When have you received a handwritten card in the mail?
I don’t know about you, but I love getting physical mail. I always have, I had pen pals in school and when I lived overseas in Germany, I would send lots of postcards back and forth between friends. (BTW, I dare you to read old postcards from the past, they are usually quite entertaining).
It dawned on me about 4 years ago that I would make an impact by sending handwritten thank you cards to folks who help connect me to resources for my business. My business coach at the time agreed that it’s an easy way to stand out and make an impact. A colleague of many years - Alice Tang, told me years ago that one of her best networking tools was handwritten cards. She focused on sending a certain amount of handwritten cards each week. Alice found that it helped her connect to people in her community in a more personal way.
As I began to write cards to folks, I realized that I didn’t have a way to track it. After some research and decision making, I settled on a CRM called “Less Annoying” - it’s simple enough to track activity with folks and capture someone’s address and more.
I began branching out and sending cards after meeting someone to highlight something in our conversation and extend my appreciation of our meetup. I find that this type of connection does extend a lot of meaning to someone as well. Especially, if you send someone a card who rarely gets anything but junk mail or bills in the mail - or lives in a different country and mail from the US is rare!
The secret to handwriting cards is this (and no, you don’t have to have nice handwriting, ask my daughter and she will tell you that my handwriting is very messy!)
The secret is having cards you like to send! I like finding unique cards that reflect me and have a nice heavy cardstock, sometimes they are of nature or are funny. The best places to find cards like these are your local gift shops, Etsy, or start and grab cards at your local CVS or Walgreens (more generic, but it’s a start).
Another trick is having stamps - I buy them in bulk off of Amazon cause I don’t like standing in line at the post office (even my local UPS store ran out of stamps!).
Having stamps and cards are great but then you need people’s addresses -right? Well I simply ask them and share with folks that I only send good mail (Which I do!) so that’s one option.
I also got a tip from John Ruhlin (who wrote Giftology) - he's huge on handwritten notes. John will ask people for the address because he wants to send them a book (a great gift - learn more about gift giving). John said that he likes doing this because most folks are excited to get a surprise book and you have 1 year to send it or so. Bottom line, don’t let getting someone’s address stop you from sending a handwritten card.
Are you sending handwritten cards? Or are you thinking about it and not taking action? Email me and let me know (I’m here to encourage you not judge you!)