? Sometimes it is. In this case, I don't think so. Now, she also wants to add a suggestion. Friday is the deadline, but it's the final deadline. And if you don't send it by Friday, you're fired or you're in trouble. So I want to suggest, if I'm Yolanda, I want to suggest that earlier is good, but I don't want to say that as a separate sentence and I don't want to add that to the grammar of another sentence to tag it on. Because I'm worried that if I do that, something could be missed or people might focus on that too much. When I put it in parentheses, like this, when you put things inside of parentheses, people know that this is sort of extra information. This is maybe a suggestion that's not the most important focus of whatever it is that I'm saying, right? So that's what's useful here. People can notice that, people can note it without in their minds, including it in the important message, which is you have to send this to me by Friday and West. So it's a way to sort of have your cake and eat it too, to say what you kind of want to say without making it part of the email in a way. And that can be very, very useful. I'll bet, because she included that almost everyone on her team will send it earlier. Finally, if we want to leave the door open and let everyone know that we're willing to be supportive, that we're willing to answer questions to make sure things are clear. It's a good idea to end with something like if you have any questions, reach out, contact me, or let me know Let me know if you have any questions. Contact me. If you have any questions. If you have any questions, please reach out. All of these are okay. Contact me as a little bit formal. I prefer reach out and let me know. I think reach out is probably the best one, but that's just my opinion. So that is it for our recap. That's it for this e-mail and that is also it for this section. We've reached the end of our section about sending things in emails. In the next section we're going to be going on and talking about clearing up issues and confusion. So let me know if you have any questions and I will see you in the next lesson. 96. Scenario | Clarifying a Misunderstanding: In the last section, we talked about emails for sending things. In this section, we're going to focus on emails for resolving confusion, misunderstandings. What happens when someone's wrong about something? What happens when you need to correct someone? What happens when they're confused and you need to help them understand. That's what we're going to focus on. Now, what's the risk here? When you correct someone, there is a risk that you'll do it in a way that's too direct. And then they'll feel that you're trying to make them look stupid, right? If they're wrong about something and you know what is actually true, maybe they just have a misunderstanding. Well, misunderstandings are pretty common. Now. It varies by situation. If it's your close friend and you just say, Hey, you're wrong about that. Now that's probably okay. But what if it's a customer? What if it's a colleague? What if it's someone you don't know? Well, we need to know how to deal with this. So we're going to start with a misunderstanding. We're going to look at an example email for clarifying misunderstanding. Let's read through our scenario and then get into the e-mail. Here we go, carry a customer service representative and an online pet food retailer has received a complaint from a customer about the consistency of a certain dog food blend. She needs to let the customer know that there is no defect. In fact, food is supposed to look the way it does. So a defect is when something is made with a mistake. I'm sure you've purchased a product before and you've noticed that says something wrong. It's not supposed to be like that. Maybe that's a defect. Well, if it's a dog food you buy or cat food and you think it's supposed to be this way and it's actually this white. Maybe it's a defect. I got the wrong one or they, they made a mistake. Maybe not though. In fact, I'm the one who's made the mistake. Now, of course, this is not only for dog food related situations, not even only for customer service related situations. Or we're going to talk about the phrases, the methods we're going to focus on will be useful in many situations. When you need to explain to someone that they're wrong about something, you're wrong about that, and then correct them or clarify things for them so that they can understand. But if you say you're wrong, well, how does that feel? Not good. So we can't say it like that. Okay, I know I've mentioned this a few times throughout the course, but it's very important to keep in mind. I want you to take what you learn from each email, although it's from a specific scenario and apply it to your own. That's really getting what you should get out of the course. So let's look at the e-mail. 97. Part 1 | Acknowledging the Issue: Let's read through the first part of caries email to clarify a misunderstanding for a customer. Here we go. Hello. And we'll look at some variations for that one. Thank you for writing to bring this dog food quality issue to our attention. We are we we are sorry that you're not satisfied with your canine healthy for ultimate purchase capital letters. That means that it's the name of the product. You referenced in your email that some of the cables are softer than others and not crunchy. Just to clarify, pay attention to that. Just to clarify, this particular blend includes both crunchier beef blend kibble, darker, and a lighter variety with more oats. The darker kibble should be softer than the lighter one. Okay. So this is the first part. And what is what is this customer service person doing here? What do you notice? What's the tone? Is it overly formal? I would say it's I would say it's professional. That's the tone. And this paragraph certainly the first paragraph, shows respect, doesn't disagree, just states the issue and starts from a place of respect, respecting as a sort of respectful tone, respecting that this customer is unhappy even if they're incorrect. So that's very important to respect the customer even when they're wrong. I'm not trying to give you a customer service advice. I'm just saying if you want to do that, then the start of the email is a good time to do that. As we've talked about throughout the course, the tone is set from the beginning. Now if we wanted to make it a little more formal, we might change this a little bit, and we've talked about these variations before. But we might say something like deer valued customer, which is kind of impersonal, not very personal, but very formal and very respectful. Now we could make it more personal by saying something like, Dear, oops, this should be an, a, what am I doing? Dir Brad? If it's bread, then it would be more personal. I'm so sorry that you're not satisfied. So we can do that too. If you want it to have a more personal field. If you want it to be both personal and kind of neutral, then you might say something like bread. That would be an okay way to start. So it's just different levels of respect and formality that you have to think about. And not only for customer service, but you're trying to apologize for something or explain something or clarify something, and the other person is someone you don't know very well. Okay. So that's, that's the salutation, the opening salutation. Now, there are a couple of interesting things happening in this first paragraph. Of course, it sets the tone. It's a respectful tone. That's good. It's professional. That's good. But what is Kerry really doing with this language? Is she, from the beginning disagreeing with the customer? No. Very important to not do that from the start. If you start an interaction with, boom, you're wrong. Even if it's very respectful, it's not a good feeling for the other person. You need a bit of a buffer. A buffer is a space between you and another thing, a bit of space. So you can mention this, you can correct this person, but first, do a couple of things. First, greet them in a respectful way. So you have your greeting here. Thank you for writing to bring this issue to our attention, okay. But then you want to establish some common ground. Now, common ground means I'm on one side, you're on the other. You're the customer. I'm the person who's supposed to be helping you. But in this case you're, you're incorrect. But I want us to start from a place of agreement. So what I do is I don't disagree with you in the first paragraph. I don't say anything to tell you you're wrong at the beginning, I just acknowledge what you said as though it were true. This is not the time for me to disagree. I just acknowledge it. I see that you're having a difficult time. I understand that this is a tough issue for you. This sort of thing can allow you to establish some common ground. Just say yes. Okay, I see that. That makes the other person feel recognized that you see them and understand them before you go onto the next thing, but then it makes the next thing easier to accept. So think about creating some common ground first before you go into the next part. So she's saying you're bringing a dog food quality issue to our attention. There is no dog food quality issue. This dog food is supposed to be like this, but the customer's complaining about an issue. So okay. We just acknowledge that. Then. We say we're sorry to hear that you're not satisfied, not sorry that the product is wrong. So you don't want to be untruthful and say, we're sorry that we send you the wrong product. No, you're not going to go that far because that's not true. It's not the wrong thing. This person is just confused. But what we are sorry about is that you are not satisfied. Feelings that you have are true. So I recognize those and I'm sorry that you have those feelings. So again, you feel recognized, you feel that I understand you. So we've accomplished a lot in the first paragraph, but there's more. The other thing is to say the name of the product, canine healthy for ultimate. As a reminder to you in case you forgot the name. But more importantly, to make sure we are on the same page, because what if it's a mistake? And we do all of this back and forth where I'm apologizing and trying to explain things to you. And actually we're not even talking about the same dog food. You bought that one. It has a similar name and then you made a mistake and you thought it was this one and then now we're wrapped up and confused. I state the name specifically, so it has capital letters, the name of the brand, the thing we're talking about a very specific on this point. Just want to make sure that I'm talking about what you're actually talking about. And if I say the name, then you might go and check and make sure yes, that's that's the right one. That's the one I'm talking about. So anytime you're dealing with an issue like this, the more specific you can be about what you're talking about when there are other things which are similar, make sure you say it right at the beginning. That creates this common ground, this shared understanding. We're on the same page and I'm empathizing with you. Okay. A lot has been accomplished with the first paragraph, but I need to actually correct you. So you referenced in your email that some of the cables are softer than others and not crunchy. So right at the beginning, I'm changing directions. Now it's time for me to deal with this issue. What I do, instead of saying I need to correct you about something or let me correct you about an issue. No. What do you do at the beginning is throw back at this person exactly what they said. You said this. You told me this. You explain this. Your issue according to you, is this okay? You state that then you make the correction because that is number one, a reminder. This person might not remember exactly what they said and it makes it clear that I want to address exactly what your issue is. And I don't have to start right at the beginning of the paragraph telling you that you're wrong. First, say what the other person said. Restate it. It's okay if it's slightly different in your own words, then go into the next part. And the next part is just to clarify. Now I'm not using any personal language and that's very important to never do. I say you're wrong about this. You made a mistake. You don't understand, you have a misunderstanding. That's like pointing in your face, touching your face and saying you, you you're you're you're you're an idiot. No, I don't want to do that. Why would I do that? Instead, I want to step back a little bit. I want to move a little farther away. And I want to say something that's not personal at all. I'm just going to explain the truth. I'm going to explain the reality to you, but I'm never going to tell you directly that you're incorrect. That's what Just to clarify allows me to do the very powerful phrase, just to clarify. So one of the most useful expressions for correcting a misunderstanding in a polite way. It's not rude at all. Just often softens things. We've talked about that when you use just it makes it feel softer. So just to clarify is very natural sounding pleasant phrase, but it sets up the correction or their variations of this. Yes, that's probably the most common one. Just to be clear, that one might be a bit too direct, just to be clear, that one sounds a little too pointy and maybe not so good. Just to clarify, I think is a great choice. This particular blend. So there I'm saying, well, there are, there are blends where you're right, you're, you're still right. There are other blends that have the same consistency, but this particular blend includes crunchy or beef blend kibble. Kibble is just part of pet food. I don't think you really need to know what that is. We're not learning about pet food in this course. But then I can maybe give a description inside of parentheses. Also very powerful. So I can say darker, There's a lighter one and a darker one. And I want to let you know that the beef ones are the darker ones and a lighter variety with more oats. Oh, okay. By now the person reading this should be thinking, Oh, okay, I guess I was wrong then without being told, Hey, you're wrong, right then. And this is a very important sentence. The darker kibble should be softer than the lighter one. Why is that important? Should be means if what I'm saying is true, if my correction is accurate and in fact, you did have a misunderstanding. If that is true, then you can go check and you can see for yourself and you touch the dog food and all that is softer. And that's the darker one. And not smells like beef and the lighter one smells like oats. And it is a little harder being able to predict something that the other person can actually check using should be is a way to gain trust, credibility and for them to accept it. Yes, I was wrong. But nowhere in here have I ever told this person that they are wrong. I've done it indirectly, and yet I have done it effectively. Now this can be used for so many different types of misunderstandings. So make sure to remember and practice what we've talked about here, how we build up the first paragraph, some of the phrases we use just to clarify and using should be to make that prediction that the other person can then go to check. And then when they go and check and see that that's true, they come back and they realize, oh, yeah, I was wrong. And it's easier for them to accept that. And they feel a little bit more trust. They feel that you're a trustworthy person. Okay, so that's the first part. Let's now go on to the second part of this email. 