The Power of Handwritten Notes

Last Spring I had dinner at the Barracuda Restaurant in St Julians harbor, Malta with about 25 customers, most of them Vice Presidents and CEOs. One of them was the Chairman of his company and a man that I had always wanted to meet and understand better. He was someone with whom I wanted to establish a relationship which would open more doors in the company enabling my team to better understand the strategy, establish needs, and ultimately propose a solution leading to a sale. Of course, this would also benefit the customer so it would be a Win-Win in the purest form.

We had a good chat over dinner. When we finished an espresso, he asked me to call him in a few weeks and we could fix a date for a proper call on his company.

Competition: There are no less then six companies that day were also trying to get a meeting and spend some time with this gentleman.

As soon as I returned to the office, I took out one of my simple but elegant white note cards with matching envelope. Our logo is subtly embossed on the card. I took out a nice pen and hand wrote this man a short simple note about our meeting and how I was looking forward to visiting him soon. I folded it over, slipped in my card, and gave it to my assistant to address and post.

Two weeks later, as we had agreed, I phoned him. His assistant answered and I told her my name and my company and asked if I could speak with the Chairman. Usually, when a salesman calls and gets the assistant, the reply is “I am sorry, could you repeat your name please? How do you spell the surname please? Thank you. What is the name of your firm again?”

But this time it was much different. She said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Aliment. I saw your note and your card on his credenza. He has kept it sitting there for a fortnight (laughter). Just one minute, let me put you through.”

Never underestimate the power of a simple hand written note. Why is it powerful? It is powerful mostly because very few sales professionals, or people period, do it anymore. We live in the email world now but email won’t cut it. Email is common. A hand written note is unique. It says I cared enough about you and your company to make an extra effort. The same extra effort I will put into our business relationship. I will look after the details. Meeting you, dear customer, made an impression on me. You are important.

Chairman, vice presidents, politicians, important people from all walks of life are overloaded with email and email has a short half-life if it has any life at all. It’s too easy to scan it, hit delete and poof, it’s gone for ever. A hand written note however always gets read, the business card gets filed, and maybe added to his or her address book. Never mind that you handed your customer a business card in person, that one, and the other 20 business cards he received was binned, that night or the next day.

Handwritten notes are powerful in business and in your personal relationships. They are a great selling tool. Why don’t more sales people do it?

The amateur salesman says “I know I should but I don’t have any note cards and it would take too long to order them let alone write them. By the time I had them designed and printed, it would be too late.”

The professional salesman has the cards printed, right in his desk and ready to go. Maybe he even carries a few in his briefcase to hasten the follow up. I am telling you, it’s one of those little things that mean a lot. Try it and see the difference.

Good selling!

Sales Campaigns Require Perpetual “Grip”

I have been reading Tony Blair’s book, A Journey. In the chapter on reaching peace in Northern Ireland, he gives a master class on conflict resolution. While a sales campaign is not a conflict per se, there are many parallels.

Blair’s quote goes like this: “…to proceed to resolution, the thing (the problem or conflict) needs to be gripped and focused on. Continually. Inexhaustibly. Relentlessly. Day by day by day by day. If the gripping is intermittent, intermittent won't do. It doesn't work. If it (is) gripped, it (will) be solved.”

What Blair is saying is that solving a complex problem requires focus and full time attention. In a major sale, a sales team is solving a problem for the customer (which is hard enough) but there are also multiple competitors trying to do you in along the way! Each of them had a different solution/product to sell. You have to out hustle the competition.

To win, a perpetual grip and full attention to detail is required. Here are some examples of GRIP.

• Spend time in many departments. Learn the account inside and out. Know the customer better then they know themselves
• Get to know the key people personally. Be their best friend and the one they want to spend time with …be part of the family. Make sure they are always happy to see you.
• “Hang around their in-box” when you can’t be physically present
• Put out any embers before they become raging brush fires (this is usually an arson job by one of your friendly competitors).
• Give much more then they expect…in everything you do for them
• If you are not there, your competition is! Monopolize their time, box-out the competition, but create value for the customer when you do.
• Remember birthdays, anniversaries, name days, etc. Amaze them with your memory for their personal details.

We had a Sales VP at Boeing, a legendary salesman named Larry Dickenson. Larry was a veteran of the Asian airplane wars, and was largely responsible for persuading Japan Airlines Corp. and All Nippon Airways Co. build their fleets around the 787, 777, and 737 airplanes. He was one guy that could play hardball with John Leahy and usually win. Larry was a quote machine and he used to tell us one thing that really stuck with me. “Overwhelm the competition”. Sound advice. Grip the campaign and never let go!

By the way, here are all the Tony Blair’s tips.

1. Find the core principles around which agreement and a framework can be built
2. Never loosen your GRIP
3. Don’t treat as small what is important to others (‘small things can be big things’)
4. Be creative
5. Conflict needs outside helpers
6. Conflict is a journey not an event
7. Disruptions are inevitable from those who see benefits in maintaining the conflict
8. Leaders matter but leadership can be tough and lonely
9. Success requires external conditions to favour peace
10. Never give up.


I like that last one!

Good selling!