Hamilton House

A Treasury of Heartfelt, Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases to Help You Wtih Thank, Apology and Condolence. www.hamilhouse.com

If you want to show you really care, don’t just phone or dash off a hasty email, send a written thank you letter.  This means you think the gift important enough to make an extra effort.
For business, charity or your personal life, a proper thank you can make all the difference to your future success.  Follow these easy steps and your letter will be a joy, not a chore.

1. Be organized.

Keep careful record who needs to be thanked for what. After a shower, wedding or high-spirited birthday celebration, it is mighy embarrassing not to remember who gave you the expensive stainless steel juicer, the matched set of whoopee cushions or the envelope bulging with cash.
Especially when the giver is dying to hear just how thrilled you are with their own extra special contribution.

2. Be prompt.

Though it is better for your letter to arrive late than never, respond as soon as you can. Write within a day or two for dinner and within two or three days after receiving hospitality. You have about two weeks to thank for gifts unless they are wedding gifts. In that case, you send notes right after the honeymoon. To answer expressions of sympathy for loss or death, it is fine to reply within six weeks when you a feeling up to the task.

3. Choose the right style.

Match your degree of formality to the party your are addressing.  A formal letter strictly observes the rules of letter writing which can be found in many excellent reference books. A few lines of thanks to a close friend can be dashed off by hand on a leaf of polka dot note paper. Always address your letter to a specific person, not a department or a title. When a gift comes from a number of different people, each one must receive a thank you note.

4. Be direct.

Unless you have reason to expand, keep to a single page. Take an easy, conversational tone, as though you are talking face to face. Let your words flow from the heart.

5. Begin with the reason you are expressing your appreciation.

“Thank you so much for the lovely lava lamp you gave me for my birthday.”

“I appreciate the time you took from your busy schedule to meet with me yesterday.”

“I don’t know what our charity would do without generous donors like you.”

6. Show how the gift affected you.

Expand your appreciation by explaining how what you are thanking for made you feel, affected you life or thoroughly delighted you. Recognize thoughtfulness and generosity.

“The lava lamp is a splendid match for my orange shag rug and fits right into our retro decor. Every time I turn it on, I will remember your thoughtfulness and be transported back to the that first college dorm we decorated together.”

“The advice and contacts you so kindly provided have already helped tremendously to develop our project. Ms. Molly Parks has agreed to analyze our marketing plan. You have greatly boosted our prospects of success.”

“Your donation provided a water pump for a well in Africa so rural children can finally have safe water.”

7: Wrap up with more thanks and sign with a flourish.

“Thanks again for giving me a gift that reminds me of so many happy times.”

“Once again, please know how deeply I appreciate your kindness in helping me with this crucial task.”

“On behalf of the children, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for caring enough to help.”

Your prompt, warm, well-written thank you letter will succeed in its goal – to make the recipient feel truly special and appreciated.

Check out 1001 Ways to Say Thank You.  www.hamilhouse.com

Are you raising money for your child’s school trip.  Do you struggle to collect urgently needed funds for your local animal shelter?  Perhaps you run a large nonprofit organization dedicated to finding a cure for AIDS, saving threatened polar bear or fighting poverty.

No matter how modest or grand your fundraising goals, you need words to pry open those wallets.  But have your ever thought about what is the most potent fund

Thousands of Powerful, Ready-to-Use Phrases Helping You Create Dynamic Fundraising Materials. www.hamilhouse.com

raising word of all?  Is it “help”, or “give”, or “please”?  No,it’s not.

It is “you”.

I’m betting you’ve just smacked yourself on the forehead and cried, “I already knew that”.  Of course you do.  You just need a reminder.  Or, if you are a newbie at fundraising, you really didn’t know or are so busy firing off reasons your cause needs money that you have simply overlooked this utterly essential component of campaign success.

As in nearly every kind of human relations, the pivotal question, consciously or unconsciously, it, “What’s in it for me?”

In advertising, the answer is very clear. The job of the ad is to drive home the benefits to the customer so the customer will buy.  In fundraising, it’s much trickier.  The possible donor is being asked to give to benefit someone else, usually a total stranger.  Pretty tough sell, you are thinking.

So discover the massive power of “you”.  You selling job is the same as in advertising. You convince a donor to give because of what’s in it for them whether it’s the satisfaction of solving a social problem in their community or the warm feeling of know they helped feed a hungry child on the other side of the world. Use the word, “you”, to drive home the personal benefits of giving.

“By giving to the Cherry Street Playground Fund, you are giving your children a happy place to play, transforming the current bit of industrial wasteland that is such an eyesore.

“This dreadful disease has likely touched someone close to you.  Now you can feel you’ve really helped fight back by supporting the effort to relieve pain and find a cure.

The power of “you” taps directly into the donor’s self interest.  So rather than impersonally listing the needs of your cause, offer as many personal benefits as you can.  And watch the donations increase.

Check out the Fundraiser’s Phrase Book.  www.hamilhouse.com

Thousands of Instant Marketing Phrases Help You Create Powerful Ads and Promotions. www.hamilhouse.com

Looking for fresh ideas for your ads, promotions, articles, web site?  There is an overflowing source you may not have considered.  And it’s right at your elbow.

Your thesaurus.

We all know you need to feed your mind raw material to get good ideas out. The more diverse that raw material, the larger the range of ideas.  Looking in the thesaurus gives you the opportunity to soak up raw material you would never get in any other way.

If you are one of the completely digital people, relying on your word processor and search engines to supply you with alternate words when you need them, then you are missing out big time.  Go out, right now, and buy yourself the largest, most comprehensive thesaurus you can find.  You need a physical book to use the techniques below.

1.)  Make Random Connections

Open the thesaurus, close your eyes and put your finger down on the page.  Then look to see what word your blind stab has chosen.

Say your finger lands on “laughter” and your field is dog training.  After a bit of thought, you might come with a brochure about the ridiculous ways people try to stop their dogs from barking and provide useful information about  the proper method.  If you are a cook and light on the word, “dock”, you might suddenly realize you could promote delicious meals holidayers can take on a boat.  If you pick out “dormant” and your field is financial planning, you might see a way to approach investors who stay “dormant” when you have ways they can “wake up” their money.

2.) Use the Alternate Words and Phrases

Look up a word related to your field.  If your field is small business and you look up “negotiate”, you will find a list of alternate words and expressions loaded with suggestion.  “Umpire” could give you an idea about how to be an effective umpire when customer and supplier go to war.  “Haggle” could spark a training session on how to tell the difference between fair price negotiation and greedy haggling.  “Leap” could provide material about how to take a small business to the next level in a single bound.

3.) Hook Up Two Words at Random

Pick a word in the thesaurus and then, at random, choose another word and let them work together.  You could choose “pleasure” and “social”.  Check out their alternate word choices and phrases to see what you can put together.  If you sell snowmobiles, you might whip up a campaign based on the pleasure and companionship customers discover on a snowmobile trip.  If  you sell children’s clothing, you could draw sales by showing how small children are fascinated by friendly faces on their t-shirts.  If you write about automobiles, you could list the pleasures of taking friends out in the comfort of the latest model.

You need never be stuck for an idea again.  Just flip through your thesaurus, dictionary or a specialized reference for your field and let random findings trigger a rush of new concepts you can use on the spot.  You’ll see why a physical book in your hand outstrips the search engines by a mile.

Check out the Marketing Phrase Book.  www.hamilhouse.com