email signature

Microsoft^® Outlook^® is probably the most widely used and accepted email client throughout the U.S. Many law firms choose Outlook for their attorneys’ email clients. If you’re a CLNC^® consultant and Outlook is your own email client, you have a unique opportunity to create what is known as a vCard for your legal nurse consulting business.

Think of a vCard as a “virtual business card.” It can contain your name, legal nurse consulting business name, address, phone/fax numbers, email address and possibly even a thumbnail photo of you or your logo. This vCard, when attached to your outgoing email, allows the attorney-client/prospect recipient of that email to simply import the vCard into their contact list without having to retype or cut and paste the information. If you’ve ever manually added a contact, you know how painful that can be. Attaching your vCard to an email makes the process almost painless for the recipient and prevents any possible typos they might make when entering your information as a new Outlook contact.

A vCard is not a Microsoft invention – it has been around for a long time. Outlook just made it easy for its users to create a vCard for themselves. Here’s how:

1. Open Outlook and left-click on “Contacts“
2. Click on “New Contact” – you’ll see this form:
   
   
3. Fill in your information (name, company name, email, website, etc.) in the “New Contact” pop-up.
4. Left click in the box with the little “photo” icon. This will open “My Pictures.” Navigate to the photo or graphic you’d like to include then double-click to add it to the vCard.
   
   
5. Once the information is complete click the so-called Pearl, then click “Save As” and select “vCard files *.vcf” from the drop down list. You can also simply select “Export to vCard File” and make sure you know where you saved it. This way you can use your vCard with email applications other than Outlook. If you’ll only be using Outlook, then just click “Save Contact” – you’ve just created your new vCard!

Now, to add your vCard (or *.vcf file) to your outgoing Outlook email you’ll need to do the following:

1. Open Outlook. Click Tools, then Options, then Mail Format, then Signature, then select the email signature you’d like to add your vCard to, or if you don’t have one, click on New at the open box “Business Card,” then select the business card from the “Insert Business Card” drop-down and select your card and “OK” your way out.
   
   
2. You’ve just added a vCard to your email signature in all your outgoing email! All your new attorney-clients and prospects will have your vCard. They can simply right-click and save it to their own Outlook Contacts folder without keying in your info.
   
   

Congratulations on being an up-to-date Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Just make sure your photo is a professional-looking headshot or a good rendition of your company logo. It will show up in your signature so also make sure it compliments your email signature and doesn’t detract from it. Remember, you want to make communication as simple as possible. This is one way to do it.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Read Part 1. Read Part 3.

Tip #6

Check the “To:” line before you send and don’t hit “Reply to All” unless you know who “all” really is. This is a great way to send an email to the wrong people (perhaps even the opposing side). If you use the “auto-fill” feature for addresses it will fill in the email addresses as you start typing. If you have any attorney-clients with similar names, you need to be extra careful. Only “Cc:” someone if they need to be copied. Be careful with the use of “Bcc:.” Once you send an email, you lose control over who it is forwarded to and what changes can be made in the body/content as it’s forwarded. Attorneys like to know who is being included on their correspondence so using “Bcc:” to show your friends how important you are is a bad move.

Tip #7

Remember that once you send it, you can’t call it back. Email has almost no ability to be recalled. In other words when you click “send” it’s off to its final destination, errors and all. We’ve all sent an email while feeling angry or upset about something and then wished we hadn’t. If you think you’re being a little strong, take a few minutes between finishing the typing and hitting send. Then come back and review it to make sure you really want to send it as is.

Tip #8

Irony, sarcasm and humor aren’t always readily apparent in an email. Remember that the reader can’t hear your tone of voice or see that you were smiling while you wrote the communication. They may misinterpret your communication in a way you did not expect.

Tip #9

Go ahead and break the chain. No one will die. It’s time to stop forwarding those “urgent pleas” for peace on earth, save the whales or other chain letter emails that would be debunked after a visit to Snopes.com. Your seven best friends or legal nurse consultant subcontractors have probably already deleted that same email without sending it to you, so return the favor. If you don’t know the kind of emails I’m talking about I can send you a few so you’ll get the idea.

Tip #10

Don’t forward jokes, even if you think they’re hilarious. Not everyone shares the same sense of humor and not everyone has a sense of humor (I can personally think of two attorneys and a doctor that I’ve never heard laugh – ever). A joke you might find funny will be offensive to someone else and you risk appearing unprofessional. If you do send the joke, spell check it first (unless that’s part of the joke). Just joking. DO NOT send jokes.

Tip #11

Remember, many attorneys didn’t grow up texting, so don’t think every attorney is familiar with those goofy acronyms your 14-year-old uses in her text messages. OMG that’s SHR2B trouble. While you’re at it, don’t use smileys or other cutesy emoticons either. You risk looking like an amateur. You wouldn’t put them in a business letter – don’t use them with your attorney-clients (save them for communications with your kids).

