7 Surprising Ways You Can Get Through Your Email Faster

People seem to find a lot of ways to sort and slash when it comes to email. Batching emails and answering them all together,turning off notifications, focusing on big projects during the day: they're all tried-and-true ways to generally be more productive. We've seen them, we've tried them, and they work. (Sometimes.) Still, it's hard to avoid getting bogged down with email, especially when your phone is buzzing, your computer is dinging, and your co-workers are waiting on your response. Last week, Scott Britton shared some of his favorite  and most creative lifehacks, among them some that actually help him actually achieve a better email workflow. We've shared some of them below - enjoy!

Step. Away. From. The. Inbox.

Bookmark pages you access through email

If you're using your mail to access your calendar and your documents, create bookmarks for the pages you normally have to go through your mail to access. That will keep you out of your inbox until the time you've designated to look at your mail.

Download a Chat Client

Using a chat client solves two problems. First, it keeps you out of your inbox so that you can batch your email response. Second, using chat encourages you to send those quick questions faster - freeing you and your colleague from another "quick question" email. Many businesses choose to use internal chat clients that save your chat history, like HipChat, so that you can reference them later if you need.

Use What You've Got

Learn Keyboard Shortcuts

Does it really take that long to move your mouse and click on "New Message?" No, it doesn't. But why not do it faster? Data analysts learn all the excel shortcuts in the book; they want to do their job as quickly and efficiently as possible. If you're using email as a major part of your job, why not find a faster way to do it? Google has a bunch of keyboard shortcuts that you can learn, and you can even customize your own shortcuts in your email settings.

Use Filters Effectively

All email clients offer filters. Use them. In every way possible. For your personal email, a tool like Other Inbox is great - you'll keep the junk out of your inbox, without losing a single bill notification. For all other emails, you can sort by sender, message, or subject to organize them before you even see them. Not only will it cut out steps for you, but it will also help you batch your email, since you'll be able to move through similar emails all at once, rather than jumping around to different subjects.

Create Templated Responses

Every time you're answering an email that you think you've typed before, create a template from it. The next time you're answering a similar email, you'll just need a few clicks to send a thoughtful response. Plus, templated emails ensure you don't forget anything if you're in a rush.

Use Rapportive to Get In Touch

If you're not already using Rapportive for Gmail, you should be, because it's seriously awesome. When Rapportive reads an email address, it searches that address across all social media sites, and pulls the most recent posts into a sidebar instead of ads. If you don't know someone's email address, you can try to guess the email address from various first and last name combinations, and once you guess their email correctly, Rapportive will show their picture and LinkedIn information. Rapportive is also great if you're not the best at connecting names and faces. Each time you email someone, you'll see their picture right next to their name. It's like having little flashcards in your inbox!

Don't Send an Email Unless it Needs a Response

Want a better response rate on your emails? Make sure that every email you send has weight. Remember the little boy who emailed wolf? If you're constantly sending a little note here or there, it creates work for the other person, and if your messages don't have a certain degree of urgency, you're probably getting pushed down the priority list. If you have a message that doesn't require a response, think of more creative way to send it. Birthday wishes? Thank you note? Try sending a card! You'll stand out, and they'll be happy to avoid another message in their inbox. Have any other tips you use? Share them in the comments below!

Ginger Dhaliwal: Speeding Up the High-Touch Sales Process

Mastering the art of the high-touch B2B sale is extremely rare, especially for an entrepreneur, who not only has to make the sales, but also has to find time to manage the rest of the business. If you’re looking for an example of someone who’s mastered this, meet Ginger Dhaliwal, the force behind Tiny Ginger, a New York-based luxury children’s clothing agency. After travelling extensively all over the world, Ginger developed a keen eye for great fashion, and as a mother, she knows good children’s clothing. Ginger has selected and sold only the best brands since she started Tiny Ginger, and her company has now grown to represent over twenty of the most highly sought-after brands in the industry.

Selling is hard work - and it’s tedious to boot

Like many small, high volume distributors, much of the luxury clothing sales process takes place over email. There are a lot of interactions that have to occur before an order is placed, which results in a repetitive back-and-forth in the inbox. Ginger realized the importance of a professional, well-crafted email, one that answered every question her potential customers had.

Ginger used a traditional email client to answer inquiries about the brands she represented. She had a system - write the email, search for the attachment, add the link, double check the email to make sure all the information was right, then send it off! Sure it took a while, but answering emails in a timely fashion is an absolute must in a high-touch sales process. People want to see what you have to say, consume it, think about it, and they’ll get back to you. Probably with more questions.

There’s really no getting around this type of email activity in sales. Ginger couldn’t send blast emails, because each of her customers wanted different information. Anything less than a pointed, specific, and personalized email would prevent Ginger from selling much of anything.

Ginger knew she had to answer emails, but she thought she could do it better.

When Ginger found out about Toutapp, she realized this could be just the trick to speed up her sales process. Ginger took some time to identify which emails she was sending over and over. Then she took those emails, edited and perfected them, and saved them as Toutapp templates. To get to her Toutapp emails faster, she even categorized her templates based on how her customers asked for information.

It has helped us organize our information in single place so we are not searching for information. We work more efficiently and it takes seconds to reply to our customers.

For Ginger, the ability to see each open and click is extremely important. Plus, Toutapp allows her to see which specific links her customers clicked, so she’s more informed and prepared for each future interaction.

We love the ability to track the click through information by customer.

Knowledge is especially critical for Tiny Ginger’s sales model, so this type of insight into the actions taken on an email is invaluable. Now Ginger has the tools she need to improve her sales process, grow her business faster, and spend more time being inspired traveling and spending time with her family!

If you think you’re spending too much time interacting on email, you should give Toutapp a shot.