Whenever you send a written communication, whether by regular mail or e-mail, your writing style will be on full view, warts and all. These mistakes reflect on you, so make a point of carefully reviewing everything you write, even informal notes.
Want to impress someone? Send them a note, in the mail, handwritten, on nice stationery. They’ll be impressed. They’ll remember you. And they’ll think, “What a nice guy.”
People often ask me, “Why should I write a note? Why not send an e-mail?” The answer is easy. If it’s a choice between writing an e-mail or doing nothing, write the e-mail. But if the choice is whether to send a handwritten note or an e-mail, then the handwritten note may just be the ticket.
Think of it this way: With an e-mail, you type it, press Send, hope the e-mail makes it through any spam blockers, and then hope the recipient is interested enough by the subject line to actually read it. Once read, she closes it and hits the Delete button.
With the handwritten note, after it is written, you place it in an envelope, address it, put a stamp on it, and mail it. When the note arrives, the recipient invariably opens it. (Have you ever received a personal letter and not opened it?) Once read, it is placed on a tabletop, desk, or counter, or posted on a bulletin board or on your refrigerator with a magnet. It is seen again and again and each time it is seen, the recipient thinks of you.
Now, would you rather be deleted or remembered?
Send the note.
Thank-you Notes
- When you receive and open a gift without the giver being present, send a note.
- In fact, even if the giver is present and you thank her, send a note anyway. She’ll really be impressed.
- When you stay at someone’s house overnight, send a thank-you note.
- When you go to someone’s house for dinner, send a thank-you note.
Congratulations
Send a note saying congratulations for graduating or on a promotion or new job, or when a new addition to the family has arrived or a special anniversary or birthday is being celebrated.
Bereavement
One of the hardest notes to send and one of the most appreciated notes to receive is the bereavement note. We all experience the loss of a loved one or close friend and when we do it is devastating. The notes of sympathy and remembrance are a catalyst to helping get through the pain of the loss. It seems like such a small thing from the perspective of the sender. But for the recipient those notes are a powerful comfort to help deal with the loss.
What to Say
It’s easy. When writing a thank-you note, keep it short and sweet. Just three to five sentences is all you need.
Dear Kathy and Wendell,
What a great weekend! The party Saturday night couldn’t have been better, and I enjoyed meeting all your new friends in Seattle. Hope we can get together again soon.
Thanks for making my visit such a pleasure.
Tom
Maximum time to write: ten minutes. Maximum benefit to you: incalculable.
One of the hardest parts of handwritten and personal correspondence is having the appropriate materials on hand when you need them. So, put the book down, and make tracks for your local stationery store. They’ll help you select a set of stationery or you can order stationery in any one of a number of designs with your personal information printed on it. Items to include in your stationery drawer include the following:
NOTE CARDS. Either a flat correspondence card or a folded note with accompanying envelopes.
LETTER SHEETS. Smaller than the full 8½ x 11-inch paper, use it for longer personal letters and thank-you, congratulatory, or bereavement notes.
CALLING CARDS. Like a business card, a calling card provides essential contact information. In this case, it’s your personal calling card. Include only the information that you want to give out, such as your name, home e-mail address, and phone number(s). You can also include items like a Facebook page or Twitter account address. For security, don’t add your home address; you can always write it on the back of the card if you want someone to have that information.
E-mails are public documents. Period. The absolute bottom line: If you can’t post it on a bulletin board, then don’t send it.
Speed Kills
The speed we love about e-mail is also an insidious danger.
Here’s the situation: You receive a nasty e-mail. Hopping mad, you decide to respond immediately. The words flow quickly, until finally you hit that last exclamation mark and, with great satisfaction, punch the Send button.
“That’ll show him,” you think to yourself. Five minutes later, feeling much calmer now, you reread your sent mail—and realize that it was way over the top. Unfortunately, there is no reliable way to retrieve it. Once you hit that Send button, your missile rockets out of your server and can never be recalled.
The problem with any immediate response is that it invariably will be much more about your anger than about solving the problem at hand. When penning any sort of message, take your time.
Be Careful of the Subject Line
We spend so much time getting the body of an e-mail perfect, and then we quickly fill in the subject line and send it without realizing there’s a misspelling or trigger word that will cause a spam blocker to prevent the recipient from receiving it. Take the same care with the subject line as you do with the e-mail itself.
And while you’re at it, double check to whom the e-mail is going. E-mail programs like to help you address e-mails. Start typing a name and the program instantly assumes you mean whoever you sent to last with that name is who you want to send to now. You start typing S, a, r and up pops Sara@isp.com. The only problem is you wanted to send it to Sarah@email.com but you don’t notice the slipup. You hit Send and off goes the e-mail to the wrong person. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, but in this case Sara is your new girlfriend, and Sarah is the girl you just dumped.
Proofread Grammar, Word Choice, Spelling
Typos, misspellings, grammatical errors—they all stand out and make you look sloppy.
Be Conscious of Your Tone
Tone of voice is not only something that is heard (see Chapter 7, In-Person Communication), it also is evident in your writing. You can hear what you sound like in your writing. Take your e-mail or note into an empty room and close the door. Then stand up and read what you have written out loud. You’ll hear if you sound friendly or frustrated, calm or angry. If the tone isn’t what you want, then you’ll need to do some editing. If you’re still not sure, have a friend or significant other read it out loud. I often take an e-mail I’ve composed and have a colleague read it just to make sure my tone won’t be misinterpreted by the recipient.
Be Careful About Emoticons and Textspeak
Abbreviations and textspeak are great forms of shorthand. They can make communications like tweets or text messages easier to compose. But if the recipient can’t decode them, then using them was useless.
b4 = before
lol = laughing out loud
cul8r = see you later
404 = I haven’t a clue
swmbo = she who must be obeyed
Emoticons are used to make sure a recipient understands the tone you meant. A happy face or a sad face are most commonly used. The happy face at the end of a sentence says, “Just joking,” in case you mistook the meaning; don’t be offended because no offense was intended. With close friends, a happy face or other emoticon can be understood. But to someone you don’t know well, it’s better to rephrase what you said so it can’t be misunderstood than to have to provide an emoticon to explain your meaning.
Formal vs. Friendly
With good friends and family, a friendly form of address is expected: Aunt Jane, Uncle Bill, Tom, Sally, Mom, Dad. But if you’re writing to someone for the first time, then even in an e-mail, defer to the formal: title and last name: Mr. Smith, Ms. Jones, Dr. Dempsey.
Salutations
Salutations are the opening of an e-mail or letter: Dear Tom, Hello everybody, Cindy and John. You should start any e-mail, note, or letter with a salutation. In an e-mail stream, the first time you reply, you should include a salutation, but after that it’s okay to drop it. Think of it as a conversation. Once you’ve acknowledged the person with their name, you don’t need to keep repeating it every time you respond.
TEXTING: DANGER, DANGER, DANGER
Somehow we seem to think we are safe behind the electronic brick wall. We can text whatever we want, and we’re safe. Dump a girlfriend? Easy, I’ll just text her.
In-person communicating puts you squarely on the line, so it can be difficult to do at times. Texting seems like such an easy out. But the fact is, when difficult news needs to be delivered, doing it in person is the most respectful way. With a text, the hurt is doubled because you didn’t even have the common decency to talk to the person face-to-face.
Save texting for factual, positive messages.