How often do we remember to say, thank you?
- A thank you to a member of your staff for doing a great job!
- Thank you to a referral source.
- Thank you to customers.
- Thank you to a fellow balloon artist who shares a design, techniques or photograph on a socail media group?
Those two “magic words” can say a lot about you and your business!
Let's begin with staff. Think back, the times when you were an employee that you felt under-appreciated?
Never underestimate the value of saying "thank you", it goes a huge way towards employee motivation and job satisfaction. Just make sure that you are consistent and fair with your rewards, recognition, and praise, or it may have a de-motivating effect on your staff.
Don't forget to pass on customer gratitude, let the whole team know when a customer sends in a thank you note or express's their gratitude to you of a job well done.
Do you work with hotels and venues on a referral system? I know that when I ran my balloon decorating business, I was regularly given referrals for wedding work at a local venue. We should never get complacent, their recommendation is worth so much to our businesses. So, I recommend, that whenever a referral source sends you a client or a potential job, send them a thank-you note.
What will the result be? At the very least, the referral source will be impressed. You will stand out from the other businesses whose manners are not as nice as yours. You may even get a thank you for your thank you. And, you will be remembered, so the next time the referral source needs to make a recommendation, he or she will think of you!
Whilst we are talking about thank you notes, timing is of the essence if left too long they can lose all the impact and meaning, and do not forget that there is nothing quite like good old-fashioned pen and paper, so easy to send and yet so powerful!
Now let's look at thanking our customers, we can do this every day! If we have an online business, we can thank our customers for their orders and if we have a shop or store, thank them for shopping with us today! We may even want to extend our thanks a little further. For example, if we decorate a wedding you may want to leave a small gift such as a 'fantasy flower' using the wedding balloons to make the flower or a small 4" Microfoil Heart beautifully gift wrapped, with a little hand-written note congratulating the newly married couple and thanking them for choosing your balloon company to decorate their very special day! Don't forget that one of your best referral sources are your customers... the power of word of mouth recommendations are huge!
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| Gift wrapped 4" Hearts |
We have the perfect product to say thank you with. Balloons are memorable, and will always make people smile! Maybe your local paper has written a great feature on you, or you did a great corporate job and you want to say thank you!
How about sending a 'Smile in a Box', what better way to be remembered and to say thank you!
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| "Smile in a Box" |
How about this fun way to send a thank you note! I recemtly found a great App called Touchnote. It is a UK based application, but I expect that there are other applications worldwide that would work for you. Simply take a photograph of the event that you have just decorated and send that picture as a postcard to your client with a thank you note from you on the postcard!
And let us not forget our families and friends who support us greatly each and every day!
So, let's try and use those two amazing words more often, you will be surprised at how effective they are in so many ways!
Happy Ballooning!
Happy Ballooning!
Sue