Top 10 Business Email Etiquette Basics

When it comes to your business e-mail communications, you need to make an impression that can lend to the determination that you are a credible professional enterprise and someone that will be easy and a pleasure to do business with. You only have one chance to make that first impression which will be invaluable to building trust and confidence.

Below are the Top 10 Business Email Etiquette issues that need to be considered with every commercial e-mail sent. These are the issues business owners and their employees need to be aware of in their day-to-day online communications to ensure the best possible results.

SUBJECT: Field: The SUBJECT: field is the window into your e-mail and can many times determine even if your e-mail will be opened. If this is an initial contact with a customer based on their request through your site or otherwise, be sure to have a short SUBJECT: that indicates clearly what the topic of the email is. Typos, all caps or all small case can lend to the impression you may be spammer.

Level of Formality: Try to avoid the prevailing assumption that e-mail by it's very nature allows you to be informal in your business e-mail. Only time and relationship building efforts can guide when you can formalize your business relationships and therefore your e-mail's tone. One should communicate as if your e-mail is on your company letterhead at all times. This is your business's image you are branding!

Addressing: How do you address your new contacts? I would suggest initially that you assume the highest level of courtesy: Hello, Mr. Anderson, Dear Ms. Jones, Dr. Osborne, etc. Until your new contact states, "call me Andy" or "you can call me Diane". You will also be able pick up clues on when you can address have a more relaxed tone by how contacts approach you as well as how they sign off. Most business people do not mind being called by their first name, however, in a global economy that can be perceived as taking premature liberties in the relationship if used too soon.

TO:, From:, BCc, Cc fields can make or break you:

..In the TO: field make sure you have your contact's name formally typed. John B. Doe - not john b doe or JOHN B DOE.

..In the FROM: field make sure you have your full name formally typed. Example: Jane A. Jones. Not: jane a jones or JANE A JONES. The later two give the perception of lack of education or limited experience with technology. By only including your first name or e-mail address you are giving the perception you may have something to hide or do not know the basics of configuring your e-mail program.

..BCc: use this field when e-mailing a group of contacts who do not personally know each other. By listing an arm's length list of e-mail addresses in the Cc or TO fields of contacts who do not know each other or who have never met is conducive to publishing their e-mail address to strangers. This is a privacy issue! With those you are forging partnerships with, visibly listing their e-mail address in with a group of strangers will make one wonder what other privacy issues you may not respect or understand.

..Cc: Use this field when there are a handful of associates involved in a discussion that requires all be on the same page. These business people know each other or have been introduced and have no problem having their e-mail address exposed to the parties involved. If you are not sure if a business associate would mind their address being made public, ask!

Formatting: Refrain from using any formatting in your day-to-day business e-mail communications. Unless you would type something in bold crimson letters on business letterhead, don't do it when e-mailing for commercial gain. With all the spam filtering going on today; the more formatting or embedded images that higher the chance that your e-mail could be blocked as spammy. Even something as simple as using a different font makes your e-mail's display contingent upon the recipient having that specific font on their system or it defaults to their designated default font. Keep in mind the recipient may not have their e-mail program configured in such a way as to display your formatting the way it appears on your system - if at all.

Attachments: How do you think your relationship with a potential new customer is enhanced when you send them that 10M Power Point presentation they didn't request and you fill up their inbox causing subsequent business correspondence to bounce as undeliverable? And, if they do not have Power Point, they couldn't open the file anyway! Never assume your potential customers have the software you do to open any file you may arbitrarily send.

If you need to send a file over 500,000 in size, business courtesy dictates you ask the recipient first if it is O.K. to send a large file. Next, confirm they have the same software and version you do and what is the best time of day to sent it to them to ensure they are available to download the large file and keep their e-mail flowing. Never send large attachments without warning, on weekends or after business hours when the recipient may not be there to keep their inbox clear.

