Whatever you think of email, as an independent consultant you will use it a lot, because your clients will use it a lot. The problem with this is that your emails will always be vying with hundreds of others for the attention of your recipient.
To make matters worse, what constitutes a perfectly understandable, clearly written email to one person may be all but incomprehensible to another.
So in this post, I thought I’d share some email standards that every independent consultant should adhere to.
Why Email Communication Matters More Than You Think
Before we get into the specifics, I want to make something clear. When you’re consulting for concise business email communication—or really any aspect of client relations—the way you write emails isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about perception.
I’ve seen consultants lose credibility not because their advice was poor, but because their emails were disorganised, rambling, or required three follow-ups to clarify what they meant in the first place. Your written communication is, for many clients, the primary evidence they have of how your mind works. If your emails are muddy, they’ll assume your thinking is too.
The thing is, most of us never received formal training in business email. We just sort of picked it up, imitating whatever our first employer did, good or bad. That’s fine when you’re an employee buried in an organisation. But as an independent consultant, every email you send is a reflection of your personal brand.
A Standard Approach to Productivity-friendly Email
However many thousands of emails you write, a few simple standards can ensure that every one of them…
- Grabs the recipient’s attention
- Is easy to understand at a glance
- Encourages readers to perform the required actions, or respond as appropriate
An independent consultant must communicate clearly and if possible, briefly, since time is money both for consultant and client. The following three email standards will help you ensure your messages are clear, concise, and persuasive, and don’t get in the way of recipients’ productivity.
Email Standard #1: Avoid the Stream of Consciousness
While some people write emails with all the formal frills of a handwritten letter, most of us—independent consultants included—have the tendency to spill out whatever is in our minds in a “stream of consciousness” writing style.
More often than not, the result is a vague message which has recipients responding with requests for more information—if they bother to respond at all.
That’s why the first standard of email-writing for independent consultants is to switch off the stream of consciousness before commencing. An independent consultant’s email should not ramble, but at the same time should not be so brief as to make the reader guess at the point/s being made.
I worked with a consultant once—a brilliant guy, really knew his stuff in procurement—who would send these enormous emails that read like he was thinking out loud. Paragraphs would start with one topic, drift into another, circle back, raise a question he then forgot to answer. His clients loved him in person but dreaded his emails. One of them actually told me they’d started just phoning him instead of replying, because it was faster than trying to decode what he wanted.
The fix isn’t complicated: before you start typing, spend thirty seconds deciding what the email needs to accomplish. What’s the single outcome you want? A decision? Information? A meeting? That clarity should shape everything that follows.
Email Standard #2: The Beauty of Brevity
An independent consultant should know how to write emails that are brief while providing all the information needed for recipients to act or respond. The best way to do this is to apply the following guidelines:
- Try to write the entire message in just five lines.
- If you can’t get the entire message across in five lines, break the text into short paragraphs.
- Numbered points or bullets work well for providing full information without sacrificing brevity.
- Stick to one subject per email. If you have to communicate a number of unrelated points, write separate emails for each point.
That last point deserves emphasis. I know it feels inefficient to send three emails instead of one, but honestly, it’s not. When you bundle multiple topics into a single email, you’re almost guaranteeing that at least one of them gets ignored or forgotten. People respond to what they see first. Everything below the fold is at risk.
Email Standard #3: Clarity is Critical
As convenient as it may be, email is not always appropriate for business communication. If you find it difficult to explain your message clearly in an email, give up and use the phone or better still, face-to-face communication.
When you must use email or it really makes sense to do so, proof-read every message meticulously before sending it. As an independent consultant your professional image matters, so don’t ever write emails containing spelling or grammatical errors.
Make sure you put yourself in the recipient’s shoes when proof-reading too, and ask yourself if your message is too verbose or vague. If it is, you’ll need to edit for clarity, or else switch to verbal rather than written communication.
There’s a simple test I use: read the email as if you’re the busiest person in the company, you’ve got fifteen seconds before your next meeting, and you’re slightly annoyed. Does the email still make sense? Can you tell what you’re supposed to do with it? If not, rewrite it.
The Subject Line Problem
One thing worth mentioning, since it trips up a lot of consultants: your subject line is doing more work than you probably realise. When you’re consulting for concise business email communication with clients, a vague subject line like “Quick question” or “Following up” or “Thoughts” is essentially asking to be deprioritised.
Be specific. “Decision needed: Project timeline by Friday” tells the recipient exactly what they’re getting into. “Q3 budget review – three options for your approval” lets them know they’ll need to engage their brain. This isn’t about being demanding; it’s about respecting their time by letting them triage effectively.
Productivity-friendly Email: A Best Practice in Consulting?
For the benefit of busy clients, every independent consultant should master the productivity-friendly email. It might not be a highly publicised consulting best practice yet, but in my opinion, it ought to be.
Consulting engagements demand constant communication, and love it or loathe it, email is often the favoured medium. The standards set out in this post will help you email like an independent consultant should—briefly, clearly, and in a way that doesn’t fetter productivity for you or your clients.
And look, I realise that following these standards means your emails might take slightly longer to compose. That’s the trade-off. But a two-minute email that gets a prompt, useful response beats a thirty-second email that generates confusion and three rounds of back-and-forth. The time you invest upfront pays dividends.