All’s fair in love and entrepreneurship. Marketing wisdom and observations from the world of outsourced marketing communications.

When I was a kid, my mother always made it a point to remind me to say ‘please’ when asking a favor of someone, and to offer thanks when the favor was granted. Sometimes I will happen past a young parent telling their child the same thing; eager to instill a bit of politeness in their children despite their misfortune to grow up in an ever-grumpier world. And yet despite the barrage of messages from our parents, we have seemingly, en-masse, forgotten three of the most useful words in the English language.

To be sure, I am not a psychologist, anthropologist, morphologist, or any other sort of “-ist”, so frankly, I haven’t the foggiest idea as to why people don’t use these words as much as they should, but I do find it puzzling. What’s more interesting, though is that it seems we have forgotten to write them as well! It’s uncanny! It’s diabolical! It’s, well. . .it’s, just plain silly.

Writing a thank you note, is perhaps the easiest thing you can do to double your sales, double your profits, and double your referrals. It is consistently more effective than having the perfect product, the perfect sales pitch, or the perfect brand. To understand the power of a five minute hand-written note, just think back to when you were younger and your parents stuck that over-sized pen in your reluctant hand and put you to the task of thanking your Grandparents for the money they gave you for your birthday. Do you remember how pleased they were to receive your note? Well, magnify that by a thousand for someone who doesn’t already love you and you’ll understand the significance a thank you note carries. Letter writing, if it is not dead already, certainly has the bell attached to its foot and six feet of dirt on top. Let’s bring it back to life.

My background in sales has afforded me the opportunity to write many thank you notes, and I admit, I’ve become quite obsessive about it over the years. As such, I’ve worked out a bit of a system that has allowed me to stay on top of my thank you writing needs, so if you follow the very simple steps below you too can become a thank you letter writing King or Queen! And please keep in mind that this system is really for the every-day stuff. . .for more eventful occasions, you’ll need to throw your heart into it. After all, that’s really what it’s all about, right?

Here you go. The easiest way to get in the thank you note habit in 10 simple steps.

1. Buy a box of 100 thank you cards and a roll of 100 stamps.
2. Create a list of the 10 most frequent occasions for which you need to write thank you notes in your life.
3. Using your computer, write a thank you message for each of the occasions you listed above.
4. Write a sincere note, but keep it fairly generic because we’re going to need to use it again and again.
5. Save it on your computer so you don’t have to think up a message each time you run into Aunt Betty.
6. Now, this is the hard part! In groups of ten, take your thank you notes and hand-write the messages on them now. Don’t wait till you need them, just do it now and leave off only the person’s name. Be sure to use the same pen, because otherwise the ink will look to different when you send them off, and that’s well, ugly, and a dead give-away that you wrote them ahead of time.
7. Put your return address on each of the 100 envelopes you have and stamp each one as well.
8. Once you’ve written all your letters, put them away someplace safe and organized so you can access them later.
9. Create a habit! Use a page from your planner to note down people you need to write thank you letters to, and the occasion for which they deserve one.
10. At least once a week refer to your planner, pull out a pre-written, pre-stamped card, plop a name on there and stick it in the mail. Your clients, colleagues, family and friends will love you for it and you’ll never miss a thank you note opportunity again!

Cheers,
Doc Kane, Roscommon
Chicago, July 2006

Doc Kane is the president of Roscommon, a Chicago-based marketing communications firm that helps clients outsource their writing needs. Essentially, if it’s got words, Roscommon can help.   His firm has the privilege of writing for some of the world’s most recognizable brands, including Abbott Labs and Aon Corporation, as well as a good number of small businesses and experts making a lot of noise in their own backyards.  Doc has also been heavily involved in Internet marketing since 1994, and continues to help small businesses market themselves online via web content and SEO.  You can visit Roscommon online at: www.roscommon.com

A quandry

My throat seizes as I look at the beautiful row of vinyl lined up in my office. Neatly stacked 12 x 12 super-delicious truly tangible versions of records from yester-year. There’s Springsteen and The Beatles, Hendrix and The Doors, Emmylou Harris and Hank Williams, REM and the Replacements and many, many more styles and colors to whet your musical appetite. It’s all great music to ease the soul on a cool quite Sunday, or any day for that matter. The row of color seems complete. Years in the making, it is most of the records I have wanted to collect to round out a great collection of cds that have fueled a passion for music my whole life. And yet within a month they will be gone. . .a distant memory.

