I can always tell when things are going well in my life, because I don't daydream about getting rich quick. When I was working outside home full time, I found myself buying tickets every week and checking lottery website on a daily basis. I was simply unhappy with that job and desperate to quit to stay home with my daughter.

These days, I have a business I enjoy and I rarely notice lottery... except when business is slow, which can be expected from time to time, especially when you're a one-woman operation.

Since Memorial Day, traffic for my website has plummeted by about 40% and revenues are bound to follow. This is probably a natural occurrence tied in to fact that my audience is made up of moms with children who are now home from school, so they have less time to surf Internet. It happened last year, I expected it to happen this year, and tried to budget for it... but buzz about economy got my mind thinking about a quick solution, and when jackpot hit $141 million a few weeks ago, I bought myself a $1 fantasy.

Needless to say, I am one dollar poorer and still looking for ways to get over my seasonal hump, and you may be, too.

It is tempting to step back business activities dramatically and take a long vacation. This makes sense - but only to a point. By all means, slow your pace and enjoy time with your family - that's why we're working from home in first place. But don't neglect your long-term goals... because just as a summer downturn is a predictable occurrence, September is only just around corner and back to school starts busiest selling season of year. Ignore your business and marketing plans and you risk having to play catch-up and losing profits.

Our times are fast. Our life is fast. All time we're in a rush for something, using faster and faster means, leaving behind everything that seems to slow us down, sometimes even proven principles of proper, polite behaviour or proper, professional business principles.

Most of people coming to Net expect riches. Fast. Now. And Hype tries to make them believe it and pursue get-rich-quick schemes without thinking, without proper work, without discipline, without ethic. Business Ethic. Writing Ethic.

And online business is based on writing. So, in all rush, Email bathes in full sun of attention of all people online. It complies with requirements: it's fast, can be automated, it has a vast reach, everyone praises it: professionals and Hype in a unity. What's problem then?

No doubt, Email is a powerful tool, but as with all tools, it is necessary to know how to use it to get best possible results.

Anyone should never forget that Email substitutes a business letter, a professional business letter in our online life. Any business presence has its strict laws if it should be successful, and no one will argue that all people want to succeed in their online business.

How is it then they believe that without a proper business correspondence, ie a proper business presence in market, they can succeed. The point is that they CANNOT.

Let's stop for a minute and revise basic writing rules of an old-fashioned, good business letter (- if you try hard you will remember - that piece of paper in an envelope that we still sometimes get in our offline life :-)).

An Email of a proper netpreneur should have same features. Yes, I said 'features', though we should never stress features. But everyone must feel them within us, and then we can dare to talk about benefits. So we will talk about features now.

In a single introductory sentence I will say that a written language has its laws that must NOT be broken. I used word 'language', not slang, not individual words or exclammations. And a proper professional, business Email should be written in a proper, polite, business language in proper formatting and contain:

1) Proper Greeting - it's not 'Hey' or 'Hi Guy's', it's not even: 'Got a shock'. And not even: 'I've got to tell you this!!!' Take out one of old-fashioned physical business letters and compare it to some of emails you get. And think: Who would it be to do business with? Would you dare to send an offline business letter starting with a greeting like that? And more: would you expect person to respond, to do business with you, a customer to buy from you? I'm sure you answered: No. I'm glad you did.

2) Proper opening sentence - It's none of above though you get emails opened exactly that way. If you write to a stranger you should tell him who you are and why you're writing. Don't tell a novel to person - just a sentence. A full sentence. Not isolated two, three words.

The other day I received an email from one of my bankers - yes, one of cold bankers, and opening started:

'Dear Mrs W, I wish you a beautiful day.'

And then he continued usual way. I loved it. And it's definitely not only way to go.