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Are you someone who wants to write better thank you notes? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson Mutrux delves into the art of writing meaningful thank you notes.
Writing meaningful thank you notes can be challenging because you need to follow a couple of steps to ensure what you are saying is thoughtful and will make a lasting impression. Tyson provides a few tips to create a thoughtful thank you note. One is to take time to reflect on what you are thanking them for and get it on paper before you forget. Another tip is to thank those who are often forgotten. People who are not thanked enough usually need it the most and going the extra mile can make their day. It is important to make the note matter. Write it because you want to and make sure you let them know what they mean to you.
Take a listen!
3:42 The importance of taking time to thoughtfully reflect
4:25 Acknowledge and thank individuals who often go unnoticed
6:13 The importance of making thank you notes meaningful
Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here.
(upbeat music) - Run your law firm the right way. - The right way. - This is the Maximum Lawyer Podcast. - Maximum Lawyer Podcast. - Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Neutrecht, let's partner up and maximize your firm. - Welcome to the show. - Hey everybody, Tyson here for another Saturday episode and today I've got a fun one. It's from Harvard Business Review. If anyone doesn't subscribe or at least occasionally read a Harvard Business Review article, I think they do a pretty good job on most things. So before I get to what I want to talk about today though, 'cause I think it's gonna be fun, we're gonna talk about writing meaningful thank you notes. So it's gonna be fun. Before I get to that though, we have been doing something for a little bit, I think it's pretty cool. And the episodes that we're doing this on are gonna start to go live pretty quickly. What we've done is we've opened up submissions on everything from starting to running a law firm so that we can answer those on a future episode. And if you're just sitting there dreaming of starting your own law firm, working for someone else, or you are knee deep in the trenches and you could really use a lifeline or you're somewhere in between there, doesn't matter. All you have to do is lines are open. If you go to maximumlawyer.com/askin' for you younger kiddos, I don't even know if you know what lines are open is, what that means. But for those of you that do know what it means, all you have to do, go to maximumlawyer.com/ask and you can submit your question there or comment whatever you wanna do. And we will get to it if we can. Also, as always, if you wanna text me, just shoot me a text at 314-500-9260, love hearing from everybody. So shoot me a text and I'd love to talk to you. All right, so let's get to today's episode and it's about the five tips for writing meaningful thank you notes, which I think is a good one because I like writing thank you notes. I have, I've got boxes and boxes and boxes of different kinds of thank you notes, depending on the person I'm sending it to. Sometimes what I'll do is I'll even just, I did this one year. It was probably three or four years ago now where Missouri-Lurie's weekly, I think, is who had done it and it was the, it was women's lawyer awards on a variety of different things. So I took every single one of them, I cut them out and then I sent them a nice little note. I know that's not a thank you note, but it's kind of a variation of it. It's more of a congratulatory note, but any note, a handwritten note means a lot, even if you write type of a letter, I guess, that means a lot too, but a handwritten note means a ton and whenever I saw this, I said, you know what, this would be a good one 'cause I could always get better at writing my thank you notes. And so I think that this would be a good one. And most of you, whenever you've gotten a thank you note, you know how much it means to you. So that's why we're gonna cover it. And if you're not sending out thank you notes, I highly recommend that you do. All right, so I'm also, as we go through these, I'm going to give my thoughts on it too. I'm not just going to read it and then I'm not gonna be reading from the article if you wanna read the actual article, read the article. I do wanna respect that, but I'm gonna give my thoughts on it as well. The first tip is take time to reflect. And whenever I first saw that's when I'm thinking like, oh, you know, a lot of things are like, we're so busy. Sometimes it is, it's hard to say, oh yeah, I'm gonna take some time to reflect. But I would say that it is something that's really important. There have been times where I've just kind of fired off a really quick, you know, hey, great catching up with you at lunch, thanks for buying lunch or something like that. And I could have spent some more time on it. Here's the thing, in my opinion, getting out a thank you note is better than not. Getting out a thank you note. So whether you, even if you have to rush through it, get it out the door. Now, that being said, if you do