The Tech-Free Secret to Business Success

As an entrepreneur in technology, I’m attached to my tech devices. You’ll rarely find me without my iPhone, iPad, and laptop computer, and you can catch me Tweeting,Facebooking and emailing at all hours of the day and night.

But my secret method of business communication, and arguably my most effective, is the lowest-tech tool you can imagine:

Handwritten “Thank You “cards.

Every morning, I hand write three or four thank you cards before I arrive at work, and then mail them out that day. I send the notes to employees, clients, prospects, vendors, partners and the media. Essentially, I send them to anyone I met with or spoke to the previous day, or that I haven’t spoken to in a while.

The practice began several months ago after I interviewed two CEO’s whom I admire for my last book, Likeable Business: Cary Chessick, the former CEO of Restaurant.com and current CEO of Positivity, and Sheldon Yellen, CEO of Belfor. They each shared remarkable daily habits with me: Cary begins each day by writing down 10 things and people he’s thankful for, while Sheldon sends handwritten birthday cards to all of his employees. (And at 6,000 employees, that’s about 16 notes/day!)

Inspired by Cary and Sheldon, I decided to try writing thank you notes myself. I knew the challenge, as with many things, would be in habitualizing the activity. So, I began by writing one card per week, then increased to five cards per week, and finally, three cards per day.

Writing thank you cards has led to greater success for me for two reasons, one of which was totally unexpected:

1) Writing thank you cards shows people you care about them. In today’s time-starved world, it’s much easier to send an email thank you, or a text, or a tweet. It’s invasive to make a phone call. It’s harder, and more time-consuming, to handwrite a note, put it in an envelope, stamp it, address it, and send it. When employees receive the cards, they feel appreciated, and it helps us build a strong culture. When clients and prospects receive the cards, they also feel appreciated, and it gives them another reason to continue to do business with us. In fact, Donors Choose, a favorite nonprofit of mine, found in a controlled study that donors who received handwritten thank you cards were 38% more likely to give a second donation, and when they did, they gave more money on average as well.

2) Writing thank you cards makes you feel good. This was the unexpected result. As much as I enjoy the feedback from people when they receive my cards, I realized that even if I never got that feedback – even if the cards got lost in the mail- they’d be worth writing, because of the mood it puts me in. It’s amazing – as I write the notes each morning on the train into my office, I feel grateful – then joyful – then truly ready to take on the world by the time I get to work. It’s very difficult to feel both upset and grateful at once. In fact, there’s extensive research that shows that feeling gratitude actually improves emotional and physical health. I’d argue it leads to better productivity at work as well.

My commitment to thank you cards was recently put to the test one morning. My first company, Likeable Media, had just lost a $500,000 client the day before – I was in a horrible mood, as you can imagine, and I just didn’t feel like going through my thank you card routine on the train. Reluctantly, I proceeded, and literally as I wrote the first note, I began to feel better. I wrote out five thank you cards, and by the end of the train ride, I felt great.

Feeling great doesn’t always lead to business success. But as many salespeople will agree, it helps to be full of positivity and energy. And that day, I ended up having a super productive, and even profitable day at work. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but we even closed a very significant piece of business later that day as well.

So I’ll continue, each morning, for 20 minutes, to put away all of my electronic communication devices, turn to the original communication device – pen and paper – and write out some thank you notes.

---

Now it’s your turn. Have you ever sent out a thank you card at work? Have you received one? Has gratitude ever made a difference in your career? Let me know in the comments below – I’ll be thankful for you!

-----

Dave Kerpen is the founder and CEO of Likeable Local. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of Likeable Media, and the New York Times-bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business, and the new collection, Likeable Leadership. To read more from Dave on LinkedIn, please click the FOLLOW button above or below.

Want to learn about how to grow your business using social media in 2 minutes? Click here.