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