Failing to write a thank you letter cost me $1,000. Learn from my mistake, and write the perfect thank you note every time.
It was 1989. I was a freshman in college.
I was raised by a single mother who had only gone to college for one semester. She worked as a secretary in a factory in our small, northern Ohio town. She contributed all she could, but my college tuition depended heavily on my summer earnings and a loan from a local bank. (Note, I knew the banker because he had been my youth league baseball coach. This is why people love small towns!)
And a couple of scholarships for writing and academics.
In my mail, a letter from the scholarship committee. I may have put off reading it for a day or two before I opened it.
I finally pulled up the corner of the flap and ran my finger down the crease, ripping it open. It was bad news. The committee had never heard from me about receipt of the scholarship. They were rescinding it.
I lost $1,000. The form letter included one checkmark next to a simple statement in a short list of causes: “No communication from awardee.”
If I had written a thank-you letter, I would have kept my scholarship.
Why don’t we write thank you letters?
It is rare that a letter would so clearly have a specific value.
Whether for a scholarship, an appreciation of a gift, or an acknowledgement of invested time and effort, thank you letters are simply priceless. They promote a sense of relationship and community. They speak to our human connection.
So why do we so seldom take the time to write them?
Is it because we are really too busy? I doubt it. We seem to have time for other things. The average American watched 2.8 hours of TV a day in 2018. And spent half an hour a day cleaning the house.
So … we’ve got time.
Is it because we don’t value saying thank you? I don’t think that’s it either. We understand what it means to be thanked. We even understand that gratitude can lengthen our lives.
My co-author Krista Taylor spent a year being thankful for, well, everything, because she knew it would improve her outlook on life and improve her relationships. I say it worked.
Maybe we don’t all do this because, as researchers have proven, we almost always think the receiver will not value the gratitude as much as they actually do.
Perhaps it is because we cannot easily place a value on a thank you letter.
I am certain that if I had gotten a reminder from the scholarship committee that said, “Write this letter for $1,000,” I would have done it. I mean, right? Who wouldn’t write a short letter for $1,000?
We should calculate the value of our time
We seldom think about how much our time is worth. Or to be more precise, we seldom think about the opportunity cost of time not wisely utilized.
Several years ago I was teaching a high school class called “College and Careers”, where part of the work was helping students take the steps to get into college. One afternoon a student stayed after school to finish his ACT application packet on the deadline date.
When he finished, I put two stamps on the envelope, handed it to him, and told him the last step was to drop the envelope at the post office.
He rejected the idea. “It’s out of the way, Mr. Jose. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow it will be late,” I said. I pointed at the late fee note. “That will cost $30.”
“Oh, yeah.” He shrugged. “Well, I will just have my mom add that to the check.”
I have often seen how quickly students spend their parents’ money. I did it too, when I was living at home, even though my mom could not afford it. This situation called for an idea that could reinforce the concept of responsibility without being perceived as a threat or a directive from me.
I asked him, “I’m curious. How far out of your way is the post office?”
He told me it was 15 minutes or so. I quickly did the math in my head. “If I offered you a job that paid you $60 an hour, would you take it?”
Without hesitation he agreed, “heck yeah.”
“Well, walk to the post office and back. Spend 30 minutes, save $30. That,” I opened my arms wide to emphasize my point, “is $60 an hour. Sixty. Dollars. An hour.” I raised my eyebrows and then gestured at the envelope in his hand. “Take that job?”
“I never thought of it that way,” he nodded. He turned quickly and said, “Well I’ve got to get home for dinner, so I need to go now … so I can stop by the post office.” He raised the envelope in a salute as he backed out the classroom door.
If only the monetary value of a thank you letter was as easy to calculate as the ACT late fee and a walk to the post office, we would likely write more.
Even if it had taken me 15 minutes to write that thank you letter … wow. Would I take a job for $4,000 an hour?
Yes, I would.
Make it easy to say thank you
We make it too hard to write a thank you letter
I blame Hallmark for making it this way. Their advertisement suggests that the very act of buying a card should be an experience. They sell the fantasy that every card must tell a story and, in order to make the story feel more sincere, we must make a special trip to the store.
This makes a thank you note an ordeal, instead of a celebration.
Need to say thank you? Simply jump in the car, drive down to the store, carefully examine a 30′ x 5′ display of cards, choose the perfect one, and drop $5 on the counter on your way out. Easy as pie!
Luckily, this roadblock is pretty easy to overcome.
Just do this: order thank you cards in bulk. By the dozen, by the gross … having a lot of cards around makes it easy to to grab one when the situation calls for it.
I frequently publish my writing on Medium, an online publishing site. Medium has made it (relatively) easy to say thank you to another writer in a draft of your article, as explained by Casey Botticello in this helpful article:
Medium Thank You Note on Posts
How to leave a thank you note on Medium stories
We all understand that it is the note inside, and not the picture on the front, that makes the thank you letter worthwhile.
Carry these blank thank you letters in your bag or purse at (almost) all times. The moment you realize you need to write a thank you note, there is no chance for a delay. Find a quiet moment to write and just do it. This is far better than wondering , delaying, and then regretting not having said thank you.
However, having a card on hand is only the first step.
Know what to say in a thank you note
Perhaps the hardest part of writing a thank you letter is finding the right words to say.
If you are not accustomed to writing them, they can seem awkward or uncomfortable. In fact, many people think they need to be far more formal than the really need to be.
A thank you letter really needs to accomplish a couple of important objectives. It is as simple as this:
- Say “thank you”
- Completely and precisely describe what you are thankful for
- Tell a story about how this gift / thoughtfulness / donation / scholarship directly affected one person
- Gently invite the person to further appropriate involvement
- Say “thank you” again
That’s it. This can happen in two or three paragraphs. Here are some examples from The Balance, a small business support site:
For more information, you can also check out these tips from Grammarly.com:
As cathartic as it might be, you should likely avoid a sarcastic response like this from Kyrie Gray.
Or, if you feel really comfortable with the process, you can branch out and try some different formats and downloadable templates from resume genius. This includes formats for job interviews or other more mundane events where a thank you letter is nonetheless appropriate.
TL; DR
You can save money, open doors, and preserve opportunities by writing thank you letters.
Do this more easily by purchasing thank you cards in bulk and always carrying some with you.
A good thank you letter says thank you, tells a specific story, explains how the gift was helpful, and invites further involvement.
By Jack Jose on .
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Exported from Medium on March 25, 2021.