I Like You.

Letterpress thank you card with silver foil on black paper

a·poc·ry·phal – of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.

There is this probably apocryphal story* about a car salesman in Michigan. He sent out 13,000 notecards a month to his clients that simply said “I like you”. He did this every month with a different design, and eventually became the most successful car salesman… ever. It didn’t really take anything more than notecards and a desire to stay organized… and a pen and postage too, I guess.

letterpress notecard on heavy white paper, blind deboss with neon ink

2/0, Flat, Printed on 220# Fluorescent White Crane’s Lettra (Finished size: 7″ x 5″ Flat)

letterpress printed card on pearl white paper

1/0, Scored, Printed on 110# Pearl White Crane’s Lettra (Finished size: 5.25″ x 5.25″ Folded)

letterpress notecard for lawyer on heavy white paper

2/0, Flat, Printed on 220# Fluorescent White Crane’s Lettra (Finished size: 7″ x 5″ Flat)

Be faster.

I was also recently reading an unrelated book I saw at my local library that talked about how to achieve higher sales. It basically said you don’t need to be twice as good as the person you are competing against, you just have to be slightly better than the next person. Similarly taught in Boy Scouts: If a bear is chasing you, just be slightly faster than the person you are with.

letterpress printed folded notecard with blind deboss on white paper

1/0, Scored, Printed on 110# Fluorescent White Crane’s Lettra (Finished size: 6.25″ x 4.5″ Folded)

letterpress thank you card with gold foil and black ink on white paper

2/0, Folded, Printed on 110# Fluorescent White Crane’s Lettra (Finished size: 6.25″ x 4.5″ Folded)

It blows me away how ultimately easy, and hard it is to make this happen. To be slightly better, and send an actual physical object to someone. It used to be so second nature. Now it has become so hard, that I makes me wonder about how much more value we could gain if we took a few minutes in our day to just send our past clients a little ‘like button’ in the mail. I know it is hard… I print cards and notecards all day long, and even I struggle to get this stuff out to our clients regularly.

letterpress emboss deboss notecard on pearl paper

Emboss/Deboss, Flat, Printed on 220# Pearl White Crane’s Lettra (Finished size: 6.25″ x 4.5″ Flat)

Letterpress printed Thank You card on 110# cranes lettra

2/1, Scored, Printed on 110# Fluorescent White Crane’s Lettra (Finished size: 5″ x 5″ Folded)

letterpress printed flat notecard for apt 202 on classic linen

1/0, Flat, Printed on 100# Natural White Classic Linen (Finished size: 6.25″ x 4.5″ Flat)

Taking notes… on notecards.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do better. And it certainly means that if you are willing to start connecting with your clients and potential clients in a more meaningful way, you will be invariably successful. If you are willing to work just one step faster than the next person, you will have a richer and more fulfilling interaction with those you work with… and win more clients in the long run.

If you don’t agree with me. Go ahead and send me any of these insult cards in the mail. I guarantee I will be insulted. Because that is a lot of trouble to go through just to tell me that I am wrong.

*Turns out this isn’t apocryphal. But I love that word so I am not fixing it. The guy was put in the automobile hall of fame! So I guess the real moral if the story is that if you want to be in the hall of fame, start sending cards!