98. Part 2 | Wrapping Up a Clarification: Now we're looking at the second part of caries email to a customer to clarify a misunderstanding about dog food consistency. Maybe a topic you didn't think you would hear about in this course. But in fact, here we are. Now, how do we start if this is the case? Remember the last thing was to give an it should be right. It should be if you go and check. If this is the case. This is also a very useful phrase and we'll talk about it after we read through it. If this is the case, I would encourage you to try the happy canine blend, which is more consistent. If not, please don't hesitate to write back and let us know sincerely carry customer service specialists at VCU. Okay, so if this is the case, is a great way to give an alternative. There are two alternatives. One is it is true, one is it is not true. What is true? What is not true? Well, I told you that if you look at the dog food, some of them should be darker and softer and smell like beef and the others should be a little bit lighter and harder to different consistencies, right? If it's true, what I said, if what I said is true after you go and check, then have to admit that you made a mistake and you accidentally purchased the wrong one. You had a misunderstanding, and you should not be blaming us for that. That's what it really means, right? And I'm going to give you a suggestion. If it's true. If I was right, then maybe you don't like this dog food and you can instead try the happy Canaan blend. So I'm giving you some information that might satisfy your expectation of having a dog food that's very consistent. Now, maybe you want that. Maybe you don't want that. I don't know. What I'm trying to do is provide the information that you would need in either case, if it's true and if it's not true. So if you were wrong, here is one thing that you might try. This blend, maybe see if your dogs like the one you accidentally bought by mistake, you had a misunderstanding about that. If they don't, then maybe you can try this one. If this is the case, the case means true. It is the case. It's quite formal, but in this sort of email, It's definitely okay. Okay. Which is more consistent. If not, what does if not if it is not the case, you don't have to say the complete phrase. In fact, when you want to say both, you usually say the first one as the complete phrase and then the second one just as the opposite, but simpler. So if that is not the case, that dot-dot-dot, but this one starts with if this is the case. So then later we say, if not, So don't say if it is not the case here. Here, you should say just if not, it's a way to simplify it. It's much more common. You don't have to put both, right? If you only want to provide one option, one recommendation. Here, I would certainly recommend it because it's possible that my prediction is wrong. That in fact there is a mistake with the dog food. There is a problem. Actually, the light ones are softer. Oh, no. So I was I was mistaken. And if I'm wrong, then well, we'll probably have to give you a refund, which is fine. We want you to be a happy customer. The other option, the alternative. If not, please don't hesitate to write back. That means I'm eager. I'm eager to help you. I would like to help you. I don't mind being wrong. I think I'm correcting a misunderstanding. I think I'm clarifying something for you. And I think after I do that, you will feel satisfied knowing that I made a mistake. Oops, next time I'll get the happy canine blend. But I should also leave the door open for the possibility that I'm wrong. And that's why it's a good idea to include the opposite. I usually do this when I'm trying to explain something or clarify something. I'm pretty sure I'm right. I'm I'm 95 percent sure I'm right, but there's a 5% chance I'm wrong. And I don't like that. If there's a 5% chance I'm wrong and I don't give the opposite, I don't say the alternative. Then I'm kind of closing the door. I'm slamming the door. I don't want to do that and to leave the door open. So if not, please don't hesitate to write back and let us know actually. Oh, I'm so sorry. Here's a refund for this one and we're going to send you one free bag of whatever I need to do as the customer service person to make this person feel like a happy customer, right? So don't hesitate. More of a customer service phrase, more often used in this sort of situation. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it if you're trying to correct a colleague, you can use the other phrases we talked about, everything else we talked about definitely useful. This one specifically is more customer service. It really feels like a sort of professional, serious customer service phrase. I don't usually say that two colleagues. You could if you wanted it to be a little bit more formal, it's okay. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for all situations then sincerely, that's pretty standard. Keri underneath Customer Service Specialist at who've so now that we've gone through the email, let's do our recap. 99. Recap | Clarifying a Misunderstanding: Let's do our recap of the main ideas and key phrases for caries e-mail to this customer to clarify a misunderstanding. Here we go. Now remember when we start, Kari just acknowledges yes, this is an issue. Yes, you're having this problem so that they can find some common ground. And very importantly, she gives the specific name of the product to make sure they're on the same page. Very important. It shows empathy. It avoids future confusions if there are more misunderstandings because each person thinks they're talking about a different product. So we use specific words and we start from the very beginning by acknowledging the other person's issue without judgment, just saying yes. Okay, you have this issue which shows empathy and also to acknowledge how they might be feeling. And you can't say that they're wrong about that, they're feeling that way. So acknowledge it, find that common ground, show empathy. Then you can go on to clarify. And when you clarify a misunderstanding, instead of saying You seem to have misunderstood, that seems rude. Instead of that, say, just to clarify, this sounds quite soft. It's very gentle, but it accomplishes the same thing. And then you say what the misunderstanding is. You clarify it without making it personal. Never saying you, you you always just saying this is the situation. Just to clarify. Maybe start with just to clarify. You don't have to use this as the situation. I'm saying the situation is and then you would describe the situation, the reality, the clarification. And usually the other person will feel respected and probably accepted. But remember, you might want to start with exactly what their issue is. Saying it almost in their words, if not exactly in their words, so that you're dealing with that specificly, then at the end we can give alternatives. We can suggest a next action. Well, if what I said is correct, if my clarification is correct, if this is the case, if that is the case, if I'm right, it's not not an arrogant thing. If I'm correct. If this is the case, then we can introduce a suggested action. I think you should do this. I think you should try this dog food. I would recommend this. And for situations beyond dog food, whatever you want to recommend. But then the alternative in case you're wrong, there might be that 5%. If not, if not, and if this is the opposite, if that is not the case, and then this would be if, so, if so would be the opposite. If you want to say that in the simpler way, then you would introduce the alternative, suggest some kind of alternative in case my clarification is wrong. In case I made a mistake, it's possible. And since it's possible, it's a good idea to mention the alternative, suggest an alternative that leaves the door open. Okay, So that is it for this email. If you have any questions, let me know and I will see you in the next one. 100. Scenario | Correcting an Error.: For the last email we talked about correcting a misunderstanding. The customer was confused about something. Actually, the customer was wrong. So how do you correct someone who is wrong without sounding rude? That's what we talked about for the last one. This one is a bit different. For this case, we're looking at an error to keep it simple. We'll also be talking about a customer, but this can be used in lots of other situations as well. The customer is correct this time, there was a mistake, there is a problem. They have a right to be a little bit frustrated here. So what do you do if you're the one who made the error or perhaps you're the one who has to explain the situation. How do you explain it in a way that is acceptable to the other person that doesn't make them more frustrated. Well, that's what we'll be talking about here. Let's quickly read through our scenario before we jump into the email scenario, you lean needs to apologize to a customer who has pointed out an incorrect amount charged on his or her card. In addition to this, Ailene will offer a discount for future purchases as an apology. Okay. A mistake has been made. We make mistakes all the time. How do we go about explaining it? How do we go about apologizing? You have to be a little bit careful because if we apologize too much, that can create an awkward situation. But if we pretend like it didn't happen and we tried to ignore it, That's usually also not a great idea. So that's what we're going to talk about, how to navigate or deal with this kind of situation in an e-mail. Let's get into it. 101. Part 1 | Explaining the Error: Let's read through the first part of Alan's e-mail to this unnamed customer that have a name but they're not named here. Okay. Subject Re colon. I was overcharged. Hello. Thank you for getting in touch regarding your concern about order T R 7843212, you are absolutely correct that the amount billed was not correct due to a human error on our side, we overbuild you by $14.38 on TR 784321. To please accept our apologies, we've processed your refund with the card on file and you should expect to see it within three to five business days. Okay? This is the first part. What is going on here? First? We always talk about tone first, right? What's the tone? Pretty formal. Write professional, not jokey, not very soft and friendly. Pretty serious, right? Formal. Formal, very professional. And I would like to use the word sincere. Quite sincere has a sincere note. Okay. And there's a word I want to use transparent. I'm not sure if that's a word I can use to describe tone. It is very transparent. We'll talk about that. Okay, So why did I put the subject here for this one? I haven't been doing that for all the e-mails. I wanted to just point out one thing. When would you use this re well, if you want to let the other person know that you're responding directly to this specific thing. It's a good idea. So you don't always have to think of a creative or interesting, or an eye-catching or powerful or a clear subject. You don't have to. Often you can just respond. Now if you're composing an email, then of course you do. But responding, it's usually totally acceptable in almost every case to use R0. Now in this case, we're replying to this as part of the subject. It may be even more important in this case because we want to let this person know that we're dealing with this issue, this concern, they use this subject, they must be pretty concerned about this being overcharged. Okay? We're not going to try to change the subject to make it sound flowery or nice. Note, we're going to deal with this problem. So that might help to establish some trust, right? Okay. Hello would be fine if there's a name, you could use the name, could use dear. That would also sound pretty formal. We've talked about all that. Okay. Thank you for getting in touch. You could also use, of course, reach out. You could use thank you for contacting us. Thank you for contacting me. Thank you for letting me know us know all of those would be okay. Regarding your concern about order TI 83, TLR 7, 8, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2. Regarding that. Okay. So this is a great way to mark the main subject. We don't need to spend a lot of time with contexts because the context, the background information as the previous e-mail is the complaint. So we don't need to do that. When you're responding to an issue, you'll want to jump right into the issue. There's an error or mistake was made. Don't spend a lot of time preparing this person to deal with their issue. The context has been established by the previous e-mail, probably a slightly angry email about being overcharged by $14.38? Probably. Okay. What we want to do is immediately say this is what we're going to talk about in this e-mail right from the start. Now, if you start with regarding and that's the beginning, that might be a little too sudden. Might feel a bit sudden. So thank you for getting in touch is a nice way to soften it a bit, it's a bit softer and softer the beginning then regarding, concerning, those two are very useful. Want to say, Hey, this is the topic. Hey, this is what we're talking about. Okay. So regarding, Now regarding does feel a bit formal. That doesn't mean that you can't use it in a casual email. You can, it's fine. But in this context, it adds to the formal feeling. And the most important thing is how it's being used, which is as a marker to say, this is the topic. This is what we're talking about. What are we talking about? This order, order TR 7843212. It's very important to name the thing we're talking about as well. Now, you could avoid it. I'm sorry to hear about your order, but there's