Relationships are at the core of every business venture, sale, agreement and advancement.

There has to be Affinity between at least two people for any kind of success to happen.  I think Ben Stein says it best in his quote, “Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.”

The challenge becomes, how do we develop those relationships in a world where it seems like everyone’s mantra is “I’m sorry I can’t meet with you, I’m swamped.” Is that the new universal blow-off?

In a world where computers and mobile phones have become the umbilical cord to life, how can we differentiate ourselves, get our foot in the door and build a relationship using our keyboards and mobile phones and create a message so impactful that the person on the other end of the phone will be moved to respond?

What? You mean we can build a relationship and have someone actually respond to those e-mails we send out?

This blog post highlights some great ways to differentiate yourself in the marketplace using creative e-mail techniques. These tips come courtesy of a webinar I participated in today hosted by Andy Horner, creator of Ace of Sales and Jeffery Gitomer, famous sales trainer, speaker and author of The Little Red Book of Sales.

According to Andy the open rate on 100,000 e-mails is about 8-10%. And that is merely an open rate, that isn’t a respond rate or conversion rate. What if, instead of sending 100,000 people a bunch of dribble, you could send 100 people meaningful, fun, personal e-mails with an open rate of 40-50%? And with an open rate that high, how high do you think your conversion rate would be?

Humor breaks barriers and builds relationships.

If you can get someone to laugh, you’ve done a fantastic job. If you can elicit a chuckle, congratulations! At the very least if a smile emerges on their face, you’ve had success. You’ve broken a barrier and started building a relationship. Use funny images to make your point and connect with people. People do business with people they know, like and trust. You can build your likability factor and increase your trust factor if you can tickle someone’s funny bone.

Become a professional photographer and take a lot of Professional Selfies.

The Professional Selfie is a photo of you and the person you want to have a relationship with. People love to look at themselves so when you send them a picture of you and them, you’re going to distinguish your e-mail from the 100 other e-mails they received that day that contain a whole lot of letters of the alphabet but no fun pictures to look at.  Have you ever attended a seminar and you wanted to connect with the keynote speaker or dignitaries in attendance? Many people will take a photo with these folks and post it on their own Facebook page, but did you ever consider that photo could be a gateway to building a new relationship and a new client? Use that photo as your header in your e-mail to that dignitary and see how quickly they respond to you.

No picture with the keynote speaker? Take a photo of one their slides used in their presentation and use it as your header photo in your e-mail.

Make it personal, not professional.

As Jeffery Gitomer said today, “If you’re not a little nervous about hitting the send button, you’re not doing it right and you’re not having enough fun.” Be edgy. Have fun. We spend more hours at work than at home, we should have fun doing our jobs and imagine if you’re the one injecting the fun into someone else’s day. Want to get more responses to your e-mails? Make them more fun, by using catchy phrases and fun images.

Be real. Be genuine. Be yourself.

If you send a cheesy picture, start your e-mail with, “I realize the picture is more cheesy than Kraft in a box, but if it made you chuckle then, goal achieved.” If you goofed, send a funny image and accompanying message of “ooops.” People connect with human error, we’ve all made mistakes and the more we can laugh at them and talk about our erroneous ways, the more people will love us for it.

How many e-mails have you sent that said, “Hello, I wanted to reach out to you…” how many funny images could you come up with that feature Godzilla or an alligator and their small little arms reaching out.

Create a very stern follow up e-mail campaign.

The same day you meet the person, send an e-mail within the hour if possible, otherwise within 3 hours. Send another one the next day and then another one 2 days later. One week after the initial meeting send another e-mail, then 2 weeks later, then 2 weeks and 1 day later. If they haven’t confirmed to buy from you by then, you can put them in your drip campaign file.

The above F/U schedule is relative to an e-mail only campaign. I’m a fan of “mixed media” and sending hand written note cards and printed testimonies sprinkled in between my e-mails. That’s a topic we’ll call The F-Bomb and save it for another day.

I’m a fan of Ace of Sales. I don’t have time to photo shop lots of images and I don’t have time to be uber creative in my e-mail creation. Ace of Sales does all of that for me. I don’t rep their products but I do use Ace of Sales every single day. I use them for my professional organizations as well as my existing clients and my prospecting. If you’d like to try it out, click on the link below.   I did become an affiliate of Ace of Sales because I refer so many people and I figured hey, why not get a free membership in exchange for my referrals? That’s about all I get, nothing fancy, just a free membership and the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve helped a great many professionals build strong relationships because they get their e-mails opened instead of deleted.

Click here for free 30 day trial of Ace of Sales.