KOK Edit: Your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM)
KOK Edit: your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM) KOK Edit: your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM) Katharine O'Moore Klopf
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Monday, February 07, 2011

Thank-Yous Are Good Business

My husband, a cabinetmaker, just finished a small project to help a colleague out; he did it as a subcontractor to the colleague. A few days later, he received a check in the mail in payment for his work, and it was tucked inside a thank-you card. How cool is it to get both money and thanks at the end of a project?

I don't subcontract out work to colleagues; instead I refer clients to them when my workload is too heavy to allow me to take on more work. So I can't use the thank-you-card idea in exactly the same way, but I'm going to find a way to work it into my business practice somehow, because I know how much those two little words, thank you, can mean to people.

I already do the following:

  • Thank both potential and existing clients by e-mail when they ask me to bid on a project
  • Send new clients thank-you e-mails after a project is complete
  • Send new clients a KOK Edit tea/coffee mug after we've worked on our first project together, so that they'll have something tactile to remember me by
  • Send my international clients e-mails wishing them a happy holiday—or whatever other sentiment is appropriate—on holidays that are important in their respective cultures and thanking them for their continued trust in my skills
  • Send thank-you cards—and sometimes small thank-you gifts—to colleagues who refer me to clients for whom I go on to do several projects
  • Send thank-you e-mails—and sometimes small thank-you gifts—to colleagues who go out of their way to help me
What other techniques do you use to thank clients and colleagues?

3 comments:

Katharine O'Moore-Klopf said...

Oops! I forgot to mention that I also include a note, when editing manuscripts, thanking authors for the privilege of reading their manuscript. They love this.

Anonymous said...

What a lovely, heart-warming post! I treasure the small collection of thank you cards I've received from my clients so far - they are on a magnetic board propped up on my desk so I can look at them when I need reassurance or inspiration.

I always thank people for a) referrals b) giving me the work and c) paying me - it wouldn't cross my mind not to. I also thank them if/when they give me a reference - publicly if it's on my facebook page, in a return email if it's emailed to me to use on my own website's references page.

Katharine O'Moore-Klopf said...

Nice idea to use received thank-yous as reassurance and inspiration.

Just this moment, I received a lovely tin of fragrant Yin Hao Jasmine green tea leaves from a bilingual medical editor–writer because I referred a medical-journal author who is a non-native English speaker to her. Yum!

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