The Third Stage

Legs beneath the water: Trey Pennington

It is a sad morning.

I just heard from my good friend Allan Blair Beaton that one of the speakers that I met at Allan's recent What's Next 2011 conference, the social media guru Trey Pennington took his life yesterday.

Trey flew into the UK to present at the Cardiff event and I got to say hello to him. He was a warm, charming and intelligent man who wowed the audience with his keynote address. He was generous and had brought across from South Carolina a bag load of bandanas for the audience. He was thinking of others.

I don't know the circumstances of yesterday, but the twitterverse points to underlying depression - I guess time will tell, but what a sadness that he could not find help.

How many of us are like ducks, serene and confident above the waterline, but with legs paddling like crazy out of view to keep us afloat?

My thoughts go out to Trey's family today......

Thanks to Allan and Paul and Jacs for the picture.

The Oldpreneur says: "Have we lost the art and the benefits of saying thank you?"

I ask this because I always try to thank people, when they have done me a favour or have been an advocate for my business. I guess it was part of my upbringing, with my parents insisting that thank you notes always be sent for Christmas or birthday presents - as I do now with my children. Yet when I thank someone much younger than myself they always seem surprised, especially if it is a handwritten note.

My route to appreciation started with an idea to become more memorable after meeting people at networking events. Instead of the ubiquitous sales e-mail to follow up a short meeting, I started sending handwritten postcards to the people I met. These cards noted something about the conversation we had had and I soon found that people remembered me more for this approach. In fact people come up to me often and say “You’re postcard guy I remember you”.

A Los Angeles judge recently spent a year sending out 365 thank you notes. This turned his life around and he became a judge, and in his words, a better person. He also got a book out of it!

After practising appreciation for a couple of years my company has just launched an appreciation marketing service to help companies and time constrained one-man bands show their appreciation to their contacts. This is really exciting to us and immediate clients include solicitors, estate agents, and a department store.

It occurs to me that every older businessperson has an advantage over (most) younger competitors in the field of appreciation, having been brought to show gratitude. This is obviously a generalisation, but I believe there is truth in it.

Does it work for your business? Recently a colleague from a previous corporate role asked if we would be able to help a client of his. We could, and won a contract with them. Our first action was to send handwritten thank you postcard to the colleague. His response was to e-mail asking has some of my business cards to appoint more similar clients towards us. When they first cheque comes in he will be in line from more substantial thank you in the form of a hamper.

Mother Teresa said “There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread”.

So, thank you for reading this and let me know if I can help you…

(Reproduced from the July 2011 column by The Oldpreneur for Wales and West Media)

 

Introducing The Oldpreneur

Phil Terrett, our CEO has been moonlighting! Since he turned 50 last year (looks 40, feels 30, behaves like he is 10) he has been writing a column for Wales and West Media called The Oldpreneur.

After some thought we decided to let him publish it on the company blog, so watch out for a regular opinionated piece from The Oldpreneur!