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 all of my clients "Happy New Year" greeting cards with several of my business cards enclosed

• 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?

marketing clients colleagues referrals subcontracting thank you freelancing copyeditor copyediting editor editing publishing EditorMom