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The Long Lost Art of The Personal Note
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407-294-7614
The Long Lost Art of The Personal Note
You go to the mailbox after a long, weary day. You become the "master postal sorter", tossing obvious junk mail, stashing catalogs and groaning over bills. Then you notice a small, 4 ½" X 6" envelope with a non-descript return address (just street, city, no name), pretty stamp and your name hand addressed!
Which piece of mail do you rip open, if only out of curiosity? It's from that nice, friendly salesperson at "Green Acres" thanking you for stopping in and reminding you to check the mail soon for the information you requested. Wow! You visited eight communities, you received one or two form letters and this person sat down and wrote a personal note! When was the last time you received a handwritten personal note?
Isn't this the age where we now "e-mail" Aunt Sophie and fax our Christmas letters? Don't you love getting a letter? I do. I don't like the "pretend" personalization from the computer program that puts your name in script font to "look" handwritten. Come on; why not outsource this task to others? Seniors are a great source for personalized follow up notes. The ones we employ have beautiful handwriting, are happy to be busy and are reliable and dependable. While doing this personalized note to prospective buyers, why not go one more level and prepare a personal note for the kids! Think of the excitement when children receive mail! Mine goes nuts! Bright envelopes, stickers, the works! When you send information to the kids, their parents won't soon forget your name!
If you were asking questions during the discovery zone, you are prepared with information on the family - their hobbies, interests, and etc. so you can send the children things that interest them. When I worked in the relocation department of a large Orlando real estate office, one family bought a home from an agent due to her consistent, tenacious, focused follow-up. Every week something was mailed both to the parents and each child. The mailings to the children need to be age appropriate. For example, younger kids have interests in scouting, dance, gymnastics; older kids are interested in concerts, shopping, sports, etc. Find out by asking!!!
Next, you can send a personal note to your new homeowners, congratulating them on their new home (with your nice "move-in" gift) and asking for any friend of theirs that you might contact. When they send you a referral, send them another personal note with a lottery ticket. "Thanks a million for referring me to Mr. And Mrs. Smith."
You're on a roll now. Send a personal note to the realtor who stopped in with a prospective buyer this week. There's so many other people waiting to hear from you -
- The five people you met at the Chamber of Commerce breakfast
- All your venders (referral sources)
- Local apartment managers
- Prospects who bought elsewhere! (They'll really be surprised!)
The list goes on.
Challenge yourself to send five personal notes each day. Remember the rules - they must be handwritten (you can delegate this), have a pretty unusual stamp, and a non-identifiable return address (get them curious!)
You can organize all this with your favorite contact management program (I use ACT 4.0 which has a built in alarm reminder system). Remember your mom getting on you to write all those blank thank yous for your birthday and holiday gifts? Thanks, Mom! It has made all the difference in our sales careers!
Melinda Brody, MIRM has been inspiring and evaluating salespeople for almost two decades. She offers sales seminars, keynotes and video mystery shopping services for builders across North America.
