The practice manager: handling correspondence with other parties.

Mail moves the country, and zip codes move the mail - well, perhaps not anymore. Nevertheless, most messages you receive, whether in the form of e-mail, faxes, or memos, require your response. The faster and more easily you reply, the better your day, week, career, and life will be - and the more you'll he in control of your time. There are many options available to you for speedily handling reply messages.

What Do You Want to Send and Why?

As a small business owner needing to initiate contact with potential clients, your mail and messages should be pro-active in nature. You're sending information or literature designed to get another party interested in what you can offer them in the way of goods or services. It's likely that the majority of the information and messages you send to others represents a response to a request they've made, or an obligation you need to fulfill.

Handling Correspondence Quickly

Many times the correspondence you'd like to promptly address falls by the wayside; you have to care for too many other things. A key time-saving element when responding to messages is this: When a response doesn't require formal business protocol (i.e. when you know the other party well), or the item only merits brief regard, there are many ways to handle the correspondence quickly.

1. Some people use pre-printed messages such as, "Excuse the informality, but I feel it's more important to respond promptly than to offer a more formal reply that would take much longer."

Ask people how they feel when they receive such replies, and the vast majority will agree that they'd rather get a quick, informal response that answers their question, than wait weeks for a formal response.

2. Retain the return address information on the envelopes from the mail you receive. Thereafter, you can use their addresses as your address label back to them, and avoid having to engage your printer, copier, or label paper. Such addresses can be clipped or torn out with a ruler's edge.

When I receive a package from someone, I clip the label from their envelope and attach it to the documents that came inside with a big paperclip or removable tape. When I'm ready to make a response, the address label party is already available.

Often, when you cannot get a reply from others, it is because they are overwhelmed - they have not devised systems for readily responding to the information and messages they receive. Often their failure to respond in a timely manner (or at all) has little to do with the merit of your request. It is a result of their personal ineffectiveness or their organization's ineffectiveness.