Are you a gracious business professional? The word gracious
is defined as: marked by tact, kindness and courtesy, characterized by charm,
good taste and generosity of spirit. Is
that the way that you would like to be described? What is preventing you from
acting like that?
When I ask that question, I receive many different answers
and they all are centered on one theme: “Vickie, you don’t understand, in my
world I don’t have time to be gracious – I have to drive results.” My answer is
that I do understand, and I make the following request. Please take ten minutes a week to show some
“graciousness”. After six months let’s evaluate what your return on investment
(ROI) is on those ten minutes spent each week.
In the business environment, one of the best ways to convey
graciousness is with a hand written thank you note. Therefore, your assignment
is to create one thoughtful hand written thank you note each week for the next
six months. Below are some examples of situations that would warrant a thank
you note:
- Write
to your best customer and tell them how much you appreciate their
business.
- Write
to someone on your support staff, the person who is instinctively always
there and tell them how much you appreciate them making your life easier.
- Write
to the person who leads any event or volunteer association that you
participate in and benefit from (parent teacher association, industry
association, and your local book club).
- Write
to your child’s soccer coach and tell them thanks for giving up their
Saturday mornings to benefit your child.
- Write
to the person who you would like to work for (your next boss) and tell
them how much you appreciate them “championing” your ideas.
- Write
to the top producer on your team and tell them how much you appreciate the
job that they do.
And while we are on the subject, in my work with people in
career transition, can you guess how many candidates actually follow up after
an interview with a thank you note? The
answer should be 100% but unfortunately it is not. About 72% of interviewing
professionals in this country DO NOT
send the thank you note. That means
that you can totally set yourself apart from 72% of your competition, by simply
being gracious. Why is this important? The statistic that was quoted is that 88% of
high level executives say that it HELPS to get the job if you follow up
with a hand written thank you note.
Please note that a hand written thank you note is far
superior to a typed note or an email.
Taking the time to hand write a thank you note lets the receiver know
that you are truly grateful and sincere in your expression of thanks.
Go ahead, take the challenge, what ever your status in your
career, spend ten minutes every week for the next six months and see what your
ROI becomes. On a consistent and honest
basis, this might be the one thing that helps your career the most. Congratulations, you have taken the first
step to deriving results from within.
Vickie Bevenour is acclaimed for her
ability to inspire business leaders to become star players. She has channeled more than two decades of
corporate experience, hundreds of hours of business coaching and years of
leadership facilitation into a coaching platform that gets results. When
working with Coach Vickie, her Clients cite a huge return on investment, for
example:
- She has a 100% track record of
helping business professionals through challenging and demanding negotiations,
always achieving more than what was initially proposed.
- She coached the Leader of a $12M Business Unit to end the
year with her sales organization at 122% over target, and a 50 % growth in her
Japan market.
- After an employee survey gave a Business Leader poor scores,
Vickie coached him to improve his leadership competencies and behavior by 94%.
Vickie holds an MBA from Tulane
University; has a Master’s Certificate in Business Coaching from UNC Charlotte
and is a Certified Professional Coach (PCC) candidate from the International Coach
Federation. Vickie is the President of the RDW Group, which stands for “Results
Derived from Within” and her greatest pleasure is being a partner in the
success of her Clients. |
