Hey. It’s Bob Negen, and I’m coming to you from Spring Lake, Michigan. And today, we’re going to explore a an inexpensive, easy to execute, highly effective, old school marketing tactic.

So yesterday, I got an email from Frank Mishler. Frank owns Mishler’s florist in Westville, New York. It’s, near Buffalo. And here’s what he said in the email. He said, Bob, about ten years ago, you suggested writing letters ten years and fifteen thousand letters later. This is the result. And he, there was a link that went to an article that was basically that mirrored the the the television story that was written about Frank writing letters.

So Frank estimates that he has written five to ten letters every single day, and he thinks about it. And there’s three he’s open three hundred days a year, and he’s been doing this for ten years.

So he figures that he has written between fifteen and twenty thousand letters over the last ten years. So what he shared was that the impact of these notes goes way, way, way beyond a simple courtesy. You see, if you’ve been following if you’ve been part of our community for any amount of time, you know that I’m constantly talking about this idea of givers get the rule of reciprocity, you know, give to get. And when you send a handwritten note to someone, you are giving them the gift of gratitude, which activates the rule of reciprocity, which turns into loyalty, and loyalty turns into more transactions.

And, Frank is in an incredibly unloyal industry.

The floral business, you know, there are so many opportunities. All you have to do is go online, and there are a a plethora of options for you. So local independent florists need to do what they can to keep the customers that they get. And so what Frank has said is that he has customers in all fifty states. And let me read to you what a couple of people who are part of this story said. So let’s see here.

I’m sorry. Here we go. So Richard and Don Kanazi experienced this firsthand when Richard sent Dawn flowers in November. They smelled so good.

They looked so good, Dawn said. And then days later, Richard received a personal thank you note from Frank. And what Kanazi said was, I’ve never had this happen before. His business means a lot more to me now personally because he went out of his way to say, look, thanks for using us.

And here’s something else. I really love this. Carrie Giganak. I’m probably saying Terry’s name wrong, but she lives in Connecticut and she got some flowers and was so moved by the thank you note that she saved it in her Bible.

I felt appreciated it, appreciated it, appreciated, and it was just a joy. I think it’s one of the smartest business moves that you can make no matter what. And I’m gonna look at you and say it is one of the smartest business moves you can make no matter what. When you get a new customer, when somebody joins your loyalty program, if you can get their physical address and send them a thank you note, that gesture is so out of the ordinary. You know, my friend and mentor Randy Gage says, when it comes to marketing, when the world zigs, zag.

The world is becoming more and more digital. So when you do something analog, it stands out.

At the Mackinac Kite Company, it was a nonnegotiable standard that every single team member wrote three handwritten postcards to any customers they want, but it had to be three per shift. And then as they were done, they put their we had a recipe box with a section for every day. And when they were done with their shift, they put their postcards in that day. At the end of the day, we we ensured that everybody did indeed write their postcards, and we sent them out. Now Mackinac City is a tourist town, a seasonal tourist town, and it’s not like there’s a local business. It’s not like you’re generally getting six or seven transactions a day. It’s usually one or two transactions every couple of years.

But we grew that biz business significantly.

And a lot of it, I attribute to the fact that customers came in. They went back to Ohio, Canada, California, wherever they came back to wherever they went back to and got this note. And the next time they came to Mackinac City, they had to stop in. The rule of reciprocity givers get was kicked in. It’s that extra gesture that makes an enormous amount of difference.

So I’m going to suggest to you that you think about that. You consider making it a nonnegotiable standard that whenever it is possible that you send a handwritten postcard or a thank you note. If you get new customers into your loyalty program, do what you can to get their physical address so you can do this, so you can send something to them, so you can put the rule of reciprocity into action.

Let’s back it up one step here. There’s only three ways to grow your business. Get new customers, build the average transaction, and get more transactions per customer.

More transactions per customer is where the big long term money resides.

And everything and anything you can do to engender loyalty, to stand out to such an extent that people come back to you because they feel a particular way about you is good business. So if you want to build your business to the place where you’re drinking cocktails out of coconuts on a tropical transaction.

And the best gesture you can do after the first transaction is to give them a handwritten note or card.

So there it is. You can make a lot more money if you choose to do this simple thing. So if you want more great tactics that you can use to build your business and if you want to have the very, very best fourth quarter ever, I am going to do a brilliance live next Tuesday, August twenty sixth at noon. And we’re gonna be talking about the holidays.

We’re gonna talk about the holiday power trio, people, products, and promotions. So if you’re interested in having the best holiday season ever this year, I’m going to encourage you to be there. Again, August twenty sixth at noon, your hot brilliant holiday trio people, products, promotions, be there. I guarantee it’s gonna be worth your time.