also the chance that this person who's angry about an error did several things. And one of them is an error and the others aren't, or there were two errors. You don't know the full context often. So whenever possible. And I don't only mean in this sort of customer service situation, whenever possible, be as specific as you can about what you're talking about, what you're dealing with. So if there's a name of a thing, bright that name of a thing. And you might say, well, that's a little repetitive. It's okay in this case, yes, we both know what we're talking about, but just to be very, very clear, to avoid the back and forth. So name the thing, this order, instead of saying your order, which would be acceptable, but I think not as specific, not as good as this one. Okay. Then comma you are absolutely correct that the amount billed was not correct. Or you could say you are absolutely correct that you were built an error or that you were overcharged, however you want to say it, that's not so important. The key thing here is you are absolutely correct, right at the beginning to establish that there is a mistake. This may help to create trust. This may help to create a sense of transparency. The word I said before, when you want the other person to feel that you are trustworthy when it comes to writing things, emails, it can be difficult to make other people feel like you're trustworthy because this is just text you're looking at, right? You're not you'll get to see the person. You don't get to smell, smell them, to see if they're the kind of person you would trust. So you want to use your language to come across as trustworthy. So if you tried to avoid it or if you say, well, I don't know what happened or if you just say we're going to give you a refund and then stop there. It might not create that sense of trust. But if you use language at the beginning to immediately admit the issue and say Yes, it's true. A 100 percent starting especially with You're absolutely correct. You're absolutely right. Especially using the word Absolutely, because it's stronger than you can establish that trust. And the transparency part is that we have no secrets. We're not hiding anything from you. We made a mistake, especially when it comes to money stuff. People get pretty nervous about that if they feel like they've been charged too much. If you are at all invasive or sneaky or trying to avoid things, people will get very upset reasonably so when you get very upset. So if the other person admitted immediately, yeah, we made a mistake. This is absolutely 100% true. Absolutely. Wouldn't you feel sense of relief? So it's very important to put that at the beginning and then talk about how you're going to deal with it. So right at the start first paragraph, you're going to probably if there really is a mistake, admit it, and think about adding a word that adds strength to it. That leaves no room for the possibility that you might sound like you're trying to avoid something absolutely wrong. We made a mistake. Oh, that's pretty strong. I can see that you really are admitting it. Okay. Now we can get into more details. We can explain the situation a little bit more and we can say what we're going to do to resolve it, what we're going to provide to make up for it, that kind of stuff. Okay? So that's kind of the structure for this sort of thing. Okay? We want to start with the reason due to a human error on our side. Now, this is where it is a little risky if you made a mistake and you said, Oh, it was this person and that person is not my fault, it's their fault. Then you sound like you're trying to make excuses. Unless you want to do that, I would recommend keeping the explanation as simple and short as possible. Don't go on and on explaining the details of the problem. That is bad. Email etiquette, wasting space, it's wasting time. And it looks like an excuse. This happened, then this happened. They don't need to know the whole issue. They don't need to know every detail of what happened. Deborah was having a bad day and she told Charlie the wrong number and then there was no don't get into that sort of thing. Avoided. That is very bad. Email etiquette in general, not just for customers, for everyone, even if it's not a formal email, even if you don't use this formal sounding phrase, do to try to keep whatever follows that. Simple due to human error on our site. That's it. Okay. Don't need to explain more. That's the basic reason. In a few words, a human error on our side, sometimes we say on our end, either one of those would be okay, then we restated. So here it's restated. We overbuild you buy and a specific number, $14.38 cents on and then the order number that I'm not going to say ever again. Okay? So when you can try to be specific with numbers, if there's a price, if there's a date, if there's anything that needs to be corrected, always use the number when you're correcting it to avoid the back and forth, the exact amount is given so that the customer understands that this is the number we're talking about and they see that and they say yes, that's correct. Or if it's not correct, then they can maybe call in or they can respond to this. But we've checked and it definitely is correct. So we're just being very clear and then repeating the order number. This is for an abundance of clarity. And the abundance of clarity. You want to make sure everything's on the same page. Use dates, use numbers, use the price of something, use, use all of these very specific things. Say the address. Include that. That sort of stuff is not adding fluffed to your email. That is ensuring that there are no miscommunications. So this very effective first sentence in this paragraph has accomplished two important things. Explain the reason and to confirm or restate the issue. Then it gets into the I'm so sorry, which is maybe the whole reason to send the email. Please accept our apologies. Formal. Casual. Very formal. Please accept our apologies. You wouldn't say that to a casual colleague. You wouldn't say that to a close friend. It's very formal. Okay. If you want to say it personally, then you would say something like, I'm so sorry. I apologize. I'm really sorry. I feel terrible. That kind of thing would be language for a more casual email. Okay. Then the solution. What's the solution? Well, we're doing a lot with this paragraph. We've stated the reason we've stated the issue. We've apologized. Very important to apologize if you have made an error. And we're going to then talk about what we do next, the next steps, we've processed your refund with the card on file. On file means that's the one we have on record, that one you used to make your purchase. Okay. So this is the action that was taken to resolve it and I'm telling you this, but it might take a few days. So I want you to know that this is happening, but it's not immediately going to be given back to you because it takes time to process. Okay. And you should expect to see it within three to five business days. This is pretty standard language for this sort of email. If you're writing an apology for something else, if you made a mistake related to something completely different, you can follow this same basic structure, but instead of using the very formal language, you might choose a little bit more neutral language or maybe more casual language. And for this last part, if this last part is the structure, you're just going to say what is being done or what was done to resolve the issue so that it is W1 fixed gone. No more issue. Okay. But do we stop there? Well, it depends on the situation. If it's a colleague and you just want to explain the error and then say what is being done to resolve it, then you could stop here and say, Let me know if you have any questions and then end the email right there to a colleague, that would be fine, but this is a customer. So you have to add a little bit more formality because we want this customer to come back, right, very important. So we're going to add a little bit more. Let's go on to part two. 102. Part 2 | Resolving the Error: For the second part of Alan's e-mail to this frustrated customer, there are really two goals. Goal number one is to show empathy. It's empathy time to make the customer feel better. Hey, this company, a lean also understands me. And then I am frustrated. A little empathy. That's great. Number to loyalty. You ever heard of brand loyalty? You buy this brand and not that brand. People have brand loyalty. Well, if you're loyal to this company, Morph, Morph is the name of this company, Another made up, made up company name. You might not be loyal after something bad happens. So in this case, Elaine wants to make sure that this customer feels totally satisfied, not just at the issue was resolved, but that they are respected as a customer and that the company really wants them to stay as a customer. This would be to encourage loyalty. So lean wants to provide something a little bit extra, because this was a frustrating experience and that's not good for business, right? So let's read through this. We realized that this must be a serious inconvenience. And since we genuinely value your business, we can offer you a 40 percent discount on your next order. Wu onetime discount code, JR 2, 0, 1, 1, 2. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us via our website or reach out by e-mail. Sincerely, you lean more specialist. Okay, so have we accomplished these two things, empathy and loyalty? I think so. I think it accomplishes it very well because it's still quite formal for sure, for sure. So if this is a different kind of situation where you've made a mistake at work or with a friend or someone else, you know, or any other kind of situation. Just think about reducing the level of formality, keeping it simpler. And if you want to include this part by showing empathy to this person, you can still do that, but maybe not with this level of formality, like using the word we as already formal because I, as a customer service person, I'm speaking for the company. If you wanted to make this more personal, then he would say, I realized we talked about that towards the beginning of the course. You can switch out we and I, as long as it's consistent throughout, you don't want to change it because then it's a little bit confusing. So if suddenly a lean used me here, that might be a little bit weird, but if it were I throughout, then it would probably be okay. And then we might use less formal language for that as well. This part is simply recognizing that AS solving the problem, AS resolving this issue, It's not enough that this caused a lot of anxiety, stress, frustration for you. So let's recognize that. Let's acknowledge that we realize that this must be a serious inconvenience. Just state how it must be to the other person. How I would imagine it would be. That is showing empathy. That must be really hard when your friend tells you something very difficult, you don't say, Oh, it sounds bad. No, you say That must be really difficult. That must be so terrible. I'm so sorry to hear that. That's what you would say to your friend. This is the same thing. You're showing, empathy. That's it. But maybe empathy is not enough because empathy isn't real. Okay. You've tried to make me feel good by showing me that you understand me. But that's it. Okay? I'm going to give you something, something that shows with real value, value you can use that. We understand and we hope you will continue to be our customer, okay, so and since, because we genuinely value your business, genuinely just makes it sound a bit more earnest, perhaps more sincere, maybe not. Depends on the situation. And since we genuinely value your business, we can offer you a 40 percent discount on your next order. Wow, Okay. That's a pretty big discount we can offer you. We wanted to say even more formally, would like to, would like to. And sometimes you hear that's an O Disney 0. We would like to extend an offer. That's even more formal to extend something, to extend an offer to extend a deal, to extend a discount. That's even more formal sounding, okay, then of course this is separated because it's important information, it can't be missed. It might be something as person will go back to reference. So very important there to separate it on both sides, here and here. And then the final thing, The last impression we want to leave. Of course, this is very familiar. This is easy stuff by now. If you have any questions, this is really standard for all kinds of different emails. I use it all the time. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us via our website. Maybe there's a chat on the website or reach out. We learned that phrase before. Reach out by email. Okay. So this is a pretty friendly e-mail. It's pretty formal, it's very professional. It shows empathy. It encourages loyalty by providing something real. It acknowledges or recognises the issue. It includes an apology, it includes an explanation of the issue and what is being done to fix it. All of this stuff is happening in one e-mail. It's a lot of stuff. But if you put all the pieces in the right places, if you follow the basic structure we've gone through here, this can work in almost any kind of situation where an error has been made and something needs to be done to fix it and an apology is required, or at least a recognition that, Hey, this happened and I'm going to fix it. So start working on using this structure and some of these phrases in your own emails. Practice if you don't have apology emails to write, at least practice one so that you can get used to the structure, so that you can get used to using the phrases in the right way and maybe try writing a couple of different emails, each one with a different tone. Okay, let's go on and do our recap. 