Tip #12

Close your email with a signature. Email signature files are a great way to do a little more branding. Your signature should contain your name, credentials, title and phone number (so you don’t have to type it each time) and can also include your legal nurse consulting company name, address, a confidentiality statement or whatever you want. Outlook^® allows multiple (selectable) signatures because not every email is created equally. I have one signature with a confidentiality statement, another that has my full over-the-top branded “Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Inc. 5000, etc.” information, one that says “DO IT NOW” (just kidding – but it’s a good idea) and a simple one I use on internal email that just says, “Thanks, Vickie.” If you have a BlackBerry^®, change the signature from the one that reads “Sent from my BlackBerry^® while sitting in traffic” to a text version of your full signature. If you’re using signatures, use your full signature on the first email and an abbreviated one on replies and on daily correspondence. It’s time consuming to have to scroll through a lot of full signatures to review the meat of an email thread that’s gone back and forth.

Tip #13

Separate your private life from your legal nurse consulting business with separate email accounts. Use the branded email for your company and business communications. Set up an account with your Internet service provider or one of the free email services like Gmail, live.com or Yahoo! for your personal email. That way when you do send that ROFL Cats email (Bing! it) to everyone in your address book, it won’t go to your attorney-clients too.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share your tips for professional email communications.

Let’s look at what email signature files can do for your legal nurse consulting business. All of us use email, some of us use it sparingly, others incessantly and a few for actual business communication (you know – not “mom-spam”). In the good old days of snail mail, people sent letters using a decent grade of actual bond paper with a letterhead printed at the top – that was the signature file. Today in our increasingly paperless society, business emails are sent with a signature file at the end to promote the business and its services to every recipient.

An email signature, depending upon the email program you use, is a short file (either text or html) containing a few lines of text (and sometimes a logo) that is inserted below your name or other usual signature. Choose from the following components to create one or more signatures for your CLNC^® business:

• Your name, credentials and title.
• Your company name, address, telephone number and fax number.
• Your email address and website URL.
• A quick marketing note or company vision.
• A recent achievement, award or recognition.
• A special offer.

Many Certified Legal Nurse Consultants create multiple signatures that they can select from depending upon the subject and the recipient of their email communication.

A few examples follow. The first is commonly one full signature advertising your business and containing your title and contact information:

Susan J. Smith, RN, MSN, CLNC
President
713.555.1212

Smith & Associates Legal Nurse Consulting
Providing Quality Legal Nurse Consulting Services since 1994
1313 Mockingbird Lane, Suite B, Mockingbird Heights, CA 91210
SmithNAssociates.com
Phone: 713.555.1212
________________________________________________________

Another might be a shorter one that just contains the name and title so that you’re not overwhelming your recipients:

Susan J. Smith, RN, MSN, CLNC
President
713.555.1212
________________________________________________________

The next might be one stating that the communication is private, privileged or confidential.

Susan J. Smith, RN, MSN, CLNC
President
713.555.1212

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This is a confidential and/or privileged communication. Any additional dissemination or copying of this electronic communication is strictly prohibited. If you received this communication in error, please notify us immediately at 713.555.1212 and permanently delete and/or destroy the original and any electronic or printed copies of this communication, including any attachments.
________________________________________________________

The last may be one containing a HIPAA statement (don’t use a signature file including a “confidentiality notice” or “protected under HIPAA” notice unless the message actually is confidential or protected under HIPAA). If you are sending Personal Healthcare Information (PHI) that may be covered under HIPAA, you’ll need to talk with your attorney-client about the policies for their office and how she wants you to proceed. For most plaintiff work after suit is filed, the information generally falls out from under the HIPAA HIPPO. For defense work if no suit has been filed, you’ll be working under the defense firm’s guidelines. At a bare minimum, you must send a test email first and verify that the recipient’s email address is correct. Then make sure to send any PHI as an encrypted attachment and that no specially protected PHI (i.e. HIV/AIDS, substance abuse treatment information or mental health information is included).

Example:

Susan J. Smith, RN, MSN, CLNC
President
713.555.1212

The materials in this email are private and may contain Protected Healthcare Information (PHI). If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that any unauthorized use, disclosure, copying, distribution, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately at 713.555.1212 and permanently delete and/or destroy the original and any electronic or printed copies of this communication, including any attachments.
________________________________________________________

Back in the bad old days when bandwidth was at a premium, it was netiquette to try and keep your signature short – that is between 4-6 lines of 80 characters or less and to use plain text instead of html. I still recommend this today (even though I break those rules). Plain text keeps its formatting and style no matter what kind of email reader your recipient is using and will also maintain that format when it’s forwarded – something html doesn’t always do.

Another bit of signature netiquette is to only use the full signature on the initial email. If you get a reply and your first communication remains in the body of the email – use only your short signature in any replies – not the full signature (especially if it’s long). Either use an extra-short (name, title, phone extension) or use no signature at all when communicating inside a network as an employee. And finally, if your email client allows you (like Outlook^®) the flexibility of switching signatures, set your default signature to “none.” Then it’s easy to select the one you want when you’re ready to send.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

P.S. Comment to share your best email signature marketing strategy.