Using Previous E-mail for New Correspondence: If you want to give the perception of lazy, find a previous e-mail from the party you want to communicate with, hit reply and start typing about something completely irrelevant to the old e-mail's subject. Always start a new e-mail and add your contacts to your address book so you can add them to a new e-mail with one click.

Down Edit Your Replies: Do not just hit reply and start typing -- that's called top posting. Editing is a skill those you communicate with will appreciate as it lends to reflecting a respect for their time and clarity in your communications. Removing parts of the previous e-mail that no longer apply to your response including e-mail headers and signature files removes the clutter. By making the effort to reply point by point keeps the conversation on track with fewer misunderstandings.

Common Courtesy: Hello, Hi, Good Day, Thank You, Sincerely, Best Regards. All those intros and sign offs that are a staple of professional business communications should also be used in your business e-mail communications. Always have a salutation and sign off with every e-mail. Here again - think business letterhead.

Signature files: Keep your signature files to no more than 5-6 lines to avoid being viewed as egocentric. Limit your signature to your Web site link, company name, and slogan/offer or phone number. Include a link to your Web site where the recipient can get all your contact information from A-Z - that is what your site is for. Do not forget to include the "http://" when including your Web site address within e-mails and your signature file to ensure the URL is recognized as a clickable URL regardless of the user's software or platform.

There you have it! The above Top 10 items will certainly allow your business communications to rise above the majority who do not take the time to understand and master these issues. When forging new business relationships and solidifying established partnerships, the level of professionalism and courtesy you relay in your business e-mail communications will always gain clients over the competition that may be anemic, uninformed or just plain lazy in this area.

When it comes to business, regardless of mode of communication used, professionalism and courtesy never go out of style!

About the Author:
Judith Kallos is an authoritative and good-humored Technology Muse who has been playing at TheIStudio.com since 1995. Check out her Business E-mail Etiquette Blog and join in the conversation at BusinessEmailEtiquette.com

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Buying A Business - The Basics

Buying a business in today's economic climate requires that you, the buyer, be on the ball, with regard to business basics. This economic climate, as far as businesses are concerned, is a sellers market.

With the corporate downsizing, economic downturn and other factors, there are a lot of very knowledgeable buyers out there looking for one of the very few good business to buy. This means that you, as a buyer have a lot of competition. Consequently, you need to be well prepared. Professional business buyers, report that it takes anywhere from 3 months to 3 years to find the right business. So, if anything, what can be done to speed this looking process and at the end finally get a good business?

The decision - the first step is deciding to buy a business. Once you have made this decision and you are definite and firm about the fact that you are definitely buying a business, the process has started.

The second step is to decide what kind of business. This is really really important. What are the criteria for this business you are looking to buy? Do not make a wish list or what would be nice. Make a list of what is important. For example, if your standard of living requires $100,000 income, do not compromise by looking at businesses that make only $50,000.

That is unless you consider yourself a knowledgeable business manager and marketing person who knows that any business they buy will double in income and sales. That kind of buyer can buy a business that makes no profit and probably should.

Other criteria include; is it something you can handle? What kind of work are you willing to do? If you like sales and do not like running a factory, buy a distribution company, or sales organizations, and do not buy a manufacturing firm, unless you have a partner that likes running a production line.

I have people call me to inquire about buying a body shop that have no automotive experience at all. You can buy an auto repair shop, muffler shop, brake shop or lube store, and learn the business, with no experience to start. You probably should not buy a salvage yard body shop, or scrap yard with out being raised in the business. If you are a salesman you can buy almost any business.

All manufacturing, distribution or retail sales require good personal sales skills. If you are poor at communication skills or English is a second language, consider buying a liquor store, gas station or hamburger stand, just a few of the businesses that do not require, personal selling, or do they?

About you - There are some things you need to prepare for the brokers when they start coming to you with possible businesses. You need to make sure that you have your down payment sorted out. Expected down payments are anywhere from 25% to 100% of the selling price. So make sure you know what you want to spend and then make sure you have the down payment easily available.

