A little common sense goes a long way both in your personal and professional lives. A few minutes or even seconds of careful thought can spare you large amounts of embarrassment, resentment and aggravation from others, wasted time all around, or worse yet, damage to your company’s reputation.A little common sense goes a long way both in your personal and professional lives. A few minutes or even seconds of careful thought can spare you large amounts of embarrassment, resentment and aggravation from others, wasted time all around, or worse yet, damage to your company’s reputation. In our industry where most of us do practically all of our business online, and often receive correspondence from total strangers whether solicited or otherwise, I constantly see faux pas after faux pas being committed that only a minute of common sense could have prevented, and it is frustrating seeing the same errors being committed time and again.

Here are six tips to help Webmasters steer clear of some very avoidable mistakes:

· Address people properly.

I, for one, am not at all asking for royal treatment. Many people in this industry are very approachable in person and online. Would you just walk up to somebody in person that has never met you and jump right in with, “Hey, tell me the best way to get traffic?” I’m amazed at how often I receive such rude shit from people via email and ICQ. And yes, to me that is rude shit. Remember, there is a real person on the receiving end of your correspondence. A simple, “Hello (name), I have a question… do you have any traffic tips, or know of where I can find some? Is there a place on YNOTMASTERS I can go to? I run a (describe website)… thanks for your help” goes a long way.

· Address yourself properly.

If you are like me, you meet hundreds of new people in our industry every year. Sometimes at just one show! Working for a high profile Webmaster resource site such as YNOTMASTERS puts me in a position to do business with a lot of people. It’s a lot easier for hundreds of people to recognize one person than it is for one person to remember hundreds. It speaks volumes to me when someone gets in touch with me, tells me who they are, and when/where we met. Saves time too!

· Get to the point.

Got a business proposal, idea or request? Come right out and say it and be efficient. Show someone why they should be doing business with you. We’re all busy in this industry, and there isn’t much that annoys me more than wasted time waiting for you to tell me something in a half dozen emails over several days, when everything could have been handled in one or two messages in ten minutes. And please don’t email me asking when it’s OK to email me your idea. Come out with it and get to the point!

· Read the rules and familiarize yourself.

I’m amazed at how many people choose not to read rules or pay attention to them before they post on chat boards (and not just at YNOTMASTERS), ask questions to things when the answer would have taken them an extra 30 seconds of research, or ignore policy and agreements. For example, I’ll often look through the Standard Listings in our Service Directory and find websites that don’t honor our recip agreement that is spelled out in the simplest of terms. Worse yet is when these same people ask us to put up their banner or link in addition to their listing without honoring the original agreement! Which brings me to…

· Don’t insult people with a deal that stinks.

Yes, ask and ye shall receive… it never hurts to ask for something, and you just might get what you wanted. However, there isn’t much quite as insulting as being on the receiving end of someone asking you for the moon, and only being prepared to give you back a rock. Offering a deal that stinks is like trying to polish a turd. No matter how much you polish it, it’s still a turd. And most people with any common sense will realize it right away.

· No amount of emoticons (smilies) can completely convey to a stranger what your attitude, mood and intentions are.

They can certainly help, but won’t necessarily “right” something that may be “wrong.” If you are finding that your emoticons outnumber the words in your message, perhaps a phone call may be in order, or at least a little more thought should be put into your wording before you send it.

There is my rant for this week. I didn’t want to single anyone out, because I am of the belief that reamings (the vocal kind) are best handled in private. I hope this helps some of the people out there who perhaps aren’t getting the type of response they are looking for from people, and consequently, I hope this was therapeutic to those sharing my sentiments.

I’d like to thank this week’s contributors: Larry at FirstAmendment.com, Mike at PremierAdultHosting.net, KayS at WebmasterRoundTable.com, Tom at HealthLabsLLC.com, Jenn from I-BridgeInternational.com and Dino from Modena-Inc.com for this week’s awesome contributions! Devour what they have to say, give them some feedback, and keep coming back! Are we doing something right? Tell everyone! Are we doing something wrong? Tell us!

Enjoy this issue! – LAJ

Jay “LAJ” Kopita is the Executive Editor for YNOT NEWS and the Communications Director for YNOTMASTERS and admits to breaking at least one of the above “rules” earlier this year. Jay can be reached at editor@ynotnews.com and jay@ynotmasters.com.