One of the best ways to differentiate yourself is to show gratitude with hand-written cards in sales (and life). Hand written thank you cards are great sales tools to use and go way beyond thanking someone for a gift. A hand-written thank you card is good karma and good business. It’s amazing to me how many sales professionals don’t practice the art of hand writing a thank you card to a prospect or customer. It’s a lost skill and I’d like to help bring it back to the center of how we engage with our customers and partners. I personally do it all the time. I love writing thank you cards. I write thank you cards to people that make introductions to me or leaders who speak at my conferences. I also write thank you cards to customers after they sign a purchase order. People remember the thank you card and they appreciate it very much.
When I speak at kickoffs and sales training events about best practices in sales execution, I always close with a discussion on gratitude and thank you cards. I ask the question of the room. How many people closed a deal in the past thirty, sixty, or ninety days? A bunch of hands goes up. I get the room to applaud and high five each other. Then energy goes up and folks are happy and feeling good about themselves. Then, I ask the question how many people that closed a deal sent a hand-written thank you note to your customer that bought from you? The room quickly quiets down, and the hands drop. There are usually only a couple hands remaining up in the air. It’s a good lesson and a very eye opening and humbling experience for the room.
Personalize Communications
Hand written thank you cards work because they are personalized. In a world of automated email outreach and too much spam content, the personalized hand-written than you card goes a long to help our people stand out from the crowd, I do not recommend the kind of hand-written cards that are sent via a simulated hand-written note. You know what those kind of cards look and feel like when you get one. They kind of look personalized and they kind of look hand-written, but they aren’t. Grab a pen. Grab a thank you card. Make it real.
Build Relationships
Hand written thank you cards work because they help build relationships with people you admire and want to work with. You connect with people I a very real and human way. When I send a hand-written thank you card folks remember it and appreciate it. They also call or text or email to say thank you back. It’s amazing when that happens. The human connection is powerful. Real authentic gratitude goes a long way in life.
Coaching Tips
Hand written thank you cards takes discipline. It’s easy to say you’ll get to it tomorrow. If you don’t do it when you think about it too much time will pass, and you’ll feel funny sending one months after the fact or after an event.
As enablement professionals, it’s our job to coach our teams to prioritize gratitude and to send our customers hand-written thank you cards. Make it easy and accessible. Order branded thank you cards for you teams and celebrate the win stories. Here are a number of times our teams should be sending hand-written thank you cards to our customers. These are great coaching suggestions:
- Champion organizes a great meeting onsite
- Champion makes an introduction to an executive
- Customer shares great insights about their business
- Customer signs an order
- Customer refers a new prospect
- Customer does a reference call
- Customer speaks at an event
Always be grateful and don’t forget to send those hand-written thank you notes consistently and often.
