50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (or sign off?)

• Trends
• August 20, 2015
• by Merrie Spaeth

“You’re ending your emails wrong,” wrote Rebecca Greenfield in Bloomberg Businessweek’s “Rant.”  She doesn’t like using “best” or any version of it, like “Best regards,” or “Warmest regards.”

Greenfield traced the literary family tree of valedictions (the action of saying farewell). She’s right, it isn’t very compelling.

She doesn’t like “thanks” because it’s frequently not true. She doesn’t like “cheers,”—it’s too British (unless you are British). She doesn’t like “yours truly” or “sincerely” either. She favors – nothing. No name, no signoff, just stop and hit send.

Just nothing? We admit that we’ve struggled with how to close an email. My friend David Barton uses “blessings,” which makes sense for him since he really means it, and it’s genuine. Other friends like “thinking of you,” which we like for some occasions.

I’ve used “can’t wait to see you” for clients we haven’t seen or worked with for some time. I also use “many thanks” often because our business is frequently generated by referrals. I have a lot of people to thank and thank a lot.

I also like Larry Senn’s “mood elevator,” which includes “Stay Curious” and “Assume positive intent.” (And, for the record, many of my colleagues do still prefer “Best” because they genuinely do mean it.)

What do you dislike? Like? Use most frequently?