103. Recap | Correcting an Error: Let's do a quick recap of a leans customer service email to this frustrated customer who has been charged too much on a purchase. Okay. So remember she uses absolutely correct at the beginning too, at MIT transparently that yes, we made a mistake right at the beginning, right up front. This helps to establish a sense of trust, but she wants to explain it a little bit. She wants to give a reason. Not too much of a reason, not a story, not an excuse, but a clear reason due to something, due to human error, due to an issue at the plant. More whatever the issue happens to be. And you can soften that in less formal emails with because of as a result of since, perhaps as well, whenever possible, use specific numbers, use specific dates. That helps keep everything on the same page because you might not know the full context. So you wanna make sure you're talking about the same thing. It cannot hurt to be more specific. It can hurt to be less specific if you assume that they know what you're talking about, but you're talking about a different thing because there are two different issues. You don't know the full situation. So be as specific as you can, especially when it comes to numbers, are situations where it could be one of many things. You can get into a lot of trouble by assuming or not being specific enough. Now, be careful about using we, if you're representing a company, if you're speaking for a group of people, if you're speaking for several people, you can use, we make sure you realize when you do that, you're generally speaking more formally generally. And you're speaking on behalf of them, two of those people or your company. So think about that and decide whether or not you want to use we and us. And if you're not sure, maybe it's better to use I and me instead. I and me gives it a more personal feeling of course. And that one is obviously much more common. Feel free then at the end, it's sort of welcoming. Please ask questions. If you have questions, that would be great. Feel free as a very common phrase used in American English. Feel free to take a seat. Feel free to ask any questions. It's a really common phrase and it's very warm. It's a positive note to end the e-mail as if to say, Hey, if you have any questions, we would like to help you. So just ask and that's fine. You're not bothering us. It's totally fine. If you don't understand something or if there was another mistake or whatever may have happened. All right. That's it for the recap. That is it for this email. And also, we've reached the end of this section of the course. We're going to be going on in the next section to talk about simple communication. And that is going to be the last real section of the course. I know you've come all this way. You should be proud of yourself. It's been great to have you along. I hope you've been enjoying it. We're getting very, very close to the end. And well, all good things must come to an end, but we have more work to do. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 104. Scenario | Let's Meet: In the last section of the course, we talked about sending emails to resolve issues and confusion in this section, the last section where we're going to be actually looking at e-mail examples. We're going to talk about simple communication. Now we'll look at a few different things. We're going to be talking about a thank you. Both a formal one and, uh, an a much less formal one. We're going to be talking about sending some advice. We're going to start with an invitation asking someone to meet us. So let's look at the scenario before we jump into the email. Here we go. Dixon is visiting Denver for a few days and we'd like to meet up with an old friend or acquaintance, kind of the same thing. Acquaintances, maybe not as close, you know, a lot of people those are your acquaintances. Maybe friends are closer to you, a close group of people. Sometimes people use them in the same way. An old friend, acquaintance who lives there or near there, he wants to let Brenda Brenda is the other person he wants to let Brenda No. He is available. But ensure that she has ample room to say no, that she has enough room to say no. What does that mean? Well, if you push someone a lot, you kinda forced them to meet you. And you don't give them an opportunity to refuse without feeling really, really uncomfortable, then they might feel really uncomfortable that you did that. And I feel like I can't say no. So I'll say yes, and that can damage the relationship. Now, part of this may be American culture. It's usually pretty important to always give the other person a chance to refuse, to make it pretty easy to refuse so that they can make a simple decision yes or no, and either one is okay. Okay. So that's the scenario. This invitation. Let's look at the e-mail. 105. Part 1 | Small Talk and Proposal: Let's take a look at the first part of Dixon's email to his friend Brenda, who lives in Denver, Colorado. Hi, Brenda. It's been too long. I think we last saw each other at the Expo last August. How have you been how are the kids? I'm planning to be in Denver for a few days at the beginning of next month, the second through the 7th. And we'd love to meet up for coffee if you have time. It seems that we have so much to catch up on. All right. So what's happening with this one? What's the tone? I always ask this because it's important. What's the tone? Friendly? I would say friendly. Is it very casual? No, I would say it's kind of neutral. It's not very formal, it's not very casual. You could change things around. If you wanted to make it more formal. You might change high, too dear, dear Brenda. But will a friend say dear to another friend? Well, maybe sometimes, maybe even a handwritten letter, but for an email, I don't know. Probably not. Probably not. So it's got a friendly tone. And I would say that it's quite enthusiasts. Fec, that's a word I would use. It's pretty enthusiastic overall. Now, one thing to be very careful of, instead of the comma here for the salutation, we have an exclamation mark. Be very careful with exclamation marks. One thing that I sometimes see is an email filled with exclamation marks. But how does that make me feel? Does it make me feel? Oh, this person's just excited. Wo, a little too excited. It's sort of like if a dog comes up to you and instead of just being friendly, it's jumping on you and Pauling you, okay? Okay. Little too intense. Now, in extreme cases, you want a million dollars. Maybe your email is full of these. But the reason not to do it too much is if you use them for everyday things, just telling me something very ordinary, then when you need one, it's not going to have the same impact. Think about it like that. You have to have a range of paint brushes when you're writing emails, right? If you use that paintbrush too often, when you really need to use that paintbrush to show excitement, to show extreme enthusiasm. It won't be there. You'll use it. And the person reading your email will say, Oh yeah, well like I can't really feel that enthusiasm because you always write like this. So I would say, be very careful with these exclamation points. I think it works here for the salutation. It's kind of like, hey, which is a good way, a friendly way to start an email. So I would say use it in friend situations, right? If you want to show that enthusiasm at the beginning, but notice I'm not using it throughout because I want this to have more impact. If you want to make it more formal than just use your dear, as I said, dear Brenda. Okay. So what about the next part? What about this reading here? What's going on with the greeting? It's been too long. I think we last saw each other at the Expo last August. Okay. It's been too long. Once that well, that's just an expression to say, I'm recognizing that while our friendship is very important, It's quite a shame that we haven't seen each other in a while. And this suggests kind of a friendly way to start the e-mail, a friendly tone that how we'd like to see you, you're my friend and we may have an opportunity for that coming up. So it helps prepare you for what I'm going to say later, which is that I will be in Denver. Okay. Then what do we do? Let's call this next part. I'm just going to call it small talk. Now, some people say small talk is not important. I disagree. Small talk is really important in the right situation. If you get on a video call with someone, what are you going to say before the meeting starts? Nothing. Smalltalk. You don't want to talk about something too serious. So if you know this person, you catch up with them. You have small talk. What do you talk about? The weather? Well, if you don't really know each other, you could I guess you could say things like that. I wouldn't recommend it. What you should do instead is asked things if you can, based on what you know about the other person. This is sort of the number one rule of Smalltalk. If you know anything about this other person, try to use that for a simple question that can get the other person to feel like they want to respond and tell you a little more. That's a good rule for small talk in person. That's a good rule for small talk on the Internet to video calls, things like that. And it's a good rule for emails. Now, why would you start an email with this? Well, it feels friendly. It's very friendly if you just start with what you want to say. That's sort of a business e-mail, that's sort of a work email. Let's get right down to business. Let me say what I need to say. Sometimes that's great, right? Because don't waste my time if we're colleagues and we just need to get some work done. But if we're friends, getting right down to business immediately makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Think about if you start with this deer, Brenda, I'm planning to be in Denver for a few days. It sounds so sudden. So this is sort of this whole paragraph here, this greeting here, the function that it serves, apart from setting the tone, of course, apart from showing, hey, I know some things about you and I want to, I want to know what's going on with you. It acts as a kind of buffer because jumping directly into the point might make the other person uncomfortable. And that's true for emails. That's true for conversations. If you need a favor instead of just asking for the favor over the phone, Hey, I need help. Small talk first, then ask for help. It's sort of an etiquette thing. It's sort of showing respect to the other person sort of thing. And it's friendly, it's good. It's a good way to start. Okay. So how have you been? That's a classic one. How are you how are things going? You can use any of those, those are fine. What's up? Maybe not so much because that would be a sort of in the moment thing. You would use that in the moment. What's up, what's going on? That means, what are you doing right now? How are the kids? That's a really good one. Why? Because I'm using something that I know. You can say, How have you been to most people in most situations. But saying how are the kids means I know you have kids. Maybe I've met them. I know that you have a family. I've met your family. I've had dinner at your house. You've had dinner at my house. It's just been awhile. So I want an update on that. So to use something personal that you know about the other person and make a question about that are related to that, that then the other person can answer or once to answer. So this is what we're doing with this first paragraph, this greeting here, then we can get down to business. But why am I sending you this email? If I just said this first part, I would kinda be pointless, right? I mean, maybe it's okay if you just want to catch up. But usually people write an email because they have a point where a reason, there's a reason they're doing it now. So Dixon is going to be in Denver and that means that maybe he has a chance to meet with Brenda, his friend. So we introduce it now in this main thing, we're going to introduce it. Then we'll have our call to action. So he first gives the basic context. I'm planning to be in Denver for a few days at the beginning of next month. Okay. Basic contexts don't need to explain too much. You don't need a whole story. Lot of explanation. Just say what's going on. Then, then the important thing I would love to meet up for a coffee. This is very short, but it accomplishes a lot. Would love to shows that I'm enthusiastic. If I'm enthusiastic, I really want to do that. I'm not just saying maybe we can get a coffee. I would love to get a coffee that shows excitement, that shows the other person, Hey, this person really wants to meet me. So that's very good. That will give the other person a good feeling when love to meet up for what? If you just say to meet up? It's okay. It's fine. But if you're going to be a little more specific and add something to that. For a coffee, for dinner or for lunch, for a walk in the park, for, for whatever. Then they have a little bit more information that they can use to make a decision. If you say for dinner, I don't have a lot of time for dinner. My evenings are pretty busy, but if you say coffee in the afternoon, I can spare an hour to have a coffee. So then when I respond, how use that information. This is also reducing the need for a back and forth. If I say, What were you thinking of, then I say I was thinking we could have a coffee. Oh, okay. That's fine. Well, that's several emails back and forth. Why not just say for coffee in the first one so that the other person is in the right frame of mind. So that then when they respond, no, it's about coffee. And they can start thinking based on that. They can start planning their day based on that, right? Okay. And they can also decide to say yes or no based on that because maybe she doesn't have time, maybe she can't, but maybe she will if it's a coffee. So it doesn't have to be for a coffee, whatever you want to put there. But it's a good idea to have something there. Meet up for a coffee. This is a very useful phrase if you have time. Now this is also a very important phrase to add. This shows what we were talking about before. To leave an option to make the other person feel like they can say no, to give them a door to walk through, which is no. If you pressure someone, especially in American culture, if you pressure someone, then they feel uncomfortable. Let's meet next week. I'll be in town on the second. And I hope you can meet me at two o'clock at this coffee shop, although you haven't asked me anything, so I feel kind of disrespected that you haven't asked me if I have time or even if I'm interested in doing that. Right. So to show respect, say what your intentions are. I would love to do this and then add if you have time or if you are free, if you are available. And then if you don't want to make it about time, you could say if you are up for it, that means interested. If you are interested. So that's then going to make Brenda feel like, okay, now there are two open doors and I feel free to walk through either one of them. This story is yes, I am interested. Yes, I am up for it. Yes, I am available. Yes, I am free. The other door is no. No, I'm not interested. No, I'm not up for it. No, I'm not available. No, I'm not free. Now, she probably wouldn't respond that directly. Of course, we're not talking about her response. But she feels like she has these choices. It makes her feel that Dixon respects her time and is aware that she might be a busy person and doesn't have time to do everything even though she might want to meet Dickson for a cup of coffee. So feeling that you have two choices is good and you might want to offer those two choices so that the other person feels comfortable. Now when I say offer two choices, I don't mean saying that directly. You could choose yes or you could choose no. No, never say that. Suggested with your language. If you have time if you're interested, that suggests that that possibility is there, and I'm totally okay with it. And I'm not going to be very angry if you say that you're too busy or that you're not up for it, right? That is the key thing. Now this last sentence, it seems that we have so much to catch up on. This is really just supporting his enthusiasm, that he really wants to meet her and that he's recognizing it's been awhile since they've seen each other. And there's probably a lot of stuff to talk about. So that's the first part. Let's take a look at the second. 