have time to reflect on it a little bit on whatever you're thinking them for, that is optimal. I will say that is optimal, but in the real world, we also sometimes will happen as we'll think about writing the thank you note or we'll have intentions to writing the thank you note. And you all know who I'm talking about. You have the intentions to write the thank you note. I've been there, I trust me, I've been there. And then it never goes out because I've taken time to reflect. Get it out the door. That is, that's my tip. Okay, get it out the ding door. All right, the next one, and I really like this one. I can't say I'm great at doing this. Think those who are often forgotten. So think those who are often forgotten. I think this is fantastic. You know, it could be the security guard as you're going through the courthouse. You know, you may not have their mailing address, but you see them quite a bit and you can hand them the thank you note. And so there's people that you see that sometimes they're just kind of, they're not necessarily in the shadows, but you know, you notice them, you talk to them quite a bit, but they're probably never thanked. If you think about it, I think, well, I don't know why I'm thinking about TSA agents, but I highly doubt that TSA agents are thanked that often when it comes to the job that they have to do. It's probably not the funnest job. They probably deal with a lot of cranky people, but I'm talking about people like that. You know, they're doing a really important job. They don't really get thanked that much. So I think this is a good one. You know, think those who are often forgotten. It's a great tip. The next one is, and I do love this, I'm gonna give the next two together 'cause I think that they are somewhat similar. They're not the same, but they are somewhat similar. The third one's be specific, and then the fourth one is make it matter, all right? And so putting in details is when it comes to be specific is what they're talking about. So make sure you're obviously thinking them for whatever it was. So let's say it was dinner. That's the example that they use in the article. So, you know, thinking them for dinner. But then what you're gonna wanna do is, you know, something that influenced you during the dinner. So mention something about that. So hey, Jim, thanks so much for dinner. I really appreciate it. The, you know, your tips on video marketing really are gonna help me a lot. And so I just wanna take a second to thank you for that. Yeah, something like that. So you're mentioning something very specific that happened during it. All right, so make it matter. The way I would put it, and this isn't the way they put it, is try to move them in some way. Either make them laugh, or make them reflect, make them cry if you need to. Almost everything but the way Disney does a Disney movie. Make it matter in that way. So make it meaningful. So whatever you put in there, and they gave an example of someone that had made a difficult decision. And they put in there how they had made the right decision and how they'd handled it with dignity. So you are, in that situation, they're reinforcing what they had done and giving them that sense of pride. So they had moved them in some capacity. So that's the difference between the two. And so be specific, but then also make it matter. And that's why they're very closely related. And so that's why I wanted to talk about them together. 'Cause they are very, very similar. And then the last one, last tip, tip number five. It's never too late. And this is something that I can tell you. I am bad about where I will feel bad about it not going out the door and then I won't send it. And so this is one that I could certainly get better at. I'll have this list of thank you notes that I wanna write and I just, not all of them will go out. Some of them will go out, not all of them will go out. And I do think that this is right. Even if it's years later, they'll eventually get it and they'll appreciate it, no matter what, whether it is years later or weeks later or days later. Getting it is getting it and it's better than not getting it. So I think that that is something that I think we should all do that. So real quick, let me go through these. If you are taking notes, take time to reflect. There's number one, thank those who are often forgotten. Number two, number three, be specific. Number four, make it matter. And number five, it's never too late. This was an article, by the way. I did not mention this by Sally Sussman. She is the Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer. That is all I have for you today. As a reminder, make sure you do text me. I would love to hear from you. If you have something you want me to cover on the podcast, shoot me a text at 314-5019-260. 314-5019-260. I would love to hear from you. Until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care, everybody. (upbeat music) - Thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer podcast, to stay in contact with your host and to access more content. Go to maximumlawyer.com. (upbeat music) Have a great week and catch you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
