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!