In every business, there are terms, phrases, product or service line names that we continually type as part of our work product, marketing material, or other. There are tools that record keystrokes for you so that, instead of typing out the name, title, phrase, etc., you just hit a few keys and, voila, your name, title, phrase, etc. is inserted.
For example, Mercer Capital's (my firm) newest book is entitled Buy-Sell Agreements for Closely Held and Family Business Owners. That's a long title and its easy to miss a letter here and there when typing. So, in the free download tool I use, Texter, I've created a macro and instead of typing out that long title, I instead type BSA [enter] and get the full name of the book returned.
I also use Texter successfully for LinkedIn invitations (I always personalize but I use Texter for the boilerplate sentence in every one of my invitations) and, importantly, for responses to those who either accepted my invitation or who invited me to connect. I always try to send a thank you to these people. It's an easy way to help you stand out from the crowd, and it's easier still when using a tool such as Texter. I've created my thank you message in Texter so when I am responding to an invitation, I type LI [enter] and Texter returns this standard thank you message.
Think about how a keystroke saving tool such as Texter can be helpful to you and your business. There are other tools available to you. If you use one other than Texter and like it, please let me know.
I work on a Mac and use a program called Text Expander.
Posted by: Rod Burkert | April 04, 2011 at 10:01 PM