106. Part 2 | Availability and CTA: Let's go through the second part of Dixon's email to his friend Brenda, his invitation for her to have a cup of coffee with him. So he says, if you have any availability from the second to the seventh and would like to get together, please let me know. My schedule is open awaiting your reply, yours, Dixon, and then his phone number underneath. Okay. This is pretty simple, but it contains a very important part. It contains the call to action. If you have any availability, if you have time, if you are free. Now, availability, perhaps slightly more formal. So he could say if you want it to be a little more casual with it, if you're free. This really tells me that maybe maybe she's more of an acquaintance and none a very close friend. Availability is a little farther away just a bit. Or maybe it's just that it's been quite a while since they've seen each other and he wants to be a little bit more formal for that reason, either one, if you wanted to make it less formal, you could simply use free. But then the action comes if you have any availability, then the specific dates as a reminder, Because it's okay to mention this twice. This is my window. This is when I will be in town from the second to the seventh and would like to get together. So there's another opportunity to say no, you don't have to say that. But there are two things here. If you have availability number one, and if you would like to get together, there are two reasons then you might give me back to say, I can't say I'm not interested, I wouldn't like to, but you might say I have other plans or maybe next time or I'm on vacation or something like that, or simply that you're very busy. So this is really supporting this feeling of not pressuring Brenda, not saying you have to meet me or you really need to meet me. No. She'll feel very comfortable to say no, which strangely might make it more likely that she'll say yes because she feels relaxed. She wants to meet her friend. She knows she could say no, but should probably say yes because their friends. Okay. And we'd like to get together. Please let me know. This is the call to action here. Please let me know. That means contact me on my phone, text me, send me a message or somewhere else, or perhaps respond to this email. That's probably more likely. And then we'll make plans. We'll talk about where we're going to meet. We'll talk about the specific things. This is the call to action. Could you put that there directly at the end of the previous paragraph, please let me know. I would say that would be a little bit to direct. I wouldn't recommend that. Think it's important to have this stuff at the beginning, especially if you have time or if you're free, you don't have to have two things like Dixon does. We'd like to get together and have any availability. You could just use one that would be totally fine. I would recommend though, having a reminder of the range of availability. That's usually a good idea just to make it absolutely clear as part of the call to action. Then the comma, then please let me know. But there's a little more information that's necessary. Schedule is open because YZ in Denver or is he on business as he very busy? Does he have a very narrow availability? Well, he should communicate that if you would like to get together, please let me know and then say some available times. Maybe do a new section or a new paragraph that starts with my availability and then a colon and then some, some open times are some days that are free, that might be a good way to do it, but in this case it's so simple. My schedule is open. Okay. So maybe maybe he's on vacation and he has nothing really special to do. So whenever is fine. And he could say whenever is fine. But that would be much more casual. This email is not feeling casual. It's neutral. And in some places it's leaning a little bit slightly more formal, mostly because of any availability. So just think about doing that when you're inviting someone providing your availability so that you can reduce that back and forth, then awaiting your reply. This again feels slightly more formal. What would be a more casual way of saying it? Maybe looking looking forward, looking forward to hearing from you. And I think that would give it a slightly less formal feeling. Again, this is not a formal e-mail, but there are little pieces here that are closer to formal than right in the middle between formal and casual. I think awaiting your reply is one of those sentences. Now it does have some use here. Remember, we talked about this before, when you say that you're waiting for someone, that you might increase the chances that they're going to feel the need to respond to you without putting too much pressure on them, looking forward to hearing from you, does the same thing. Response soon because I'm making plans. This is my vacation. A lot of people I want to meet. You don't want to say that directly, of course, but you want to give a very, very gentle push. This can be a good way to do it. Certainly a good thing to put in your final thing. Then, yours, Dixon, with a phone number, maybe she wants to text him back. Maybe she wants to call him. So he's giving that option here. He's giving the option to call him instead of respond by e-mail. Maybe that's more convenient for her. All right. So that's it for the email. Let's take a look at the recap. 107. Recap | Let's Meet: Let's do our quick recap of Dixon's invite e-mail to his friend Brenda. Now remember at the beginning he starts with some simple questions, some small talk. Smalltalk is important in life and it's important in e-mails, especially for personal emails. In fact, for a personal e-mail, it's customary if you don't do it in some way, some way, shape or form might make the other person feel a bit uncomfortable unless you're communicating your corresponding daily. Also, Dixon includes a range of dates so that it's very clear to Brenda what his timeframe is so that she can start making plans if she decides that she wants to meet Dickson for coffee and he uses a very friendly invitation. I would love to meet up. This shows enthusiasm. It's extremely friendly. This is a great phrase to use. I would love to do this. I would love to do that. Okay. Also, remember we talked about the exclamations and then you should be quite careful about those. That's another thing to keep in mind now to not put too much pressure on Brenda. He uses if if you have time, if you're available, if you have availability, if you're free, if you're interested, if you're up for it, this gives the other person the feeling that they have a choice that they feel comfortable to say no, which often makes them feel so comfortable that they feel very happy to say yes. Now one thing I would like to point out for this one is that coffee doesn't necessarily have to be coffee. Coffee could turn into lunch, it could turn into dinner. They might decide to do something else. They could go to a gallery together. Coffee here is really just a common thing to suggest in this sort of situation. If you don't have a clear thing that you want to do, we need to go to a movie or a specific thing that you're planning on doing and you want to invite the other person for that specific thing. Coffee can be a good thing to mention. It could be coffee, but coffee can also be a place holder for other things. Once we start talking, once we talk on the phone, once we start texting, perhaps we may decide not to get coffee and decide to do something else. That's maybe more interesting. We might decide to have dinner instead. So coffee is really just a suggestion. It's not insisting on something. It must be coffee at the end after his name, Dixon provides his phone number. So you might want to think about that providing another way for someone to reach out to you. And it might make them more likely to reply in some form. Although I think most people will respond by e-mail and then maybe add that person's phone number and then deciding where to go and what to do might be done by texting or over the phone. Okay, so that's it for this email. In the next one, we're going to be looking at how to say, thank you. So I'll see you in the next one. 108. Scenario | Thank You: For many different reasons, you may feel grateful to someone else. You may appreciate something that someone else has done. You may want to say, thank you. And that's what we're going to talk about. Now we have a main scenario, an email and a recap that we're going to talk about. But then after that, we're going to quickly take a look at a bonus. Thank you. E-mail. Why why are we doing a bonus one? Well, thank you's are quite common, but there are many different types. So we're going to look at one, the first one which is more formal, and then another which is more casual, more of an every day. Thank you. Because I want you to see the variety of different types of thank yous that you can send to someone else. It's pretty common to have to send them. So let's take a look at our scenario. Ryan wants to think a professor from the university campus he visited last week for showing him around. This is not something professors do. And so he wants to recognize that he's been given special attention. It's polite to thank someone for going out of their way to do something for you. Generally, if someone, maybe someone who's a little bit higher level than you in some way. If someone goes out of their way or does something to help you that they didn't have to do? A thank you is expected a thank you as kind of necessary. Now actually don't mean to say just people who are higher level. When I say that, what I really mean is someone like a university professor and a student who might attend that university or someone's manager, I don't mean like better than another person, of course. So this sort of thing is useful anytime someone does something that's nice for you that they didn't have to do. This one though, will have a higher degree of formality. Okay, so let's take a look at the e-mail. 109. Full Email | Showing Appreciation Politely and Closing the Loop: Let's look at Ryan's e-mail to Dr. Radcliff who gave him a tour of the university. And note the tone, Dear Dr. Radcliff, I'm writing to extend my sincere thanks for showing me around the campus last week. I learned more than I could have hoped. It's a really beautiful school with a rich culture and amazing programs. Also. I appreciate you putting the in touch with Tom. He has been able to answer all of my follow-up questions. He's so kind. I just wanted you to know that I'm leaning seriously toward accepting the offer. And if I do, I will look forward to attending your classes in the fall. You're lectures are great. Stay warm. Best wishes. Ryan, What's the tone here? First of all? Well, I would say it's polite. It's formal. And I want to use the word deferential, which is that feeling I talked about before, where someone is higher than you, not in life, but maybe their position as a university professor who was a doctor in some way higher than you, I guess maybe, maybe not. No wait. Doctors work for me. I'm the patient. I'm in short, well, I don't know. Maybe a doctor is a bad example. Professor manager, boss. The idea of being deferential is that you're showing a bit more respect than you normally would to be extra polite to show. In this case, gratitude is like saying, thank you very much, like that. That's the kind of feeling, maybe not that strong, but sometimes we want to do that. Sometimes we want to be deferential. If it's my friend's birthday. And I won't say I want let me tell you where I want to eat. Whenever you say It's okay, you choose it's your birthday, and that's maybe a good reason to be that way. So sometimes it's, sometimes it's useful, right? Okay, so how about this first part I'm writing to extend my sincere thanks. You could substitute this gratitude. My sincere appreciation. Those would be fine. Right? But I'm writing to extend this part makes it sound very formal. This is not something you would put in a casual email. This sounds deferential and it sounds quite formal, so you wouldn't use it that often. You wouldn't extend your sincere thanks to anyone you know very well. You would extend it to a customer. Remember earlier in the course, we used the same word to talk to a customer. This is the deferential tone, and this phrase captures that feeling. My sincere adds even more to that. Sincere gives it a stronger feeling. You could take it out. You could say, I want to extend my thanks. And that would be a simple way to do it. You don't have to say extend my sincere. You don't have to say I'm writing. I'm writing also makes it quite, quite formal, so you don't have to start that way. It's fine to leave that out. And wanted to put it here because people sometimes do use that. Okay. I want to extend my thanks. Want to extend my gratitude. Looks like a u well, that's an old. That's right. I want to extend my gratitude, my appreciation. My thanks, my sincere appreciation. All of those are okay. It sort of depends on the feeling, the tone that you are going for. Now the other phrase we need to look at which supports our tone is this one here. More than I could have hoped. More than I could have hoped. Now this is sincere. Ryan got a lot out of this experience and he was hoping for a normal tour. And instead professor from the department, but he might join in the future, gives him a tour. Well, that is more than he would have hoped. But he wants to make sure that's really clear. So to have that deferential sort of formal tone of almost over appreciation, perhaps getting close to that more than I could have hoped. It's a little bit extreme, right? It's kind of an extreme statement. It's true probably. But to use a somewhat extreme statement like this is to support the tone and also to close the loop. Let's talk about what that means. This is a very important part of a thank you. Now if you want to do a quick note and you just say thank you, I really appreciate it. Fine, great. But to close the loop is to make the other person feel exactly what impact the thing that you did for them had exactly what happened. So that you feel this feeling of appreciation. And then if you tell me about that, then that is a kind of reward that I get for doing this thing for you. I remember one time was actually on the same day. I had two people asked me for a little bit of help on something, something English related a question. There was a couple of questions I think. And first person said, after I helped them, thank you. And they left. