Je veux une note!
Translation: Why don't I ever hear from you? I want a note!
Someone needs to explain to me why it has apparently become socially acceptable to ignore writing handwritten notes to friends, clients, thoughtful people, and those who have done something special for you.
Years ago, when I decided I was going to open a real estate office, from Galveston I phoned Ebby Halliday to ask for her advice. Why Ebby Halliday? I had known her since my college days (Note: I was a student and she had already been in business for twenty years), and had long concluded that any woman who could kick the socks off of the almost all-male competition in a big town like Dallas, when women were not yet liberalized, had to know all of the answers to all of the questions.
Realtor Ebby Halliday at 96-Years
Miss Ebby told me that she would help me get my business off of the ground. And it was in a town where for many years no new real estate agency had been able to keep its doors open for more than a year or so. She said, "You follow my lead, and you'll soon be Number 1."
The first thing she told me was to handwrite notes, at least ten of them every day. Thank someone for their kindness to you, tell someone you enjoyed reading about them in the paper, attach an article from a magazine that you know a particular person will be interested in, and send it along with a handwritten note.
I've been doing that for more than forty years. And ironically, I had already learned that lesson from my mom and dad when I was growing up. It was one of the rules of etiquette they taught me. Just like which fork to use, how to shake hands...you know.
Miss Ebby, on the other hand, has been doing it for at least 70 years, probably more, because she has passed her 96th birthday. And still, everyday, she handwrites her notes. I get at least one a month from her. Always a compliment because frankly we admire each other.
So tell me how it is alright for you to do something thoughtful for someone, and you never hear from them? How is it that some think a jotted email is on the same social plane as a handwritten thank you note, put in an envelope with a stamp on it, and then put in the mailbox? How can they say they don't have the time to do it when a 96-year old lady has built the 8th largest sole proprietorship real estate company in the United States, with annual sales of $4.7 billion, and she finds time to do it?
So I know you want to know if Miss Ebby's advice worked....did we get to be Number 1? Yup, the first year and we stayed there, and even though I later sold the company, I hear it's still Number 1.
Commencer ainsi à envoyer les notes manuscrites à vos clients et amis, si vous svp!
Meet me on the web at www.billcherrybroker.com
Every now and then I think about a friend or even someone I don't know because I've come across an old picture of them, or something I think they'd like to have. I feel so good about sending it, thinking how they are going to be pleasantly surprised to get it.
And then weeks go by and I never hear from them. Sometimes I see them at a meeting or in the grocery store, and they don't say a word about the gift or the note. Did they even get it, I wonder?
Makes me crazy.
Thanks for your thoughts. Glad at least two of us are on the same wave length.
BILL CHERRY
I received wonderful response from 20 selected handwritten postcards in March. 20% of the recipients bought or listed real estate since the mailing. I love handwriting a quick card or note to associates and clients alike. Get personal...
G.
Renate, Glenda, Ashley and June --
Thanks for your responses. And I'm very glad they were so positive.
I've made more money from personal handwritten notes, a regular monthly newsletter that I write myself and calls on my yard signs than from any other form of advertising and networking. And I've tried it all.
Most recently, I got a handwritten note back from a guy I had written telling him I thought he had done a good job as our neighborhood association president. What did he say? He said he was so surprised to get a note like that, that he wanted to respond the same way. "It's a lost art," he said.
BILL CHERRY, BROKER-REALTOR. MY43RD YEAR SELLING TEXAS. 972 380-7347
Meet me on the web at www.billcherrybroker.com.
Merci beaucoup, Bill. Vous ete un homme tres sage.
I will make a point of continuing my habit of handwriting little notes to my clients, and now, because of you, extending that sphere of note receivers beyond past clients.
Wonderful post.
Jo
Thanks Deb and Jo. And loved that Jo said in French, "You are a very wise man." I'm going to print out her comment and show it to Patty the next time she's busy telling me I don't know my butt from first base about something. (Always nice to have third party testimonial on your side in a disagreement.)
Bill
Bill,
I raised my children the way I way raised. You know...there are no Sunday manners, there are everyday manners. Yes, mam, no sir. I taught my son and daughter to stand up when an adult entered the room, my son to hold the door for a woman, and her chair. I taught them that thank you notes should always be sent (this was before the internet, thank God), and what proper dress is. I guess I wouldn't be so concerned if it were just hand written Thank you notes, but it seems that all of the graciousness has been burned out of our society. For example, to this day my son won't wear his hat in the house. In the summer no matter how hot it is he wears a shirt (not T) to the dinner table.
So, to answer your question, it falls back to the parents and what they teach their children, what they reinforce and what is important to them as adults.