In the age of 140 characters and Twitter, many people will see a letter on letterhead and just give it a once over before chucking it. How can you slow them down and actually get them to pay a little more attention to your letter?
Here’s two ideas that have worked for me and the advisors I coach:
- Print your letter upside down on your letterhead… this absolutely stops them in their shoes. Now make sure you reference the upside-down printing so that they know it wasn’t a mistake. You could say something like, “Yep, upside down is the new right-side up apparently.” Or, “This will turn what you though on its head.” Or, simply, “Yep, I printed this upside down to make sure you read this.”
- Put something inexpensive in the letter to make it lumpy. I’ve used quarters saying, “Apparently your phone isn’t working, so I thought I’d send you a quarter to get hold of me on a payphone… good luck finding one!” Or a shoestring with, “Investing can be as exciting as buying shoe laces… and that’s a good thing!” Or an eraser with, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a way to erase any investing mistakes we made… both now and in the future?”
Are these outside the norm? YES! YES! YES! We are a commodity! We all look and sound alike. We all talk about and promise the same things. If you want to get somebody’s attention, DARE TO BE DIFFERENT!
