I had blogged about the fact that my Mom insisted that I write thank you notes, and how those handwritten notes still made a huge difference in my life.

Then, I received an unexpected one myself from a great salesperson. I had raced into St. John’s (who sell beautiful knitted suits) and asked the salesman if he could find me a black skirt quick! I was leaving for Rhode Island to speak at the Travel Learning Conference, and somehow, I didn’t have the skirt that went with my favorite St. John jacket.

He went to the back and found two, and one was a size too small. He told me to try it on anyway, and it could always be blocked a size larger. It did fit, and I bought it and ran out the door, in time to make my flight.

Then I received this beautiful handwritten note from my savior, Armando.

You know I’m headed back there to see what he has for Spring. How great is that? A handwritten thank you note from someone who saved the day for me?

My Grandmother, Mammy, used to take months to painstakingly knit ghastly itchy sweaters and send them to my sister, Margo, and me for the holidays. Scarves, too.

At least Margo’s were in semi-pleasant colors but mine were usually green. Mammy knew that Emerald was my birth month’s color and she didn’t take into account that I looked like a turtle in that color.

Mom had a rule: you must write a thank you note within the week. I’d wrack my little brains and come up with something pathetic like: Dear Mammy, Thank you for the nice sweater. Love, Lois.

Mom put the kibosh on that and sent me back to my desk. Eventually, I’d come up with something half decent, longer anyway:

Dear Mammy, The green sweater is very warm and will come in handy this year as the winds are howling here in Long Beach. Thank you for knitting it for me, and spending all that time to make me a nice sweater like this one. Love, Lois

Mom smiled. She was right, of course. It didn’t matter that I looked like a red eared tortoise in the sweater; I had to show my gratitude.

The idea holds in business too. When I spend time now to write notes to clients to thank them for the kind things they say about us, for their business, for a lunch we’ve had together, they appreciate it. Here are some ideas you might want to try:

· Write a hand-written thank you note and be specific about what you appreciated (at the meeting, or the gift, etc).
· An email thank you is nice as long as you also send the written one.
· I also try to remember birthdays. One time I was speaking about this on a podium and a lady raised her hand and said the only birthday card she got that year was from her oil burner man. That was sad. Made a birthday list and be sure to mail all the cards for that month in the beginning of the month.
· Send gifts to people who are important to you. This week I received a wonderful present from a friend in Canada: Red Olympic mittens. I love them, and the best part was that they were unexpected, although it is coldish in Miami these days.

· We’re all so over-booked every day, and so once every few weeks I write out cards “I miss you” so I don’t lose touch with people I care about. You might try that too. It feels good.

My friend Andrea Nierenberg, the Queen of Networking, writes three notes every day. I’ve gotten into the habit myself. You might try it too, and let me know how it works. Also, tell me your ideas here on comments!

What was I, a New Yorker, doing in British Columbia’s Kootenay District?

A year ago I visited a Calgary client who invited me to his family’s country home for the weekend. It’s on the other side of the Rockies.

Hmmm…the other side of the Rockies, I thought?

I was delighted, picturing something like a drive up to the Catskills. Perhaps we’d stop at the local version of the Harriman outlet mall where I could visit old friends like Ralph Lauren, the Gucci family, Mark Cross. Or maybe a cute country store where I could buy knickknacks and the Canadian equivalent of pecan logs to bring home.

Then we drove and drove and nary a billboard.

We started driving west toward the Rockies. No stores. Just before we slammed into a Rocky, we turned south in the sense of interminable south, Rockies on the right and oceans of grass as far as the horizon on the left. Of stores, nary a hint. Of people, only suggestions like smoke from a remote chimney.

Finally we took a right to head west through the Crowsnest Pass, a thin valley, a flaw in the Rockies’ curtain of rock. The main feature here is a gigantic field of humongous boulders left over from a mountain slide a hundred years ago that killed a great many people.

“There’s the mountain,” said my sanguine host, pointing. “Turtle Mountain. They say the rest of it could come down at any time. See those cracks?”

“Why yes, yes I do,” I whispered. “Is this the fastest we can go?” My idea of natural beauty is the Canyon of Heroes on lower Broadway. Somehow we got out of Alberta and into British Columbia, which I had visited many times. Vancouver, BC. Lovely big city. This was not Vancouver. This was pioneer country and I was in a pickup truck with a cord of wood piled in its bed behind me.

Ahh…the great outdoors!

For the next couple of hours, we drove west then north and saw nothing, nada, nicht except a gazillion trees, more mountains, lakes, rivers, deer. Like Central Park on steroids.

Only the whole thing seemed to be on fire. “This will sound silly,” I said, “but aren’t we driving though the middle of a forest fire?”

“Oh, this is nothing,” laughed my host, the lunatic. “You should see it when it really starts to burn.”

“Those deer run away faster, then?” I wondered. “Is that a mountain lion?” Turns out it was a lynx, whatever that is.

No people, no billboards.

Finally, bored to tears, I watched, dubious but cautiously hopeful, as we slowed to pass through a small village (really small) and then came to a log cabin (like Davy Crockett’s only huge and with running water) on Wasa Lake.

