Most people are terrible typists.
Typing is a learned skill. No one is born knowing how to manipulate a keyboard with ten fingers and the speed of machine-gun firing. For many, many people, typing out an email can be an overwhelmingly difficult, monumental, and time-consuming task. They just can’t do it – and that’s okay. But that means these people need another way to communicate.
Typing is also still considered a skill reserved for women. My mother remembers a previous job well, where the rooms were full of women that hammered away at clunky machines. Typing was a secretary’s job – and secretaries weren’t men back then.
Computers launched typing back into the limelight. But we’re only just adapting to the common household containing computers. Seriously. How many people had PCs at home back in the 80s? (Not too damned many, in case you’re wondering.)
Schools aren’t teaching typing as a required life skill. (I have no idea why; this makes no sense to me.) Business people generally don’t sign up for remedial typing 101. (They feel silly going back to school.) Most middle-aged and older men never learned to type. (“Isn’t typing for women?”)
That’s a lot of people who can’t communicate well via email. Here’s a fast fact: The average computer user’s typing speed for composition is 19 words per minute. (What’s your speed for transcription?)
All my clients who prefer phone calls over email are over 30 and male. They hate to type, and they prefer conversations. They are also smack in the prime of their business life and ready to rock n’ rock their way to online entrepreneur success.
Cut them out as clients because I won’t take their call? No way.
