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How writing “love letters” inspires employee recognition

Everyone needs a pat on the back and recognition for a job well done – even you!

A letter I wrote

Every week, I solicit from our managers the names of a couple of individuals who deserve a letter of recognition. I take the names and the details about why they deserve recognition  and write them a hand written note thanking them in detail for what they did and why they are being recognized.

Over the years, these hand-written notes to staff have become known as Andy’s Love Letters. I do this every week, writing notes to anywhere from two to six staff members each week.

Just last week, I had quite a surprise after our managers meeting when I had three envelopes sitting on my desk. Inside each envelope was a motivational card with a hand-written thank you message from each one of my three managers in our Fredericton store. For the past three weeks, I’ve been extremely busy behind the scenes working on a major initiative for the company, and that week, when asked who deserved recognition, they all agreed that it would be me. So upon returning to the office after a meeting, I found three Love Letters addressed to me for a change.

It was a great surprise for me and an action that I truly appreciated. What I found incredible was that they realize that I too would truly appreciate some recognition from time to time. I have to say that I have an amazing team!

Recognition by way of a hand-written note is an extremely powerful tool. I was reminded of just how powerful it is, when I received my hand written thank you notes just last week. Check out the one I attached to this blog post. Its got an amazing feeling of personalization – something email can’t convey.

What do you do to recognize your team when they do something right?

Small Businesses Issue HST Checklist

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is issuing a checklist on Thursday to some 42,000 members in Ontario, ahead of the tax harmonization that takes place July 1. The HST will join together the 5% federal Goods and Services Tax with the provincial sales tax (7% in British Columbia and 8% in Ontario), bringing the combined tax on goods and services to 12% in B.C. and 13% in Ontario.

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Small Business Merchants Rushed to Banks While Canadian Athletes Went On Bagging Golds

The recently published Moneris Solutions’ Vancouver 2010 spending data revealed that while Canada as a nation was taken by the Olympic fever, consumers were bitten by the shopping bug. Sales increased by 48 percent during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

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Ontario Minimum wage set to rise on March 31 to $10.25

The Ontario government announced this week that the province’s minimum wage is set to rise from $9.50 to $10.25 on March 31, 2010.

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B.C. surf town bans all franchises

Tofino, the small B.C. surf town known for its natural beauty, has boosted its anti-establishment reputation by banning all franchises within its borders.

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Shopify retailers roar past $100M in online sales

Local e-commerce firm Shopify announced Tuesday that retailers using its platform recently topped $100 million in total sales.

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Wind Mobile: Rushed launch takes wind out of newest cellphone carrier

Conventional wisdom for Canada’s newest cellphone carriers has been to be first into the market. With fierce competition overhead from established incumbents such as Rogers Communications Inc., the thinking was that the earliest in would hold a key leg up against other newcomers and reap the rewards of consumers’ pent up demand for choice.

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The Yays and Nays for Marketing a Small Business

Yes, Maybe or No? via Flickr from ‾olǝƃuɐ‾

Marketing is not what it used to be. What used to be all about newspaper, radio and TV advertising, is now all about internet, social media and direct mail marketing.

When you look at your own business, have you changed your marketing strategy in the past five years, or are you still trying to do the same old thing and achieve new results? In my opinion, here are a few Yays and Nays to consider:

Marketing Nays

• Newspaper – news print readership is on the decline, yet advertising is still expensive.
• Radio – with so many stations diluting the market, it no longer has impact.
• TV – very expensive and too much dilution.
• Yellow Pages – (unless yellow pages online) usage of traditional yellow pages has plummeted in recent years, replace with assorted online websites. Carrying ads on their site is also more expensive then other mediums
• Twitter – I haven’t been able to prove the  ROI / economic value to my businesses using Twitter, yet. It can be a time suck, and reach a different market then I’m intending. But, I remain optimistic and continue testing.

Marketing Yays

• Websites – make your website easy to find, informative, up to date and relevant.
• Staff Blogs – builds an online community and encourages people to visit your website regularly.
• Facebook – setup a fan page to help build an online community and to become a part of their online community. It doesn’t take a lot of time, and its an additional place to be found and push out your promotions
• Facebook Ads – a very effective marketing tool that enables you to narrow in on a very small and specific niche in the market place. They’re also less expensive then you think
• Google Adwords – a very effective advertising tool to get in front of people searching for something that you’re hopefully selling. If you know what you’re doing, this can be very effective. There’s lots of help available in this field if you want to outsource.
• YouTube Segments – this can be a very effective tool for providing informative content to your customers, and using a flipcam, video can be fun and easy to create.
• Email Campaigns – not as effective as they once were, as long as you have permission, you keep them relevant and you don’t abuse the privilege, it is still a very useful tool.  When looking at pushing out promotions, email is still king.
• TV Listing Channel Ads – if you must do TV, then do the TV listings channel. It is more reasonably priced and you’ll get more bang for the buck.
• Direct Mail – whether it is via email or snail mail, direct marketing to your customers works every time.  It may be time consuming, but know that the response rate on Direct is the highest of all channels.

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piggybank by parmarpritesh's via Flickr

As we prep our (Canadian) businesses for what the new HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) means for us, there’s lots of debate about how businesses will fare, adapt and implement the change to their systems, processes and financials.

I’m interested in your opinion.

Add your comments below – I’d like to know your point of view – as a consumer, business owner, politician, or anyone interested in the debate.

Links:

• HST – Frequestly Asked Questions (via CBC News)
• Better Practice Guide for Management of the HST (via Revenue Canada Agency) (.pdf)

Peer Advisory groups are a great way to discuss business issues confidentially with other owners, CEO’s and like minded business people. They offer the opportunity to get new ideas outside your regular circle of people, and can be useful to test ideas and receive some ‘constructive’ criticism.  There’s likely a group for every type, and several across the country.  We are looking to create a list of these groups across Canada.

I’ll add to this list as we find more sources, but here are some of the larger Canadian Peer Advisory Groups:

Innovators Alliance
www.innovators.org
Coverage: Southern and Eastern Ontario

Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
www.eonetwork.org
Coverage: .B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec

Presidents of Entrepreneurial Organizations (PEO)
www.peo.net
Coverage: Southwestern Ontario

Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO)
www.womenpresidentsorg.com
Coverage: B.C., Ontario, Quebec

TEC The Executive Committee
www.tec-canada.com
Coverage: B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick

Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO)
www.ypo.org
Coverage: B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia

Virtus Inc.
www.virtusinc.com
Coverage: Greater Vancouver

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