It’s beautiful. People fishing, swimming, water skiing, sunbathing, barbecuing, drinking. Mountains everywhere. The whole horizon, all 360 degrees of it, is straight up. Clear blue sky, though, and soft light and there in the lake was a momma duck with all her duckling babies swimming behind her in a neat line, all but one. I called him Jerome.

Over the next few days, I saw Jerome consistently choose his own paths across the water despite occasional admonishing glances from his mother. Somehow he got to where the rest of them were going anyway.

I quietly cheered Jerome on. He was independent, creative and the despair of the duck establishment. How did a New York baby duck wind up way out here?

I always root for the Jeromes, the independent thinkers who do something unique, creative.
Outside the box? What box?

So last week I was speaking to hundreds of travel planners.

I thought of Jerome last week when I gave a keynote speech and several clinics at a travel association convention. I saw 150+ catalogs and only three of them were Jeromes.

Is your direct marketing a standout? Are you creating a great brand personality to endear yourself to your customers? Are you a Jerome or just another duckling swimming along in a line? Let me know what you’re doing that is unique right now. Please comment here. I appreciate it.

Last week some relatives from Lausanne, Switzerland came to visit us in Miami (where they thought it would be warmer, but not). Their little girl, Maddy is so cute that we were all having fun playing with her and dolls and animals I’d bought. Then her Mom, Christine, asked about her daughter’s new coat, and when she could see it.

Coat? Why would anyone want a coat in Miami and how would I know where Maddy’s coat is anyway?

Turns out I not only should have known, I should have been looking after the coat for the past three months. Chris had Facebooked me in October that she’d bought a brand new winter coat on eBay and the seller wouldn’t ship overseas so she had it sent to me.

And I’d forgotten all about it.

That’s why I was looking at Christine with a blank face, my mind churning furiously for clues, excuses, rationales – anything. Maybe they hadn’t sent the coat, maybe the sellers were ripoff artists. Finally something tugged at a loose thread in my memory.

A mystery package … months ago … no note, no message, not even a return address … a little pink coat. Yeah, the coat … oops, my heart sank. I’d given it away.

This is the way it happened…

I’d been chatting with Julie, the wonderful nurse who’d cared for my Mom in her last three years. Julie happened to mention that her four year old granddaughter in Oregon had outgrown her winter coat.

Wow, I’d thought at the time. Talk about lucky coincidences. The mystery coat is perfect for a four year old girl. How wonderfully strange things work out…Karma. So, brought it over the next day and Julie mailed it to Oregon.

A few days later a delighted little girl in Oregon called her gran to say “thanks”.

Well, that was nice. But now I sat listening to Christine describe the fancy designer coat she’d bought, how costly it was and the fact that it was perfect for Maddy’s coloring. It was pink and pale green, and had special embroidery around the button holes.

I felt like a coat thief, a Robin Hood coat thief, but a coat thief just the same.

I ‘fessed up to Christine and, against her objections, bought Maddy a new coat (it’ll be here soon and I’m going to print MADDY in magic marker all over the box) and ever since I’ve been thinking how this mixup happened.

I guess I’m just on Internet Overload. I have too many things to remember: 100 or so Facebook messages a day, 200+ emails and thousands of Twitters. And that’s just the personal stuff. The business stuff has me on overload.

I’ve made some doozie mistakes over the years.

When I worked for Hearst I once mixed up book club shipments so that 100,000 Good Housekeeping ladies got the Cosmo Love Book. Funny about that one; nobody complained.

One time, working for our Ford of Canada client, we were in a hurry to merge databases and wound up sending huge English language truck-offer packages to 50,000 French speaking Quebecers and French packages to 50,000 Albertans.

Disaster, right? Nope, the exact opposite. We recovered quickly, mailed the right language to all 100,000 with a small added note and later we noticed that those people bought a lot more trucks (as a %) than the 900,000 who got the right language in the first place.

We wanted to send the wrong language to everyone in the following year and then the right language with a small note. Client wouldn’t let us.

Making thing right works because it’s a human thing to do. People sympathize and appreciate the extra effort. It is a good idea when you make a mistake to admit to it…and use a Whoops! Letter, or I’m Sorry, Or, “This might cost me my job, but..” note.

Mostly, though, things work out for the best as Pangloss said “in this best of all possible worlds”

I’m just happy a pretty little girl in Oregon has the nicest, fanciest new winter coat in her whole school! Another little girl in Switzerland will have hers soon….because this time I’ll remember!

A few weeks before Christmas, I ordered eight American Express Gift Cards and was disappointed when they didn’t arrive in time for the big day.

Later, I asked Amex about the cards in an email and back came an automatic answer that they’d reply in a day. They did, which was good. Even better, they said they’d invalidated the cards and reinstated my points (and added some more to my account … for my troubles).
I loved that response. Amex tends to be like that; they usually do the right thing.

This reminded me of my friend David Hochberg who was a frequent guest lecturer at the Direct Marketing courses I taught at NYU. David worked at the Lillian Vernon Catalog.

