Monday, June 8, 2009

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword

In the studio’s May e-zine, we discussed the importance of print material. There is one aspect of print (hard copy) media that we did not address - one that is extremely important. It is the hand-written note. We have become so email oriented that we have forgotten this powerful tool. The hand written thank you note or invitation says one thing – You are important enough for me to take time out, compose a message and personally write it. I am not talking about a typewritten note – a human hand written message or note.

The sales courses talk about constantly keeping in touch with your prospects and clients. This is so true. Large amounts of communications coupled with the cost of paper, envelope and postage makes emails so cost-effective and they are so convenient.

Take a birthday card. There is the convenient electronic card you can send. It is convenient and low-cost. It is often entertaining with rich media. At least it says I did not forget. But too much email cards can make us “sloppy”. It is even easier to post something on your FaceBook wallpaper. Again, at least I did not forget.

But a personal card says you are really special:
• I remembered
• Took the time to pick out a card
• Wrote a message on the card
• You are important enough for that extra cost and time of mailing

With the card, I can also keep it and refer to it many times. My wife had this tradition that she would keep the Christmas and holiday cards we would receive. She would then during the year, take one card out of the collection to remind her of the sender and pray for them during the day. Keeping in your save box e-cards or emails is not quit the same thing.

We ask our new awards how they found out about the studio and why they selected us. Several times we were told it was because they received a hand written thank you card after we had met them.

By the way, poor penmanship is not an acceptable excuse. So buy that pack of thank you notes or cards and take the time to think of a message, personally write it out, and send it.

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