Profits in Progress

Tips And Tidbits
Issue 48 - January 2008

Welcome!

Make 2008 Your Best Year Ever! Communicate, connect and change your world with handwritten notes.

-       Note-work Your Way into Your Customer's Hearts

-      NetSpeed Leadership

- Get Personal and Write More in 2008

- Enable USA and Valentine's Day

Have you Note-worked today?

Vanessa Lowry
678-521-8820
Profits In Progress

 

Note-work Your Way to Success...
and Into Your Customer's Hearts
As usual, I'm out and about preaching the good word of the handwritten note. Here's two more spottings:

Jim Hogan of Opteum Mortgage and author of the Loan Source blog posted a video where he and I discuss the Note-Working Success System.

I was also a recent guest on an online show called "Uniqueness is Power" with hosts Andy Greider and Lee Kantor. It's a marketing, business growth solutions show, centered on the idea that businesses can thrive and expand if they are given fresh ideas of how to market themselves, and shown ways to save bottom line cash each month. Click on the POD graphic by the headline and Listen to the show.

Who do you appreciate?
NetSpeed Fast Tracks is a searchable database of practical resources that help you and your team to manage your day-to-day workplace challenges and your career, and become more successful at work. Building Customer Loyalty is a favorite PodSpot of mine. It gives tips on how to show your customers that you appreciate them. What's a PodSpot, you say? PodSpots are short audio clips (1-3 minutes long) that you can listen to on your computer or download to your iPod or mp3 player for audio playback anyplace, anytime. (NetSpeed Fast Tracks produce their PodSpots using animated avatar characters - a cool visual reinforcement to the audio message!)

Get personal to draw back customers

Houston Chronicle columnist Ron Consolino recently dished out some advice in his article with the title above. Here's the excerpt I really, really liked:

"Write thank-you notes once a job is done. Handwritten notes stand out from the crowd. Just letting customers know you appreciate their business is good etiquette that can pay off."

Resolve to write more, write soon

Harris Blackwood, community editor of the Gainesville Times, is a person who writes for a living. Yet on December 30, 2007 he dedicated his column to resolving to write even more. Yep, he's talking about the handwritten note. Here's an excerpt:

ŠBut there is something about getting real mail, which the technology crowd calls snail mail.
In the center drawer of my desk is a collection of cards, letters and notes from people who have taken the time to pull out a pen and paper and write me. The penmanship ranges from a scrawl to really nice cursive letters. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that someone would invest the time to compile their thoughts the way we learned to do it as children.
On top of that, the sender invested 41 cents to send it to me. Granted, 41 cents doesn't buy much these days, but it will get a card or letter from one end of this great nation to the other.
I'm guilty of not writing enough. I've never had great handwriting. I struggled in first grade with a Husky pencil and a Blue Horse tablet.
The teacher had a gizmo that held three pieces of chalk and she would create lines on the blackboard, just like the tablet.
We would always write, "Today is..." with a little line about the weather.
It took me a little while to stay in the lines, just as it did when I got my first coloring book.
I eventually mastered, or at least reached a satisfactory level, the basics of putting pencil to paper.
I've earned a living for most of my life with a bushel basket full of words.
I try to learn new ones fairly often. This year, I learned "Apalachicola," the river into which the Chattahoochee flows at the Florida line. I knew it before, I just didn't write it very much.
I hope that I don't have to write either Chattahoochee or Apalachicola as much in 2008.
So, I know a few words and a lot of people. I have all the ingredients I need to write more. I'll pull out a few of my favorite words like "thank you," and "you are important to me." Folks just don't read those enough. Write soon.

My Valentine recommendation to you Help children by purchasing Valentine cards from Enable USA. Proceeds fund the operation to provide education, housing and jobs for children in Colombia, South America who have escaped the militia. Each of us can help by visiting the Enable USA website and purchasing cards or the other paper art these children have created. The card shown here is just one example of the art available.

Health Tip:

Get your head on straight. Perhaps you are in need of some physical adjustments. Visit this YouTube video about Atlas Orthogonal chiropractic adjustment.

Quote of the Month
"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. "
~ Franklin P. Jones

 

Thank you for letting us into your mailbox. Help a friend or associate make stronger personal connections and increase sales, "REFER A FRIEND."

 

 

300 Colonial Center Parkway, Suite 100 * Roswell, GA 30076
678-521-8820

vlowry@profitsinprogress.com

www.profitsinprogress.com