He told us that people who bought a gift through Lillian Vernon catalog but returned it were always happy. Why?
“Because we take everything back, even personalized merchandise, unconditionally” he said. They also tracked everything and learned to their surprise that people who return merchandise purchase more items over a long period of time than any other group.
That makes sense. Obviously, I’m going to be more loyal to American Express now and have already been using their card a lot more often lately. So consider:

1. Make everything “right” for your customers.

3. It will make you memorable, because the customer is expecting “push-back” from you.

Good Luck

(The year is so much easier to type than it was 12 years ago in good old MDCCCCLXXXXVIII – or is it IIMM?) I’m using Roman numerals her to subtly hint that there’s an old school idea in today’s blog.
The end of the year is always a great time to look back to the good old days, say back to MMVIII, aka 2008.

Remember planning? A lot of our clients (and even some not-yet clients) ask us for new creative ideas for their next year’s Grand Plan.

It’s nice that they think we’re so creative we can come up with brilliant ideas on the spot – sometimes we do – but often they turn a deaf ear to our best idea: look back. “You’ve had major successes in the past and what worked then will work now.”

We have to prod them a bit sometimes but eventually they remember programs that were gangbusters in, say, MDCCCCLXXXXVI, but they dropped them because the programs were “tired”. I doubt that prospects got tired of them but I know our clients did.

So maybe in 2010 you might:

• Revive a few older creative approaches that worked well. Maybe update the graphics, try a new offer. I’ve seen this work wonderfully well many times. It’s inexpensive, quick and, more often than not, very profitable.

• Make one program fantastic. One of our clients asked us to work on website, email program and newsletter all at once. We’re still hanging on to all of them waiting for photographs of staff, final product mix and a decision on a name for the their new social community. Had they asked us to focus on, say, the website, we’d have it done by now and could flow in all the missing details in a few hours. That’s what we did for our friends at the National Cleaners Association. Take a look here: NCA Website

• Take one area that your really enjoy in social media land, and focus on it. I’ve been very involved in Twitter for the last year: Check me out here: LoisGeller”s Twitter
I even have a Twitter Philosophy on following people: (twitterwatchdog) At first I tried to be on LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, Ecademy, Hi5 and Twitter every day. Then Attention Deficit Disorder set in. I couldn’t learn about any of the communities until I actually spent time on them. Pick one, and focus.

• In 2010, consider going to quieter places. Everyone is running to Google. It’s competitive there, and very complicated these days. Maybe you might want to focus your efforts on another search engine where you can end up higher on the list. I know people who use Ask.com all the time.

• Consider unique, even weird, offers and use your own brand personality to articulate them in a human way. If everyone else is giving 10% off on first purchase, try a gift with purchase instead. Maybe that gift can become your trademark, like the lucky trolls I use here at the Lois Geller Marketing Group. For some reason, people love them.

• And consider under-promising and over-delivering on any of the services or products you offer. Nationally, 1-800-CONTACTS does that and I just can’t imagine ordering lenses anywhere else. Locally, Coit Cleaners does it nicely, too – surprise and delight! I always remember buying a Ford Explorer years ago. Two weeks later, they sent beautiful director’s chairs in a canvas bag.

Bought another Ford just a few months ago.

Happy 2010. Make it great.

When I was a kid, my Mom bought me a diary with a small brass key. I wrote in it every day until my sister peeked into it and that was the end of my diary writing, especially when she found out I had a crush on her boyfriend. He was a dork.

I’d forgotten all that until people in the business started insisting that I do a blog. “It’ll make people like you … ” “You can show how smart you are…” yada yada.

So, I set up joyofdirectmarketing.com to write about our clients’ direct marketing efforts, as well as my speeches and books. Then my assistant at the time said that no one does direct marketing any more (as in direct mail – boy was she wrong). That threw a wrench into things for a while.

Then someone else here at the office wondered about the objective of the blog and if I was going to build continuity, progress constantly and develop content. Hmmm. This was becoming too much like work, not at all like my diary days when it was fun.

Then my friend, Amy Africa blogged that somehow my blog is stiff and not like me at all. No trolls and such. You can read about it here: Amy Africa’s QLOG

People responded to Amy (as they always do) with ideas for improving content, type fonts, email capture, colors, adding a photo of me and everyone said to lose the calendar. (God knows where that came from anyway).
So, I figured I should check out some other blogs.

Amy’s good friend, Debra Ellis, has an interesting one here: Wilson Ellis Consulting Blog (I adore her from Twitter.)

I attend #blogchat on Twitter most Sunday nights about 8pm, and Mack Collier runs this information-packed session (you need to be on tweetdeck though), and I like his blog: Mack Collier’s Blog

I now read Dianna Huff’s b-to-b blog all the time: Dianna Huff’s Blog

And for fun, I follow the Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk – a city person marrying a farmer who has somehow got me engaged in her whole life, like a soap opera. Take a look at it: Penelope Trunk’s Blog

My friend Dwain told me about the blog: Small Dead Animals. Take a look at it here, and you’ll be hooked: SmallDeadAnimals.com

As I’m checking them all out, I’m wondering more and more why I need a blog, what it’s good for. I still have no idea.

If you get a chance, let me know what you think! Thank you.