My Thoughts
Your Emails Are Killing Your Career (And Nobody's Telling You)
Sitting in a café in South Yarra last month, I overheard two executives discussing why they'd passed over someone for promotion. "Great ideas," one said, "but his emails read like a drunk teenager wrote them." Harsh? Maybe. Accurate? Absolutely.
After seventeen years in corporate consulting and training, I've seen brilliant minds sabotage themselves with terrible email habits. I've watched million-dollar deals crumble because someone hit 'reply all' with half a thought and zero punctuation. And honestly, most people have no bloody clue how badly they're coming across in their daily digital correspondence.
Here's the thing nobody wants to admit: email writing isn't just communication anymore - it's personal branding. Every message you send is a tiny billboard advertising your competence, professionalism, and attention to detail. And frankly, most of us are advertising that we're amateur hour.
The Australian Email Problem
We Australians pride ourselves on being straight shooters, but our casual culture has created some shocking email habits. I've received business proposals that started with "Hey mate" and ended with "Cheers!" - from people wanting six-figure contracts. There's a massive difference between being approachable and being unprofessional, but somehow we've lost the plot on where that line sits.
The stats are sobering. According to my completely unscientific but extensive observation, roughly 73% of Australian professionals send emails that would make their Year 10 English teacher weep. We're talking about missing subject lines, rambling paragraphs that go nowhere, and signatures that look like they were designed by someone having a seizure.
Subject Lines: Your Make-or-Break Moment
Subject lines matter more than your mother's opinion about your life choices. Yet people treat them like an afterthought, slapping on generic rubbish like "Quick question" or "Following up" - which tells the recipient exactly nothing about why they should open your email ahead of the other 147 messages screaming for attention.
Here's what works: specificity with urgency indicators when appropriate. "Budget approval needed by Friday 3pm" beats "Budget stuff" every single time. "Meeting room booking for Johnson presentation" trumps "Room booking." It's not rocket science, but apparently it's harder than quantum physics for most people.
I learned this lesson the hard way back in 2018 when I sent what I thought was a perfectly reasonable email with the subject line "Thoughts?" to a potential client. It sat unopened for three weeks until I followed up with "Training proposal - response needed for Q1 planning." Suddenly they replied within two hours. Same content, different subject line, completely different result.
The Goldilocks Principle of Email Length
Most business emails are either War and Peace or a haiku written by someone with attention deficit disorder. Neither works.
Your email should be long enough to convey necessary information but short enough that busy executives won't need a coffee break halfway through. I aim for what I call the "bathroom read" length - something someone can digest while hiding from their next meeting.
Front-load your key points. The most important information should appear in the first paragraph, preferably the first sentence. If someone only reads the opening line, they should still understand what you need from them. Everything else is supporting detail.
Grammar Police vs. Real World Communication
Now, I'm not suggesting you need to write like Jane Austen. Perfect grammar is less important than clear communication, but there's a baseline of competence you need to maintain. Using "your" instead of "you're" in a business email is like wearing thongs to a board meeting - technically possible, but sending the wrong message entirely.
Some rules you can bend: starting sentences with "and" or "but" for conversational flow. Ending with prepositions when it sounds natural. Using contractions to sound human rather than robotic.
Rules you absolutely cannot break: basic spelling, coherent sentence structure, and logical paragraph organisation. Microsoft Word has spell check. Use it. Grammarly exists. Download it. There's no excuse for sending emails that look like they were written during an earthquake.
The CC/BCC Minefield
Here's where people's careers go to die: the carbon copy field. I've witnessed political disasters unfold because someone CC'd the wrong person, or worse, forgot to BCC a group email and accidentally shared everyone's contact details with the competition.
BCC is for mass communications where recipients don't need to see each other's details. CC is for people who need to be kept in the loop but aren't expected to respond. Reply All is the nuclear option - use it sparingly and only when genuinely everyone needs to see your response.
I once had a client accidentally CC their entire customer database on a message about internal restructuring. The fallout took three months to contain and cost them two major accounts. All because someone clicked the wrong field.
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Tone: The Invisible Killer
Email has no facial expressions, no vocal inflections, no body language. That "efficient" message you think you're sending might be landing as curt or dismissive. That "friendly" email might come across as unprofessional or overly familiar.
I've developed what I call the "mother-in-law test" - would you be comfortable if your most critical relative read this email? If the answer's no, revise before sending. It's saved me countless awkward conversations and probably a few relationships.
Exclamation points are like salt - a little enhances the flavour, too much ruins everything. One per email maximum, unless you're announcing someone won the lottery.
Templates: Your Secret Weapon
Stop reinventing the wheel for common communications. Develop templates for frequent scenarios: meeting requests, project updates, follow-ups, introductions. Not copy-paste robots, but structured frameworks you can personalise quickly.
My "meeting request" template includes proposed times, agenda items, expected duration, and required attendees. Takes me thirty seconds to customise for any situation, and it's saved me literally hundreds of hours over the years.
The Time Management Training course I run always includes an email efficiency module because people waste absurd amounts of time crafting messages from scratch when they could be using proven templates.
Mobile-First Thinking
Here's something that drives me absolutely mental: people who write emails assuming everyone's reading on a desktop computer. In 2025, most business emails are opened on phones first. If your message doesn't make sense on a 6-inch screen, you've lost the battle before it started.
Keep paragraphs short. Use bullet points for multiple items. Avoid attachments when possible - link to cloud documents instead. And for the love of all that's holy, check how your signature looks on mobile devices. Some signatures I've seen are longer than the actual message and formatted like abstract art.
The Follow-Up Framework
Following up is an art form that most people approach with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. "Just following up" tells me nothing about what you want or why I should prioritise your request.
Effective follow-ups reference the original request, provide new information or context, and include a clear next step. "Following up on the training proposal sent 15th March - let me know if you need additional information for your Q2 planning meeting next week" works infinitely better than "Any thoughts on my email?"
Signature Crimes Against Humanity
Your email signature should contain your name, title, company, and contact information. It should not contain inspirational quotes, images that break everyone's email client, or colour schemes that look like a rainbow exploded.
I've seen signatures with embedded videos (why?), animated GIFs (please stop), and motivational quotes longer than most emails (nobody cares). Keep it simple, keep it professional, and remember that less is almost always more.
Advanced Moves for Email Excellence
Here's where you separate yourself from the pack: strategic email timing, thoughtful subject line threading, and the lost art of the well-crafted introduction email.
Send important messages Tuesday through Thursday, between 10am and 3pm. Monday mornings are chaos, Friday afternoons are checked out, and evenings are family time. Yes, people work different schedules, but these windows give you the best chance of thoughtful attention.
Thread your subject lines intelligently. If a conversation evolves beyond the original topic, update the subject line to reflect the current discussion. "RE: Budget meeting" shouldn't be used for logistics about the Christmas party just because that's how the thread started.
The Bottom Line
Email writing isn't glamorous, but it's fundamental. In a world where remote work is increasingly normal and digital communication dominates business relationships, your email skills directly impact your professional success.
The executives who advance fastest aren't necessarily the smartest or most creative - they're often the ones who communicate clearly, concisely, and professionally in every interaction. Your emails are either opening doors or closing them.
Master this skill, and you'll be amazed how much easier everything else becomes. People will respond faster, opportunities will materialise, and you'll waste less time clarifying what you actually meant to say in the first place.
Because at the end of the day, clear communication isn't just about being understood - it's about being respected. And in business, respect is everything.
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