Although the majority of business-to-business communication is carried out via email, companies continue to treat an individual’s email address as if it was guarding some dangerous state secret. All kinds of protections now exist to prevent unwanted emails, yet many companies maintain a policy of never giving out emails whoever is making the request. As a consequence they are denying the opportunity for new potential suppliers and customers to establish contact and for executives to network effectively with others in different enterprises.
I have always likewise been surprised by messages that frequently come back from the messaging systems of departed executives and professionals that state their old mailbox is full. It is as though anyone who leaves the company could not possibly have any contacts that could benefit those who remain. As if, indeed, such contacts were in some way tainted.
Companies also all too often just hide away a generic email address (info@ or admin@) on their website and expect all prospective contacts to run the gauntlet of whoever is charged with sorting through them. In many cases it is clear that no-one actually looks at these messages and all are immediately binned.
There are lots of ways that an organisation’s tendency to underperform could be lessened and the most obvious one is to unlock the emailing system and make it transparent to the world. I have found that even amongst the more mainstream spam I receive there have been useful communications – in some cases even messages that are essential to my job. It is therefore a much better use of anyone’s time to wade through a mountain of seeming junk for the valuable messages amongst them than to prevent or deter any messages being sent except those from existing contacts.