"Ian Dodd" wrote
Good post Ian.
I have done extensive business writing. I used to interview various folks who were very sucessful in their respective businesses. I never fogot an interview I did once with a guy who operated several unrelated businesses. And they all did well.
He was busy writing notes when I arrived. He had me wait for a couple minutes while he finished up. I quickly determined that these were thank you notes. They were gold engraved and had his name, address and phone number on them. I asked about them.
He smiled and told me that this was a tradition he has practiced for many years. He said that the world is full of rude and boorish people. And there is too little praise. So he carries these thank you notes all the time. Some are stamped so he could mail them. And some were plain so he could hand them directly to people.
And he wrote them out for everybody he met who he thought deserved them. If he got good service at a restuarant, he wrote two notes. One to the waitress and one to the manager. He would even write a thank you note to the chef. He would often leave a store, write the thank you note and return to the store to deliver the notes.
This guy wrote a minimum or twenty notes a week and sometimes wrote as many as a hundred notes a week. He had kind words for everyone. A genuinely nice and appreciative guy. Nobody had anything bad to say about the guy and he had an excellent reputation.
Needless to say, he did well in business. With that kind of attitude, people would have died for this guy. In a world where courtesy and niceness are considered quaint vestiges of the past, this sort of thing is REALLY appreciated and noticed.
Sometimes a nice note can make somebody's day. Other times it can have a super ppsitive effect on somebody's life. We are remiss if we don't bless our fellow humans now and then with a well deserved thank you. It is appreciated by all.
Lee Michaels