“When you care enough to send the very best…” Actually, in my opinion, most Hallmark greetings are downright cheesy. I’ve received my ration of cheese over the years during Christmas and New Years. How ’bout you.

Most companies order from a catalog of stock cards, and have their names imprinted with a watered down “holidays” message. It is nice, however, when someone or the whole office signs the card by hand. That one personal touch is enough to touch me with some warmth.

This year, two holiday greetings stood out from the crowded incoming mail. One of my clients sent a Thanksgiving card with an absolutely beautiful art print image, suitable for framing. In it were 11 unique hand signatures of real people.

And then I was blown away by a gift that my media partner sent me. First off, these folks are on the West Coast and we only communicate electronically. Secondly, this newsletter is one of many around the country they place ads in for their clients. By the way, thank you for clicking on the ads! Finally, They go out of their way to manually email me ad snippets and take the time to build a relationship with me in their weekly messages. They know something about me because they take the time to engage me and communicate in ways that are uniquely personal.

This shout out to LaunchBit has a clear business lesson. Hard work and adding real value to a relationship is still the only way to grow in business. It’s hard work to sit down, think about each person among hundreds of individuals with whom you deal and hand write a unique message to them along with a thoughtful (and delicious) gift. In this case, slight flaws in the hand writing and the scribble corrections in the message are just the kicker. Kaitlin’s personalized greetingcard message inside a hand addressed envelope along with a bag of some amazing gourmet cookies got me thinking that nothing is valuable without real effort behind it.

Putting effort – hard work – into your product and service delivery as well as your special communiques with customers & associates means real value and real money. This principle extends to content marketing (inbound marketing) in a huge way.

Adding value to the Internet with original, relevant and valuable content is rewarded by the search engines as well as those who consume that content. There will be more important information about this leading edge SEO/Internet marketing concept in the coming weeks. Thanks for your valuable time!

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The day before a recent holiday which many love to celebrate, I wanted to ordersomething nice for my wife so I called the store of one of my networking contacts. This store owner and I had developed a typically nice networking relationship. One of the topics we’ve talked about is email marketing, something she knows I do for clients. Early in the day of my call I got an e-blast from her business and it made me pick up the phone to order from her.

I knew the store would be busy just before this holiday and I was doing what new customers do. Call ahead, ask about options and place an order for pick up. I asked for my contact by name and the person who answered was a bit stiff and guarded asking “Is she expecting your call?” My answer was no. “Hold on a minute.”

The owner got on the phone and I stated who I was. “Oh, hi Chuck.” Her tone was rushed. I said. “Hey, like we talked about before, email marketing works! I got your e-blast this morning and it prompted me to call.” Then she said, “Chuck, it’s the day before Valentines Day! We are super busy here! Can you call back another time?” I knew at that point she assumed I was making a sales call to her. I followed with, “Yes it is and I need to order a bouquet for my wife.” Then, realizing I was a customer instead of a salesman the conversation turned to business, became more friendly and there was a happy ending. I bought a couple of nice things for my wife – more than what I set out to buy – and felt good about patronizing a networking contact’s business. But I didn’t forget about the initially cool response to my call.

This experience stuck with me because there’s a pointed lesson here. Treat everyone, including sales reps, with kindness and respect.

Did you know that people who sell for a living buy a lot of stuff just like anyone else? Most business owners are the top salespeople for their firms. And did you know that many sales professionals are excellent referral sources for their prospects as well as their customers?

Most professional salespeople are respectful of their prospects’ time and avoid wasting it. Treat them like the fellow professionals they are. Avoid the assumption they’re always looking to clean out your wallet or waste your time. They might just be your next new customer. They might even refer the biggest sale you ever made – to you!

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