Why, you ask? . . .I’m selling them all. Or, most of them at least. It is time for change, and I have been resisting change for almost 20 years. You see, that long line of beautiful smooth polymer plastic is HEAVY. And when I move, I don’t want to move them again. Plus, I do have a number of them now on cd and so, the music isn’t really going away, it’s just changing formats. Kind of like our lives in a way. . .every thing moving along toward progress whether we like it or not. This blog, of course, is just one example of the technological change that is rapidly engulfing us today. As a writer, I’m no longer merely writing for an imagined audience in the hope someone sees it. . .I’m published immediately! It’s pretty cool, actually, but it takes a certain initiative on my part to get it done. All those readers don’t come without a change of behavior, a new way of thinking, and a possibly difficult and time consuming decision. Writing on paper is simple, learning how to use a new program can be a challenge.

Breaking resistance to change in sales

And therein lies the dilemma. How do we get people to change their vantage point so they may benefit from the changes that result? For years, I thought change was simple. Nike had it down pat, I thought. And working in sales, lead generation and marketing communications it is my professional obligation to instruct and reduce obstacles to change. Of course it’s easy, right? Why doesn’t that customer get it? Change a vendor, change a process, change a brand. . . They don’t get it because you don’t get them. It’s all about the vinyl. Change has been easy for me because the changes I have made haven’t really run the risk of affecting me in a negative way at all. I view new skills and technology as beneficial to my growth, so I never even think about it.

But rationing off my vinyl is personal. I have a physical attachment to those records and memories to go along with them. Plus, because of their scarcity in excellent condition, they have a potential monetary value as well. Heavy, sure, but is the change worth it? Is having a few less boxes to move really a huge deal? Is having more floor space in my office really that critical? If you were a professional organizer, perhaps you would say getting rid of all that “junk” is good for my soul. Well, baby you would have a hard time convincing me on that based on that suggestion alone. Remember, the business owner or high-level manager you’re speaking with is much more intimate with his business than you’ll ever be. If the owner is your prospect the change your pushing is directed at a company that was most likely birthed with great pride, and if you’re speaking to a C-Level rep, the parrallel is almost the same. They’re invested. You’re not. Not yet, at least.

You have to become me to sell me. Understand why this change is painful for me, and then figure out a way to get me to recognize a better solution. Without it, these records stick with me and your contract as my organizer is kaput! After all, these records have been with me for 20 years and I just met you! For example, if you were to mention to me (a technology nut) there is a way to digitize those records with a USB turntable my ears might perk up. Or perhaps talk about how the value of the records themselves isn’t as much as one imagines given the rise of auction houses like eBay. Or maybe make a better case for why the extra floor space makes me more productive, or will allow me to utilize more area for my techno-gadgets. Get inside my head and any one of these reasons would draw me closer to siding with you. All of them would have me eating out of your hand. So do your research, know your buyer and practice, practice, practices. . .empathy!

As for me, my ardous bi-weekly walk to the local record store with 30 pounds of records is becoming less difficult, and the row of vinyl that I have been so attatched do is quickly yielding more hardwood floor in my office than I have seen since the day I signed the lease. And while the walk to the store still elicits some fears of doubt, I know that by the time of my last trek my investment in change will yield greater results for me than my alphabetized rack of vinyl ever will. These times they are a changin. And of course, I don’t have to sell them all, right? A few Beatles records are always necessary for good living, right? . . .and heck, what would I do with my turntable anyway?

For those of you interested in understanding buyer psychology and profiting from better research and lead generating initiatives like the kind we do at Roscommon, check out the following links. I think you’ll find them productive!

Dealing with objections in sales and buyer behavior links:

Artefact in Ireland is a firm dedicated to brand identity. This specific article is about buyer psychology, and the rest of the site is a good read for small business owners looking to find more about building their own brand. This brief article is located here.

Also across the pond in the UK, Huthwaite Sales Training seems to have great courses that will help you beef up your sales skills and understand your buyer more clearly.

Closer to my home in the US, here is an academically slanted, but very comprehensive look at resistance to change at the Focused Performance web site.

Here is a brief link as to how as a salesperson you may be able to employ certian methods of Six Sigma in your approach to selling to help stave off your prospect’s resistance to change.

Rick Maurer writes a good article specifically related to dealing with change as a salesperson here, and fellow copywriter Mark Sansone from Ohio offers some great samples in his blog entry “Stoppers to Successful Change” wherin he links to wonderful articles by such luminaries as Mark Cuban, Kevin Eikenberry, Mark Graban and Tom Foster. Scroll down to the aforementioned title to find the links. They’re really quite good!

Cheers,
Doc Kane, Roscommon

Doc Kane is a freelance writer and editor in Chicago, Illinois. He specializes in creating polished internal communications and marketing communications collateral for his clients which allows them to complete their goals and spend more time with their families. Doc is also a web copywriter and serves as a freelance editor for publishing and consulting firms across the country. Samples of his work as a freelance writer can be found at www.roscommon.com