How many times have you phoned a client only to be told they’re busy? You then send a quick email, and they reply immediately? Not that busy ay? And how many times have you sent an email ‘without even trying’ to speak to your contact, or sent an email when really you could have spoke to your contact instead?

If you have the time to type, you have the time to talk. Pick up the phone. 

OK, I appreciate we are living in a world that is becoming forevermore dominated by technology. I sometimes wonder if in 50 years time will the human race have evolve to become more technology friendly? Will there be less of a need for our vocal chords, and more of a need to grow more fingers to enable us to type super fast.

To my own admittance, I’ve found myself guilty of email conversation in the past. If not only the other day I found myself in battle with the keyboard. Whilst in mid-flow with my somewhat sluggish typing skills replying to a clients email I ended up shouting at myself, ‘for heaven sake Tom, pick up the phone’.  

I think back to the day I started recruitment. Companies were using email mainly as an internal resource. 90% of my day was spent communicating verbally with all my clients. CV’s were sent via fax. This was immediately followed by a call to the recipient of the fax knowing they were physically holding the CV in their hands I would then persist in going through the finer details.

Fortunately for me, having experienced this old-school way of working, I know how effective and important the telephone is when building strong relationships with clients and candidates.

The way you communicate the spoken word can be 100% more effective than typing it. The way some people interpret your emails will be different to how you meant it to be communicated. You can tell someone to ‘get lost’ in a friendly and joking manner; do the same via email and it could be perceived as being aggressive.

The next time you’re typing an email to a client, just ask the question to yourself; might it be easier to simply pick up the phone first? I promise you thing; get into the habit of doing this and it won’t be long before you start to see a stronger, and more effective relationship establish between you and your clients.

Remember - Don't type it, talk it !!