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. That's what I said. I felt okay about that. I felt okay about it. But the second person asked for my help and said thank you as well. And then later came back and said, You know, you help me with that earlier because of your help, I was able to do something else. I can't remember what it was, but I'm able to see the impact of my help. I'm able to see that more than just appreciation, more than just thinks I have by helping this person by going out of my way, done something which gives them a boost in some way in their life. So I would encourage you to, and this is kind of a personal recommendation. I would encourage you if you've ever been helped by someone, if you feel grateful to someone and you've benefited in some way, go back to that person and tell them that you have benefited. Just tell them, Hey, you remember when you helped me with this because of that because of the recommendation letter you gave me, I was able to get that job because of that book you recommended to me. My whole way of thinking about life has changed for the better. Okay. That kind of stuff. That is closing the loop. And I'm sure you feel good when you help others and they let you know how your help has helped them in their lives. So when you're doing an email, when you're writing an email to thank someone, if you can include something like that. Do Now, you don't need to tell a whole story. That's probably too much. But saying that might make that person's day. I know when I get good comments, good feedback on the course as I make. People tell me specifically why they enjoyed it, why they got something out of it, how it helps them. I feel really good at often makes my day. I'm not telling you you have to do that. I'm just saying it makes me feel really happy. So try to include it. Okay. So this is just a small one. I learned more than I could have hoped. My expectations were here. And the result in reality, it was up here way better. Well, I felt good about myself as the professor. It's a really beautiful school with a rich culture and amazing programs. Why say this? Well, this might be a reminder about some of the things that were discussed between Ryan and the professor. Because the professor might be a very busy person. Maybe he remembers, maybe not. So to show that this had impact on me, I remember what we talked about and to repeat some of that, even if it's only a sentence, can be also a good way to close the loop. Hello, I'm glad what I said rubbed off on this kid. I'm glad that what we talked about actually made an impression and that these are the things that Ryan came away with from our tour together, right? So that would be good. So that is also a way to close the loop. Also, I appreciate you putting me in touch with Tom. He's been able to answer all my follow-up questions. So Tom may be an assistant or maybe he's a junior professor or someone in the department. And Ryan wanted to ask a few more questions. So professor Dr. Radcliff made the introduction. And now Ryan wants to close the loop. How is he closing the loop in this case? Well, if Dr. Radcliff introduced Tom, but then he never hears from Tom again. Or Tom says, thank you for these things and doesn't mention this. He never knows if Ryan actually contacted Tom. And so he doesn't know if what he did had any impact at all. Have you ever introduce someone and then you just never hear back. You may have changed their lives, you don't know, right? So what Ryan is doing here is very powerful. He's saying I contact a Tom and now Thomas helping me. I really appreciate what you did. I'm talking with him. He's answering my questions. It's great. He is helping me move forward in some way. Great. Dr. Radcliff thinks everything I did, it seems to be useful for this Ryan person. And even if he doesn't attend the university, still, I know that the time I spent was really valued and that's what closing the loop is really about. So when you are thinking someone, especially with an email, because usually in person we just say thanks, right? When you're thinking someone, remember Ryan, remember Ryan's example that he's not just saying, Oh, thank you so much, It's so great, so wonderful. Not just using a lot of fancy language to say, thinks he's closing the loop by talking about the impact that the thing that was done had. And that's the key. It's kind of like positive feedback, right? Who doesn't want positive feedback? Now, in this second paragraph, I just wanted you to know that I'm leaning seriously toward accepting the offer. He's been extended an offer to go to the school. He's touring different universities. He hasn't selected which one he's going to go to yet. Okay. I just wanted you to know. What does that do? We've talked about just this is to make something less, this is to make something softer. This is to make something not a big deal. And we could say it's a kind of in this case, a kind of, by the way, by the way. And he might even say that by the way, I wanted to also remember wanted here makes it softer to soften things. We use the past tense pretty often, right? We talked about that before. I just wanted to let you know that I am leaning seriously toward accepting the offer. So he has been given an offer and he's choosing from among the offers which school to go to. That's why he did the tour. Now, y makes this a, by the way, why say this at all? It's not necessary probably. But it provides a bit more context to let this professor know that what you did for me had an impact. I do really appreciate it. And then, uh, by the way, and I want to add that if if I attend this school, I will look forward to attending your classes in the fall. So this is to end with a compliment, maybe Ryan attended one of Dr. Radcliffe's lectures before the tour or after the tour, or at some point, your lectures, you being a very good lecturer, might encouraged me to attend this university. So you could be responsible for me making a major choice in my life that could affect my future one way or the other. So that might make this professor, if you also pretty good. So all of this is about closing the loop. It's about being respectful, in this case, being a little bit deferential and overall being very positive so that this person, Dr. Radcliff, feels that whenever he helps people, his help really does something, really accomplishes something, which is probably a good feeling for him. Then a final wish, stay warm. Maybe it's winter, maybe it's cold. This is just a positive a positive comment and on best wishes, Ryan. Okay, so that's it. Let's now jump over to our recap. 110. Recap | Thank You: Let's do a quick recap of some of the key phrases and the main ideas from Ryan's e-mail to Dr. Radcliff thanking him for the university campus tour for a thank you. Choose your tone very carefully in this case because Dr. Radcliff is Dr. Radcliff and Ryan is a student who might attend the university. Having a deferential tone using more formal language is probably a good idea. He wants to let Dr. Radcliff know that he respects him. And that's really the key thing that the formality will express. Then closing the loop. And this might be the most important part of a thank you e-mail. Not just saying thank you, but to let the other person know what they did for you and what impact it had. It's kind of like saying, I appreciate this because of reasons 123. It's like saying that that's really what you're doing. That's what closing the loop is. That's letting this person know that the nice thing they did, did something, accomplished something. And to just tell them that that's what happened is a kind of nice feedback. So when you write a thank you, don't forget to close the loop. Then R9 uses just as a kind of, by the way, and this is a way to signal that, hey, this is not as important as the other stuff that I've said earlier, so pay attention to that stuff. This is just a, by the way, comment, but it's still relevant to the tour. It can't be totally unrelated. By the way, Dr. Radcliff, I got a new computer today. Nothing to do with anything. So it's still connected. It's related to their relationship, which is a university professor and someone who might attend that university and a tour was given. So it's still connected to that situation. But not so important. But it is a nice note to end on. And again, another way to close the loop. So that is it for this e-mail. As promised, we're going to do one more quick email. We're not going to do a scenario. We're not going to do a recap. I just want to show you what another thank you. E-mail might look like. One that is quite different from this one. 111. Bonus Email | A Quick and Friendly Thank-you: I just want to show you what another thank you. E-mail with a totally different tone might look like. So let's read through this one. Hey, Wendy. Thank you so much for checking in. So sweet of you. I just had a meeting with Lee about the kickoff and everything went smoothly. I have everything I need to get started. See you next Monday. Excited. Thanks again so much for helping best Kelly. Okay. So what is Kelly really thanking Wendy for for checking in or for helping? Well, maybe both, but maybe the reason she wrote it is for the help that she had given Kelly earlier. Probably. That's why she's writing. Because maybe Wendy has been helping Kelly during a process and there have been points where she's needed to check in to see if everything's okay to see if she understands everything, if she has everything she needs. Right. So Kelly wants to show a bit of gratitude and perhaps perhaps close the loop a little bit. Okay. The first statement to respond directly to the previous e-mail. Thank you much for checking in. So Wendy might have said, How's everything going? So she first thanks her for asking, which is a pretty common thing to do. So sweet of you. This is not even a sentence. Technically. It's not a correct grammatical sentence, and there's an emoji here. So what's the relationship? What's the tone? Hear? The tone is pretty casual, quite casual. So their colleagues, but they communicate pretty regularly. Maybe they have a pretty close working relationship and this sort of tone is what best fits them. There isn't some sort of rule that says, Oh colleagues, you'll have to communicate this way. No, I would say it's very much on an individual basis. What is the relationship between you and this colleague? Then decide what the tone should be. Is it a quite formal professional relationship? Or do you actually like friends and do talk to each other like friends? Your email should match that tone. You shouldn't follow some rule that says you must write formal emails to all your colleagues. Nonsense, Nonsense. K. So this incomplete sentence, so sweet of you excited. These have a very casual, informal feeling. Very friendly. Notice our exclamation mark has made a return and oh, we have a second one to do more. Might be pushing it a little bit. If we were going to do another, it might be thank you so much for checking in, but now what is the tone? It's maybe a little too excited. Thank you so much for checking in. Checking in just means asking if everything's okay and getting an update. You're really excited about thanking me for that. I don't know. So it's kind of up to you. You could put one there. I would not recommend it because it might be too much. This is a good place to do it because excited is a word where you would want to express excitement. And so the exclamation might help you there, okay? Now, when can you use emojis? Again? What is the relationship? What is the dynamic between you? What is the situation between you? Ask yourself that and you can answer for yourself because there are no rules about you cannot use emojis. Sure, you can use emojis. But would you use emojis for the previous email to the professor? No, Definitely not. So there's no there's no rule. But you have to be sensitive to the situation and your tone should match the relationship between you. Hey, by the way, we've talked about this, but hey is also quite casual. Hey, Wendy, instead of high, Wendy, Hey is more casual than high. Now where is she closing the loop? Where is Kelly closing the loop? Well, if Wendy has been helping Kelly throughout this process, then she's thankful for helping. Wendy has helped in Kelly's thankful. Okay. So she's thanking her for this, but that's not closing the loop. Thank you itself is not closing the loop. You should say it, but that's not what closing the loop is. Remember, closing the loop means you give someone feedback about how what they've done for you has helped you in some way so that they can see the impact of their actions and feel good about themselves. What is the impact? Well, probably this one. I have everything I need to get started. Part of getting everything I need to start is your help. So when I had my meeting with Lee about the kickoff and it went smoothly, I was well-prepared. Why was I well-prepared? Because of your help. So your help is what allowed me to have a smooth first meeting with Lee about the kickoff. There's this thing, I feel nervous about it. I don't know what's going to happen. Am I going to understand everything? There's a new project going on, but thanks to you, Wendy. I got the information I needed. I got prepared. I got your help. Your helpers would allow me to do this. I have everything I need to get started. So that's me closing the loop. That's me telling you that what you did for me was useful and I appreciate it, even if it's not a formal email when you're sending a thank you e-mail. Think about how you can close the loop because people really do appreciate it. All right, so that is it for both of these thank you. E-mails. If you have any questions, please let me know. I challenge you to write a thank you email to someone you appreciate. Think about who that is. Write a thank you email to them and don't forget to in the email, close the loop, give them some feedback about how they've helped you and how what they've done has given you a boost in some way. Okay, Next time we're going to be talking about giving advice in an email. So I'll see you in the next one. 112. Scenario | Giving Advice: Well, you've made it to the last email of the course. We still have some things to cover after this, but this will be our last email example. It's been quite a journey. