Business Networking | No. 7

The Extra Mile

I have a wonderful capacity to recognize good advice. It’s the implementation that throws me. In this week's 29% Solution, we learn about going the extra mile by doing something simple: sending a thank you card! Sending cards presents tremendous value in our highly digital world. It shows that we care to do more than just what’s necessary, and it gives us an opportunity to inject some creativity into our customer relationships.

Fortunately, there are services available that can help us create personalized thank you cards while taking some of the hassle out of the process. The bottom line is to make this about the person you’re sending to, whether it’s a client, referral source, or whoever else you’re inspired to thank. Do it in a way that’s “true you.” But don’t send your business card, this is not a sales pitch! And it doesn’t have to be a thank you card, for that matter. Any gesture of appreciation fits the bill.

Another area that often shoots the stress meter up to 11 is follow up. We get so distracted and entangled in our day to day business, but if we ignore follow up, we do so at our own peril. In my early days in tech, I was shocked to hear from new clients that I was the only one who called them back. Why wouldn’t you call the client back, even if they’re not a good fit? They took the trouble to call, why not call back and thank them? As business owners, we are expected to provide excellent follow up. Do what we say we’re going to do, when we say we’re going to do it. Under promise, over deliver. But I’m getting ahead of myself! We’ll be talking about follow up in a couple of weeks. For now, it’s thank you cards, and just pretend you didn’t read the part about follow up ; )