Then you need to get your financing options determined. You can get yourself pre-qualified for a business loan or an SBA loan if the business you are buying is required by you to show a profit on the books. SBA loans are only available to businesses that have shown a 5-year profit on their tax returns. If you are looking at businesses that are heavily unrecorded income, you must have cash or seller financing.

Being your own broker - You should determine who is going to make your offer. A broker, or yourself? If it is you then you should locate the necessary offer forms and study them carefully. Determine what must be in your offer so that you can put in an offer, the instant you find a business that meet your requirements. This is an important step, as putting in an offer tends to lock out other buyers while you look over the business. Make sure you have contingencies in your offer, which means you have lots of "get out of the deal" clause.

I would like to suggest, for the less experienced buyer to hire as a consultant the sharpest attorney or business broker you can find and pay him for his time to watch your rear end, in negotiations and in reviewing the companies you are considering buying. In real estate we call this a buyers agent, except with businesses the listing agent will not always co-operate in splitting the commission. This means you need to be willing to pay your agent an hourly fee for helping you. Let me give you a real example.

David and his father were looking for a business to buy. They were interested in a Scrap yard that I was selling. I asked their buying agent to bring them over so I could interview them and to explain this business to them. In 3 minutes it was clear that they should not even consider this business. We spent the balance of the meeting talking about the businesses they had looked at and the pros and cons of each. I gave them my honest suggestions about each from their description. They thanked me and left.

Two months later David calls and asked if he could come talk to me. He told me about an FSBO "For Sale by Owner," who would never pay any agent a commission unless he got his price + the commission. That of course doesn't make sense to a buyer. David told me about the deal and I gave him my honest opinion about it. David asked what my time was worth and gave me a check for an hour's time.

Two months again passed and David called and said, "I need to see you today." He proceeded to tell me about a Car Wash Soap manufacturing company that was suppose to be making $500,000 profit per year. The asking price was $2 Million. David wanted several things from me. He wanted my opinion of the business, he wanted me to help get the price down to a more reasonable amount and he wanted me to verify the income. It took me 30 hours of reviewing the books and talking to the seller to determine that the business was making only $350,000 per year including what was not on the books. The books were made complicated, intentionally so that no one could understand what was going on.

I related my findings and told David he had to do his own negotiations but I would coach him every step of the way. David paid my fee and I didn't hear from David for one year. When he called, I asked what happened to the car wash soap business. He filled me in on the story.

He bought the business for more than I suggested because he saw where he could improve the business instantly. The profit turned out not to be $500,000 as the seller guaranteed, but exactly $350,000 as I had determined. David took over sales and marketing and within 1 year had the company profit up to the $500,000 he was promised.

David now had found a related business that had been listed with an agent who did not understand the business he was marketing and could not sell it. David was now talking to the seller directly. The seller wanted $550,000. David wanted me to negotiate, on a consulting fee bases with the seller to get the price down.

I instructed David that I would appraise the business, and convince the seller that my appraisal was accurate, but David had to do the negotiations. The seller would never talk to me about the inside details if he was negotiating with me directly. This time I spent 5 hours with the seller, not the books, to determine the business was worth $350,000. The seller would not take the price, but felt I had done an excellent appraisal. I suggested to David to wait 60 days and open discussions again. I also told him the seller would eventually take the $350,000.

I again didn't hear from David, this time for 6 months. When David called I asked for his report on what happened. The seller called him after one month and sold the business to him for my appraised amount, just as predicted. What did David want this time? Two guys wanted to buy the business and David wanted me to justify a price of $500,000? I did my updated analysis and got paid. I will not find out what happened until David calls me with my next assignment.

Get the word out - Now that you have got all of your preliminary work done you are ready to go looking for businesses. You are ready to look for businesses for sale. Go on to the Internet and look at sites that have businesses for sale. Look in the classified section of your county newspapers and look at what is for sale. Contact business brokers and tell them what you are looking for in detail. Call on broker listings and FSBO (For Sale by Owners.) When you find something interesting you move through the steps with a broker, accountant or attorney or without a broker, accountant or attorney.