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you've learned a lot. And perhaps most importantly, I hope you're using what you've learned in your own emails in your life. At here job, at school, however, you need to use what you've learned. I hope you're actually putting it into practice. I hope you've been practicing. It's certainly been quite a journey. I've enjoyed taking you through this course, being your guide for this course and you should really feel proud of yourself. Now for this last e-mail, we're going to be talking about advice. This is one of the most common types of emails I need to write. People ask me my opinion, what I think they're having an issue, some kind of problem. I need to say what I think is the right thing to do. I need to give advice about something in general, it's extremely common. So I thought this would be a very good one to end on because it is such a common situation. So we'll be talking about giving advice. Let's read through the scenario. Luke has received a question about pronunciation. Let's say, let's say this one is me. Let's say it's me. Luke has received a question about pronunciation from a student and wants to drive the point home so that it makes an impact on the student. To drive a point home is to make sure, make absolutely sure that it is clear that the point is not missed. So the need perhaps to be a little bit forceful with the advice, that doesn't mean rude, of course. That's just to make sure that when the student reads it, it grabs their attention. Well, I need to pay attention to this. This is very useful advice. Well, yes, I was thinking differently before or I was doing it the wrong way before. I really need to do it this way. So we'll talk about how to grab someone's attention when you're giving advice. Let's go on to look at the e-mail. 113. Part 1 | Setting Up the Advice: Let's read through the first part of Luke's email to Dolores. Dolores is an English learner and has a question about pronunciation. Here we go. Hi Dolores. This is a great question. I think many students feel the same way as you. If you want to improve your pronunciation, please do not use books. The most important thing you can do is develop your ear so that you can correctly. Here, the different sounds. In this area. Books are useless. If you're having trouble with specific word pronunciation, you need a way to quickly check the sound of each word. Okay, So let's talk about what's going on here with this e-mail. And you may be wondering, is this a real e-mail? Yes, it is. This is an email I actually sent to someone who asked me about pronunciation and I took the time to respond to this email to answer the question again, I think it's a good note to end on a real e-mail from me. So a simple hi, Dolores, we've talked about this many times. This is pretty neutral. It's friendly, I would say, but not too casual, not too formal. This is a great question. I think many students feel the same way. This is validation. So the student previously had asked about using books for pronunciation. What books would be good for pronunciation? Something along those lines. But the response is going to be quite clear to say that that's not a good idea and that there is another way, right? So at the beginning, it's important to validate this student to say, listen, your question is a very good question. There are no dumb questions. That's not true. There actually are dumb questions, but this question is a very smart question. It's a reasonable question. It's a great question. So to tell the other person, Great question is to let them know, hey, yeah, it is a good question. They feel good about that and they're more likely to receive whatever advice you give. Now, does that mean you should be fake and say a question is a good question. If it isn't a good question, I wouldn't recommend that. I would recommend being honest, being genuine. Is this genuinely a good question? Yeah, I think it really is. So I'll mention that kinda of like closing the loop, it's the same idea. Then I know that my advice is going to be read carefully. Because, hey, it's not just you. You're among many people who might have the same question. So it doesn't just validate you, it doesn't just set up this part so that it's more likely to be accepted. It also provides a sense of community and context. If I'm a teacher and I've talked to thousands and thousands of students about this, which I have. And you're a learner, and you don't always communicate with other learners. I'm providing you something that maybe you weren't aware of. Because I have a different perspective. The perspective of seeing thousands of learners learn, right? So to know that your question is common, that you feel the same way as others gives you a sense of community with people you don't even know. And it also reminds you that actually my advice might be pretty valid. I'm not just making it up. I've actually seen thousands of learners work on their English and try to improve their English. So it's pretty safe to assume, I've seen what works well and what doesn't work well, right? So that also provides me a little bit of credibility. So is there anything you can say at the start which will remind the person that you're credible. The other person is reminded that you're credible person. That means you should be believed in an honest way. Many students feel the same way. That kind of says, I have talked with many, many students, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, I could say something like, I've heard this question at least 500 times, maybe not that many times. I can say things like that as a simple hint or reminder of my credibility as an English teacher, which again supports this part and what's going to come when I actually give advice. When I explain my advice, when I say what not to do. And when I say what to do, it's more likely to be accepted, which is reasonable, right? I want my advice to be accepted. So now I'm going to say what not to do. I'm going to start with the negative because I want to end on a positive note. And this should be pretty familiar if you want to, if you want to do this, do that. If you want to do that, do this. If you want to do this, don't do that. Avoid this. Try not to do this. You can do either one. You could do a positive one or a negative one if you want to improve your pronunciation, please. So this makes it stronger. I'm begging you. But which is a good idea if you want to really make it Strunk, please, please, it's a big mistake. Please do not use books. Do not use books that tell you how to say the pronunciation. What should you do instead? The most important thing you can do is develop your ear. Develop your ear so that you can correctly here the different sounds, which by the way, is the key to good pronunciation. If you've taken some of my pronunciation courses, then you're probably familiar with me saying this kind of thing. A few 100 times. I say this a lot, right? Developed the ear. Then you can hear the sounds. Then I want to add something. Well, what do I want to add? I don't want to just say develop your ear. Don't just give advice, especially if it's negative advice. This first piece of advice is negative. Don't do that. If you want to give advice, don't just give the advice, connect it to something you will get if you use the advice or if you do that thing, where if you avoid doing that thing, in this case, avoiding doing something and then doing something will allow you to accomplish something else. And a very useful connecting phrase is so that, so that you can, so that you can't very, very useful. So we have these two key phrases here, if you want to, and then please, by the way, to make it stronger and then so that you can, this provides the context and the structure is first negative advice, don't do this, avoid this, don't use books. Then a positive suggestion, still general at first, this paragraph is about being general. The big picture, big picture advice, don't do this, do this. Then the next one is going to get into some more specifics to give something a bit more practical, broad and then specific, not specific and then broad, Start bigger, bigger picture, and then get more detailed, then get into specifics. That way the other person understands the specifics. If you just say, find this and do this and go here and go to this website. There's no context, right? There's no big picture. Give the big picture first. Use the structure of negative, then positive. Use the phrase so that you can to connect it to a goal. Then get into specifics so that you can correctly, here, the different sounds. In this area, books are useless. This is kind of a bold statement. Useless is a strong word, isn't it? Totally useless? Really? Do I really think that? Well, I think they're pretty close to useless, if not totally useless. But sometimes you want to say things in a way so that what you say has impact. How do you have impact? Well, imagine if I set it like this. Imagine if I said, I would suggest that you develop your ear. And I'm not so sure that using books is a great idea. Okay, So that sounds like one of our more formal emails, right? Where we're using indirect language. That kind of language should be pretty familiar to you. But if I say it that way, will it have impact? Well, you say, oh, wow, I got it. Maybe not. In this case, I want to have impact. I want to say something a little bit more boldly. Why? Because I want to help this student, I want to catch their attention. So by saying something that I actually do think is pretty much true, books are useless for pronunciation. Making a bold statement like this, a very short sentence in this area, books are useless. I'm hoping to wake this person up and realize, well, yes, I'm going to throw away my, my books because that's really what I think. I think books for pronunciation are practically useless. Not all books for learning English of course, but for pronunciation. So I prefer to say things a little bit more boldly for that reason. And you may want to consider it yourself, especially if you want to have impact. So we've accomplished a lot with this paragraph. Now we go onto the next one and we get a bit more specific. If you're having trouble with specific word pronunciation, you need a way to quickly check the sound of each word. So I'm providing a specific scenario here and I'm stating what is probably true for this person. I am assuming maybe they mentioned it, but I'm kind of assuming that this situation is true. It's a pretty safe thing to assume. If something is pretty safe to assume you want to give advice on that basis, then you could start with, if you're having trouble with this, if you're struggling with that, sometimes you can give several pieces of advice using this method. If this, that, if this, this, If that this, and that's very useful. So if you're having trouble with specific word pronunciations, okay, now I'm going to tell you specifically what to do. Here's my advice. Now this is kind of part of my call to action, but it's still not quite as specific as I will be in the next paragraph. You need a way to quickly check the sound of each word. So what I'm telling you to do is check the sound. Check the sound. To check. And I can say check and listen to the sound or hear the sound. Okay, so that's my advice. This is my advice. This is my advice to, but it's broad. It's a little more narrow. So think of this as kind of like this, kind of a funnel starting up here. Big picture advice, don't do this, do this. Then say what to do, but not how to do it. Then we get into the how. So big picture advice. How specifics, this is going to be the most detailed, and this is going to be the most broad. This is going to be the most broad. And this is the actual advice here. And also, remember hear the tone is a little bit bold for the sake of impact, books are useless. And also, please, it's quite strong, right? Please don't use books. I'm begging you. Oh, okay. It's kind of like I'm splashing you in the face with cold water. I'm trying to wake you up. I'm trying to surprise you a little bit because I want you to really focus on what I'm saying. Don't always use that, but sometimes a bold tone, this bold sort of style that has impact can be very, very useful. Okay, let's look at the next part. 114. Part 2 | Providing Specifics: Let's now take a look at the second part of Luke's e-mail to this student with pronunciation questions. I say Luke, I mean me. There are many, but the free dictionary is a good resource for that. The free dictionary is quite good. I like it. Listen to the sound of each new word. Listened to each word ten times, and repeat it until you're sure that your sound is the same. Self-awareness is the key to developing this skill. Okay, Now, there's not a lot that's happening here structurally, this is just a description of the details based on the advice. The advice is to listen to the words, to actually listen to the sound of words. This is kind of how to do that. So let's call this paragraph the how, which is certainly part of the advice. It is included in what we would call the advice. The first is the watt and this is more the how. Okay, So this is a recommendation. Free dictionary is a good resource for finding word pronunciations to listen to the sound. And here it actually hear the sound of the word. Then a set of simple instructions. Note that we don't usually start two sentences in a row with the same word. But in some cases, when we want it to be really, really clear that this is the key action. Maybe it's okay. Listen to the sound of each new word. Click, Okay, Step 1. That's kind of a step one thing. Listened to each word ten times. Okay. So I listened to it 10 times. That's kind of step two. And repeat it until you're sure that your sound is the same. Okay, so I do step 2 again and again and again, until I'm sure that my sound is the same as the sound that I'm hearing. This is by the way called shadowing. Very powerful method. Usually it's used for sentences, longer things. It's a great way to work on your self-awareness to develop the ability to hear how your sound might be different from someone else's sound. And you start to really get the fine differences and improve your pronunciation. That's absolutely, absolutely true. Okay, So here's the advice. Now, could we put this in a list, sort of a, here's my advice. And then step one, colon, here's my advice. Colon, step one, step two, step three, I suppose. So if it's a clear step process, if you want to provide steps instead of a paragraph, that's totally fine. There aren't too many steps involved here. And the first thing is really a resource and not a step. So it's really just two steps because the second step is just repeated. So like we've talked about when it's two steps, do we really need to do a list? Perhaps not, you could. If it's more, I would recommend doing a list of bullet list or a numbered list. It's really up to you. You have to make that decision based on how much detail you have. And if the paragraph starts to get really long, then maybe it's a good idea to do that, okay, then best of luck. Best of luck, good. This is like good luck. Same thing. Best of luck. Good luck regards pretty neutral, pretty standard, and then Luke. Okay, so that is it for this email. Keep in mind what kind of tone you want to have. Do you want to sound less direct? Well, then use some of the other language we've talked about in the course. Do you want it to be kind of bold so that it catches their attention? Well then maybe you want to say things a little bit more clearly. And you want to use a couple of phrases that sort of throw water in the other person's face. That can be a useful thing. Also think about using this structure, this funnel structure, big picture. And then the what and then the how or a little bit more detail. Now of course, we're going to now go on to do our recap. 