Response Times

You don’t need to be on and available 24/7/365. But fast replies impress people.

Last week, I announced the launch of Lex Friedman Consulting. And earlier this week, the podcast industry newsletter Podnews mentioned me. My own announcement — here, along with LinkedIn, Facebook, Mastodon, and even (sigh) Twitter — coupled with the newsletter appearance unsurprisingly triggered a brief upswell in inbound messages to me.

When you fill out my website’s contact form to reach me, it tells you that “I’ll aim to respond to you within one business day.” And I will!

I told a friend recently that a colleague had mentioned to me that no one replies to Slacks or texts faster than me. My friend immediately reinforced the message, saying this was definitely true about me. And truly, I’m honored to have that reputation!

The trick isn’t that I always have the answers, or that I’m able to respond in full in real-time. The trick is that I contain multitudes: I like to give my apps the power to put badges on their icons, to show me my unread messages — and I hate having unread messages.

So when I get a Slack or text or email, my instinct is to reply quickly to get that badge away — even if my reply is simply that I’ll follow-up in a few days. Just that confirmation that I see you and I recognize you and I will take action for you — even though I haven’t yet taken any significant action — means a lot to most people.

Many years ago, I was the one full-time employee at a three-person diet tracking startup called The Daily Plate. In addition to being our sole web developer and product person, I was also on the front lines with our customers, who would share feature requests (and even bug reports!) in our forums. The people on those forums loved me, because I would respond to them each day. Often, though, my response was essentially — we are taking that feature request under advisement, we’re even committing to implementing it, but it could be weeks or months until it’s live.

And like I said — those members loved me, even if they had to wait a while for their pet feature requests to get launched. But I made them feel heard and showed I valued them by responding.

I haven’t been overwhelmed with emails into Lex Friedman Consulting yet (feel free to pile on!), but as messages have started coming in at a heavier clip, I am indeed replying to everybody the same day they write me. It lets people know I think their message is important, that I’m reliable, and that I’m really there. And in my case, as a new business, it also helps keep me top of mind; if I waited too long, some folks could literally forget who I was or why they wrote me in the first place, by the time my delayed reply rolled around.

I absolutely encourage you to have work/life balance and to set boundaries. But during the workday, when you can reply to colleagues and third-party partners quickly, it’s worth it. “The one who always responds quickly” is a pretty neat reputation to have.