6. Be Pleasant! Nobody like to receive boring, curt or rude e-mails. Begin your e-mail by addressing recipient in a friendly, positive manner. When a pleasant attitude is conveyed through your e-mail message you build rapport more quickly.

7. Always reply as quickly as possible - Develop a good impression by responding to business related e-mails. The more promptly you can write back better. Start with oldest e-mail first.

8. Avoid Over Punctuation - Don't get caught up in grammar and punctuation, especially excessive punctuation. You'll see lots of e-mail messages where people put a dozen exclamation points at end of a sentence for added emphasis. If something is important it should be reflected in your text, not in your punctuation. Exclamation points (called "bangs" in computer circles) are just another form of ending a sentence.

9. Back up your e-mail address book! - Windows-based users might try these steps to find approariate files on your hard drive. Using "find" command type *.wab (Windows Address Book) and select Find Now. Once you locate file, copy it onto a floppy disk for safekeeping.

10. Use Plain Text Format - Formatting can be everything, but not in your e-mails. Plain text is best. Using HTML, or Rich Text Format is a bit risky because there are lots of e-mail clients (and some servers) that can't handle messages in these formats. The message will come in as utter gibberish or in worst case, crash e-mail client. I've seen it happen. (In Outlook go to Tools, Options, Mail Format and change to Plain Text. If you want to take risk and use Word to format messages, click box that says Use Microsoft Word.)

Taking time to learn basics of e-mailing will greatly enhance your ability to build on-line relationships and work more effectively in less time. Make it a priority today!