Find out what financial records they have. This will eliminate 75% of the businesses. The records are false because of cash sales and/or cash payroll. A lot of auto repair shops pay their mechanics a base salary on the books and the balance in cash. This is crazy and illegal. They have cash sales, which are illegal, and not reported and then they give this money to the employees illegally. Have fun figuring out the profit on these businesses. Some businesses do not want to give you any financials. They do not even want to lie to you about the numbers; they just do not give them to you. You need financials even to just see what the operating expenses are.

Cash income -- The problem with cash income, besides being illegal is it is unconfirmed. Jack bought a body shop doing $60,000 sales on the books. The seller showed Jack records that proved to Jack, an experienced body shop owner that the business was really doing $125,00 month in sales. After escrow closed Jack was given the production records for the last 5 years by the general manager that stayed with the company. The business was doing $60,000. Exactly what was on the books! There was no cash. The seller reported every dime. I hate to say it but if someone were willing to lie to the government and their business broker, why would they tell you the truth?

Find out what the seller wants - the next key step is to ensure that you find out exactly what the seller wants. You have already stated what you wanted when you got the word out. Now, you need to make sure you understand what the seller wants. Make sure you get full information on this from the broker or seller. On this step, you are basically finding out what the seller wants for his or her business exactly. That includes, down payment, seller carry back terms, time he is willing to train you to run the business, and what he is including in the price. Inventory can be included or extra. Leased equipment basically has you as the buyer assuming the debt, where financing on owned equipment is paid off in escrow or the price is lowered because you are assuming the debt. With all of this information, you can begin your negotiations.

Negotiate - Ok, now you know what the seller wants and you know what you want. On this step, the objective is to get the two wants to match up and agree with each other, so that the deal can take place. What you are trying to do at this stage is decide if you are going to go ahead with the deal or if you are going to continue talking with the broker and the seller until what they want is closer to what you want. The key here is keeping the conversation going (negotiate). As long as the conversation is going, it is much more likely to result in the deal taking place. So keep the conversation going!

Almost the final action - after the negotiations and an agreement has been reached, there is one final action that is vital. Your offer is in, but you are not done yet! Due diligence is required. Here you must get documentation on the financial figures you have been given. You want to verify that what you have been told is indeed the case. Get Profit and loss statements, business tax returns and other important documents. If you have been told that a body shop has a contract with the local city to service all their vehicles, or some such story, ask for and see the contract and verify that a valid contract does indeed exist. Part of this final action is ensuring that you have the advise of a competent professional as well.

Escrow - Never buy an asset sale purchase without an escrow. We have already established that the sellers may be lying to you about any number of things, but they may have debts that they do not even know about. The escrow will do a "bulk sale notice" that gives creditors of the business a chance to file their claims, and if they do not the buyer cannot be held liable. The escrow also makes sure that the payroll taxes; sales taxes; federal and state income taxes are paid in full. The IRS has come into companies and assessed for many years of unpaid taxes. As the buyer you would get stuck with this bill, if you didn't do an escrow.

Conclusion - Following the above steps will see you through most of the pitfalls in buying a business.

Willard Michlin is a Business Broker, California Real Estate Broker, Accountant, Well known Public speaker and Administrative/Business Consultant. He can be contacted at his Ventura, California office by calling 805-529-9854 or by e-mail at kismetrei@earthlink.net. See other articles by Willard Michlin at http://www.kismetbusinessbrokers.com

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The Basics of Building Facebook Applications

The ubiquity of Facebook is hard to ignore. It started as a local service that helped college students connect and has expanded into a worldwide phenomenon with millions of users accessing Facebook and associated applications every day. The size of the Facebook audience makes it a compelling platform for developers as does the versatility of the site. There are a wide range of applications already being used on Facebook and the possibilities for new applications are limited only to the developer's imagination. So let's discuss some of the basics when it comes to building Facebook applications.

