Improvability Blog

I can’t believe the number of websites, business cards, leaftlets, etc. that I am asked to look at that don’t give potential clients the slightest idea where you are based.

If I wanted a colour consultation, the first thing I would want to find is someone local to me.

How on earth am I supposed to work that out from nothing more than a mobile or cell number?

I am not psychic, and neither are your potential customers:

• When you are offering face-to-face services, you need to tell people where you are
• If you were just offering coaching by telephone, there’s no need to tell anyone where you are, of course

But what if I was particularly looking for an English speaker? It might be very important to me to know whether you’re English, Australian or American.

Your website domain suffix is not enough

Even if you have a .co.uk website don’t expect people to take the slightest bit of notice:

• I know that improvability.co.uk should be a big clue that we are based in the UK but, believe you me, it’s clear that this rather large hint bypasses lots of people’s radar!
• And a .com suffix does NOT mean the site is based in the USA. We run several .com websites ourselves and we are definitely based in good ol’ Blighty!

Your phone number is not enough

• A mobile or cell number doesn’t give anyone the slightest clue as to whether you’re based in Scotland, Cornwall, Lower Hartshay or Timbuktoo
• You might know your dial code but you should not expect the rest of the world to have memorised the entire catalogue of dialling codes…

Where the heck are you?

You don’t have to publish your full postal address; you could just say ‘city name and surrounding area’.

Is that too much to ask?

Have you heard of email psychology?

I came across this term recently after reading about studies done in the US and UK. Studies showed that 57% of surveyed adults admitted feeling some concerns about how their own level of intelligence would be perceived when writing emails. 

A large number of people also admit to adapting the language and style of their emails to create their own ‘email image’.

This doesn’t come as a surprise when you consider that over 58% of those surveyed also admitted to making judgments about an email sender’s personality, intelligence, and social status.

What I did find surprising though was some of the other assumptions and judgments that email respondents admitted to:

• 33% of respondents try to guess someone’s age based only on the language, tone, and style that the person uses in their emails
• 28% try to guess the sender’s status as authority figure (or not) among his or her peers
• 23% judge how successful the sender might be in their lifetime
• 20% interpret the sender’s social status
• 11% of respondents will make a judgment about the sender’s sexual attractiveness
• 8% gauge the sender’s fashion sense

So next time you are sending an email, ask yourself what else your email is saying about you!