The Email Operations Killer

The Email Cc’ combines a benign appearance and exponential results that can swallow-up the average office worker’s day. Let’s take a look at why the email Cc’ should come with a warning label much like a pack of cigarettes.

 

If I were to email an employee, they would likely reply. That is (at a minimum) two emails.

 

Not too shabby.

 

Consider instead, I “Cc” two people on that email. This increases the likelihood that a number of different exchanges could result. Cc’d party one (1) could email the employee directly. The employee could email Cc2. Cc2 could email the whole group… the list goes on and on. To calculate the number of potential exchanges we need to utilize the permutation formula from the mathematical study of Combinatorics.

 

To calculate the permutations of potential interactions between the sender, receiver, and the two “Cc’d” parties we will apply the permutation formula Four choose Two (4!c2!), which is 4×3 or 12. We then need to add four since each entity can also email the entire group. This results in 16 possible permutations.

 

Whoaa… those two Cc’s just increased the email chain potential interaction by 700%.

 

Imagine, a few days ago, I received an email with thirty plus Cc’s and I know I am not the only one swamped in electronic correspondence. Just look at what Harvard Business Review reported:

 

“The average professional spends 28% of the work day reading and answering email, according to a McKinsey analysis. For the average full-time worker in America, that amounts to a staggering 2.6 hours spent and 120 messages received per day.”

 

For many, the Cc’ seems so innocent and that is where the problem starts. We add our bosses to that quick response to a client to show them we are on it. We Cc’ Sharon in accounting, because it seems like the right thing to do. We may even Cc’ other members of the client’s team since they always include those people in their emails anyway. And why wouldn’t we? It takes barely any time to include them in the chain and it doesn’t cost us anything.

 

Or does it?

 

Harvard Business Review’s article demonstrates that this afterthought can be detrimental to your entire operation. I contend that much of those 2.6 hours per day spent working on one’s inbox can be attributed to the overzealous use of Cc’s in many organizations. We already demonstrated that four people on a chain can result in the potential for 14 additional email interactions. Add two more on the Cc’ line and the total potential interactions jump to 36. Now consider that HBR’s research tells us that it takes, on average, either 15-30 seconds for someone to read an email or three-seconds to delete it. Then, it takes that individual another 64 seconds on average to return to their normal state of work. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out this is an unsustainable practice.

 

Sure, we are not reading every single email we are Cc’d on and it doesn’t take many of us 64 seconds to return to work after reading every email. These are just averages. The point of this article is to demonstrate through sheer math just how dangerous those Cc’s can be.

 

Use them wisely my friends.

Communicate Right or Get Lost in the Shuffle

 

I get a lot of emails every day. I mean – a FREEKIN’ LOT! However, my inbox doesn’t compare with some of the people I work with. Case in point, I was having lunch with a colleague for a major cruise brand and during our hour together, he received 35 emails, a bunch of texts, and a few calls.

 

It may be difficult to understand just how complex email management can become if you have never worked in an environment based on group decisions with partners in multiple time zones that require written communication to audit deals being made. This is exactly the case for booking agents, concert buyers, and entertainment managers. In our business, the cc (and sometimes bcc) are commonplace, which quickly converts one email into double digit chains plaguing our inboxes.

 

Of course, there are programs and protocols one can follow to better manage their inbox. However, each of these emails (or at the very least the subject) needs to be read and, if warranted, investigated and responded to.

 

So, why is this entertainment blogger discussing the woes of our email management. Well, the answer is to help artists looking for work to better communicate with us, so you don’t get lost in the shuffle.  Here are a few pieces of advice I want to give.

 

  1. Keep it simple.  Remember grade school and how they taught you to outline your paragraph in the first line by dictating the who, what, where, when, and why? Follow that rule. Don’t bury the story.  Provide us with your website and video links upfront along with what you are looking for and what your act brings to the table.  We don’t need to hear your life story. How you learned to play the guitar at six. How you met John Mayer that one time and he dug your tune. Let us know what you are going to do for us.
  2. Keep it to email if possible. Facebook, Instagram, and other social media channels are great, but they are not the best place to solicit a new client.  For one, if the company is huge like a cruise line. The person reading those messages probably has nothing to do with entertainment, so you are relying on them to forward your message to the right person. If the company is smaller, the person handling those messages is probably wearing 100 different hats and will likely look at your message and forget about it until they are managing the site again in the future. When you send an email, it at least ends up in the correct inbox…barring spam filter interference.
  3. Better than email… the website form. If the agency or venue has a form “specific for entertainment applicants” use that. They did this for a reason. For instance, the company I work for, Mike Moloney Entertainment, put a web application form that forwards all applicants to the email accounts of five agents.  I know for a fact that many larger cruise companies have their online forms set-up in a similar fashion.  In all instances, the forms are designed to capture the data we need to make a decision and (hopefully) a deal. Do yourself a favor and follow our lead.
  4. Don’t spam!
  5. Don’t spam! See what I did there?  This one is so important, I put it in twice.  NOBODY likes spam, so don’t be that person. Now, there are many ways you can spam a prospect through email. Sending the same message to every email address you can find within the intended agency. Including them on your mailing list without asking. Emailing them every day. Emailing, then messaging on all available social channels are all ways you become a spammer and it generally doesn’t work in your favor.
  6. Do some research on who you are emailing. Does the booking agent work in your genre of music? Are you applying to a cruise agency, but you get sea-sick? Is the booker outside of your drawing ability? It doesn’t hurt to do a little research to focus your pitch, and with so much information at your fingertips it is rather easy to be properly prepared.

As an agent, I can attest that most of us are always hungry to find the next great act for our venues. However, that is only a small percentage of our business. The largest chunk of our time is spent putting the deal together and then executing it on show day. A lot of artists feel that the “squeaky wheel will get the grease” and in some instances that is true.  However, if the driver can’t hear that squeak. Nobody will be getting to their destination. Follow these steps to increase the probability that we will hear you.