In the Beginning

Any developer who is hoping to write or install Facebook applications must first have his or her own Facebook account and then must install the developer application. Facebook's developer application allows you to create, monitor, and configure applications. In addition, you'll need to secure yourself a server as Facebook applications run form the developer's server. The benefit of this is that you can write the application in whichever language you know best. For the sake of simplicity, examples in this article will use PHP but the process is the same regardless of the language you use.

Once you have your Facebook account, have downloaded the developer application, and have your server ready to go, you'll be ready to start developing your own applications. Still, having a bit of understanding of the Facebook platform will help you during the creative process. First and foremost, the fundamental components of Facebook are clearly outlined on their developer site. Essentially, the platform is made up of three parts: API, FBML, and FQL. Of course, APIs determine the ways in which you can connect to and interact with Facebook. FBML is the custom Facebook markup language which has basically be modeled around HTML. While similar to Coldfusion or ASP.NET and associated tag-based syntax, FBML helps you to define the pages of your application specifically for the Facebook Platform. And finally, FQL is the Facebook Query Language which is also a customized developer language for Facebook that is based on SQL. FQL is especially useful when there are no helper methods in the API but can also be used for tags in FBML giving developers an incredible amount of control over the details of their application.

Facebook Development Tools and Resources

Like any development applications, Facebook features a range of tools and resources that can help developers in a number of ways. Apart from the core documentation, tools can also help you debug raw API calls or tweak the FQL. With Facebook resources you'll find a collection of libraries for PHP and Java as well as links to other libraries like ActionScript, Cocoa, Coldfusion,.NET, Perl, Python, and Ruby. In addition, Facebook has an ever-expanding community wiki that can help answer any questions you may have about the details of developing Facebook applications. Because Facebook is a fairly complicated social media network, pages often feature layers upon layers of detailed information and it is certainly in the best interests of the developer to become familiar with FBML and API. Indeed, FBML and API allow you to manipulate a lot of this information so a more in-depth understanding of these tools and the terminology used on the site. Experienced Facebook users, for example, will know the difference between the News Feed and your Profile page and so should developers.

Step-by-Step Guidelines for Creating an Application

At this point, let's discuss briefly the stages involved in building a Facebook application. Of course you'll need to get the Facebook Developer Application to begin but from here there are some basic principles that should help guide you through the process.

1. To begin setting up a new application select the "Set Up New Application" option in the developer application. You'll want to name your application and you'll also need to accept the Terms of Service. Your API key is used so that Facebook can recognize your application and your application secret are used so that Facebook can authenticate your requests. Choose a secret that is easy to remember and also difficult to hack as you would with any online password.

2. The next step involves configuring a number of settings before starting to write code. Under the "Edit Settings" section you can enter support and contact information, including your email address.

3. A callback URL is required and this would need to be the address where your application is stored on the server.

4. A canvas page URL is also required and this tells us where your application is stored on Facebook. Developers usually want to match their canvas page URL with their application name so that it's easy to remember for users. This URL must be a minimum of 7 characters long and can include only letters, dashes, and underscores.

5. Next, Facebook will ask you whether your application can be added on Facebook, obviously you'll want to say "Yes."

6. To continue developing your application click "Save and Continue."

While these are the most basic steps for creating a simple application, configuring your application to your host still needs to be completed. Nevertheless, experienced developers will find it an extremely straight forward exercise to develop Facebook applications. The process is streamlined and simple so as to encourage the addition of new, interesting, and interactive applications from a broad developer community. Regardless of culture, language, or location applications can be easily uploaded for the enjoyment of the massive Facebook audience.

Moonrise Productions is a full services San Francisco web design company. They offer complete design services, social network web development, ecommerce development, social network hosting and more. With New York, San Diego, San Francisco and a Los Angeles presence no matter where you are, we've got people to serve you.

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