115. Recap | Giving Advice: Let's do a recap of the key ideas and useful phrases for our advice e-mail to this English learning student for our last email, I know we've come all this way. It's pretty, pretty great, but also it's bittersweet, right? All, all good things must come to an end. Remember the tone? Somewhat direct. Do you have to have a direct tone when you write an advice e-mail? Totally not. But if you wanted to have impact, being a little direct, splashing some water in the other person's face just a little bit. Making some short statements that are a little extreme, quite bold, might make your advice have more impact than saying, I would recommend that if you want to, maybe you could try. Doesn't that sound soft and a little bit weak, but maybe you want it to sound soft and weak. Okay? But just think about that before you start. Now at the very beginning, this is a great question. This is a great way to start an advice email. What does it do? Well, a lot of things it validates this person, lets them know that, oh, yeah, I'm a reasonable person. It might also let them know that they are among peers. And if we include it with something like many students feel the same way. You're not alone. Well, then there is that sense of community and also maybe credibility for the person giving advice. A reminder of this person's perspective. Someone giving advice probably has a broader perspective than one person who has been doing something on their own. So that can be a useful reminder. Now one of the really useful phrases here to reinforce or support this kind of bold, strong, somewhat direct tone is please do not. Please do not do something, please don't do this. That might catch this person's attention. Like, as I've said a few times, splashing this person with a glass of cold water. The other phrase we looked at was, books are useless. Well, that's quite extreme. So maybe you something quite extreme. I'm not saying lie, but use something, say something that's a little bit on the extreme side, just to grab this person's attention so that they're fully focused on the advice. And perhaps more likely to listen to it, or at least notice it if it's lost in a bunch of indirect phrasing, well, certainly not a good thing. So be careful when you're using indirect, very polite phrasing that the main point is not lost. We talked about the funnel structure, which is this sort of shape when we're giving advice that you don't have to follow it, but it is a good idea to start with something that's quite broad. Now this may be just context or background information, but it may also be direct advice. Just a broad brush stroke. That means not too detailed, not too specific, but then the next part is more specific and this is the main advice, the thing you should do. And this is the what. But then how do I do this? What, what is the advice? Well, this is the advice. How do I do the advice? How do I follow it? So then you get a little more specific and you talk about how, how do I do it? Will go here, go to this website, do this thing, take these steps, okay, now I know how this is a very useful structure for giving advice. Of course you don't have to use it, but it's useful. It's helpful. Now what about if statements? If statements are a great way to connect some thing that you might want to, some course of action, something that you might do that you should do. So if you want this, do this. If you need this, do that. If you have this, call this person, right? That's a great way to give advice as well. If you want to understand native English speakers have to listen to English more. You have to develop your ear and self-awareness. If you want to do that. If you want to have very good listening, then you should do this. You need to do this. Take this action. It's a great way to set up the consequence or the goal, the thing that this person is trying to achieve, the actual advice that they need. What do they want, right? And then connect that to some kind of action. If this is your problem, do this, find this, go here, take this, read this by this, whatever advice you want to give. So that is it for this e-mail, that is it for this section, and that is it for this course. Now we have one more thing to do. We're going to do a course wrap-up next, just going to cover some of the main things I want you to really take away from the course. Some of the things I would like you to keep in mind, we'll do that next. So I'll see you in the next video. 116. Course Wrap-up: Well, congratulations, you made it to the end of the course. I really hope that you're proud of yourself. I hope that you enjoyed the course. As I said, I hope that you learned a lot. I hope you've been practicing. I hope you've been using what you've learned. That's very important. It's been really fun for me to take you through this course, to be your guide. I really love teaching. It's my favorite thing to do. So if you enjoyed the course, that makes me so happy, where that would make me very happy, especially if you have feedback, feel free to let me know how you felt about the course. You can leave a review that would be awesome. Now what I like to do is just to a quick course wrap-up to talk through a few things that I would like you to keep in mind, a few things to remember and some things that you can do next to continue improving your e-mail skills and your English in general. So most of this stuff will be a review of talked about this stuff throughout the course. You can think of this as the course recap, not an e-mail recap. The course recap. So very important to find your own style. Don't write like me. You can use what you've learned in the course, the phrases, the methods, the structures, but find your own way to write emails. How do you express yourself? Now? Does that mean bad grammar and bad punctuation? Probably not a good idea. But find your own style. Not everybody has to write the same way throughout the course. I've reminded you, hey, sometimes you have to make the choice. What tone do you want for this email? You have to decide. You have to think about the context, your relationship with that person, to choose the proper tone to make a structure. This is stuff you should think about before you begin writing an email. Now what about tone? We talked about tone throughout the course. Why is tone so important? Because if it's off, if it's not quite right, you'll make the other person feel very uncomfortable. You don't want to do that. So you have to choose the tone very carefully and always think about the context. What is the situation here? How do I know this person? If I do this in a very formal way? Well, that feels natural to them. If I'm very casual with this person, I don't know. Will they accept that? Well, that'll be okay. Just try to put yourself in the situation of having sent an e-mail with that tone and then they read it, what would they say back to you, boo? Or would they be very pleased with it? How would they feel? How would you feel if that person sent a similar email to you when it feel awkward? What do you feel respected? How would you feel? So just just spend some time thinking about it, thirty-seconds thinking about it. Don't just start right away. Also, there's a general structure that you can follow. There are many variations of this. It doesn't always follow the structure perfectly, but the general structure is the greeting, then the main thing, then the final thing. Now, a lot of different ways to do that. Sometimes the greeting is part of the main thing. Like with the most recent one, we looked at giving advice. That was all kind of advice and background information. There was a kind of greeting there the first the first part, right? But it's kind of blended together. So just follow the structure basically and know when to maybe move away from it. It's not a very strict thing. It's a general structure to keep in mind so that your email can make sense, so that it can be organized so that you can say the right things at the right time. Now, what about length? As I've said many times throughout the course, never make an email longer than it needs to be. This is another thing to think about. Don't add things because you feel you should. Don't say to yourself, Wow, this e-mail is very short. I should probably add something. Don't think in that way. It should be exactly as short as it needs to be. And you should always be trying to make it shorter. But sometimes an email has to be very long. Often it needs to be fairly long, 34 paragraphs, because this person needs some context, some background information in order to understand the call to action, right? Which is the thing that you want this person to do. So that e-mail has to be a bit longer. How long does it have to be for the action that you want to happen to take place, for the thing that you want to be accomplished, for the thing that you want to say to be understood. Are you communicating successfully? Is really what you should ask yourself. Have I communicated what I want to communicate clearly? Have I added anything that I don't need just because I wanted to add something. If so, get rid of that. If not, then you're okay and just leave it as it is. Never feel that you should add more. Just because it should be longer. That's always a bad idea. Make sure you check very carefully punctuation, grammar, spelling. If you think this is not important, I have bad news for you. It is, it's very important. Native English speakers especially, are very careful about this sort of thing. And seeing a lot of typos in an email is a big red flag. Even using the wrong keyboard setting can be a red flag for some people, especially in job interview situations when you're applying for a job, to be very careful. So simply use a grammar checker. Check your e-mail with Grammarly or something like that, spend that 30 seconds. And this person, the other person, will be more likely to take you seriously and not be distracted by small errors that might confuse your meaning, cause an awkward situation. You just don't want that to happen, especially for professional emails, right? But how do you get there? Well, of course, the way to get there, the way to get good is to practice. So right, often write every day and get feedback. I would encourage you to find a buddy who also wants to improve their English. And you can practice writing emails to each other. Different styles of emails. Maybe emails based on the ones we talked about throughout this course. Maybe not. But practice often. You can't just know stuff and then be good at it. That doesn't work for anything. It can't just be good at something. Suddenly you can learn the knowledge and that's great. We've talked about many scenarios, many emails in this course, many different styles and tones and methods and phrases. Great, you've learned. But have you been practicing? Well, I hope so. Continue practicing. If you go back through the course in the future, go through it and look at the examples again, practice-based on my emails, right? One that's similar. And then get feedback from a friend. Write your own emails to a writing buddy. Maybe once a week you write an e-mail and once a week you give feedback on each other's emails that can actually make you a more careful grammar checker, spelling checker can make you a more careful reader and you might learn something from their email. So really great thing to get in the habit of to really improve your writing. That's what I want. What I want is for you to become an effective communicator in the English language. Writing emails is perhaps the most important case of needing to be an effective communicator. So practice, practice, practice, practice makes perfect. So you're going to practice, you're going to work on your writing. You might go back through the course. You're going to keep all of this stuff in mind. That's great. What should you do next besides continuing, practicing, besides sharing your e-mails with me, I'd like to check them out. I'd like to see them besides asking me questions. Who would be great if you could leave a review on the course? Let me know how you felt about it, and also check out my other courses. I've got courses on thinking in English, on grammar. I've got courses on English learning methods and techniques, idioms and phrases, pronunciation. I've got courses on a lot of different things. So check out my other courses if you want to continue this journey together, that is it for this course. All that's left for me to say is, thank you so much for joining me on this very interesting journey. It's been a great experience and I will see you in the next one. Bye.