I am swamped with emails from everyone and everywhere. Luckily my assistant takes care of one of my businesses so that cuts down on a lot of my work, but still I have thousands of emails to sift through after they have gone through the check at the border crossing, i.e. my spam filter.

How do I decide which emails not to answer, and which emails need to be answered promptly? Follow up is very important when I have promised to stay in touch with someone, this has given me an advantage over my competitors because I am true to my word. I have an automated system that works well for most of my follow up emails. I still like the personal touch whenever possible though.

The emails that are guaranteed to boost my revenue, engagements to speak, purchase my published books in bulk, as a few examples. Those emails are always answered promptly, if not by me by my assistant.

Then comes the emails from people who may have ignored my previous emails but now find they want something so they decide to email me, still without replying to the email I sent them. If they get a reply at all, which is not often, its not a prompt reply. Everything we do in business, even replying to emails, relates to how much time and money we lose or make on each task.

I had to steel myself to get tough in my early years, otherwise most of my time would be spent giving and not receiving.

How not to answer emails is quite simple when you think about it logically.