Thank You For Doing What You Were Supposed to Do
A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what is expected.
– Unknown
::Together With Financial Cents::
Financial Cents has a fantastic library of templates built by accounting firms like yours!
My husband and I both travel for work from the end of April until mid-November, generally on different schedules. At one point last spring, we hadn’t seen each other for six weeks, save a few days. Aside from our dogs hating us and us missing each other, we settle into our single routines pretty nicely. Especially knowing that we have reduced winter workloads and travel together for the whole dang thing.
We have this fun little routine, either chatting while away or upon arrival home. We thank each other for finishing tasks like making the bed (properly…) or emptying the dishwasher. You know, the bed that the one who was away didn’t sleep in and the dishwasher of dishes not used by the traveller. It is clearly the job of the home person to do these tasks, but it’s amusing to either point out, “Look what I did for you.” or say, “Thank you for doing that for me.” ⬅️ cheerful, sarcastic font
It’s silly and theoretically unnecessary, but it has become a nice little bump of gratitude and makes us both appreciate and feel appreciated for the sweet things we do for each other.
I have been doing this for years with my clients, and some of our apps do this too.
I have a couple of clients who are absolute gems and I have set up auto-notes that go out at month close, thanking them for getting everything to me in a timely and being so darn nice to work with. 🎉 And Financial Cents does a confetti burst when they complete their tasks, so fun. 🎊
I have a few clients who are not as timely, so I have a templated (not automated) message that goes out thanking them for the things they did do well that month. I can add in little bits and pieces so at least they feel my gratitude for what went well, rather than feeling chided for what didn’t (FC will continue to auto-nag them on behalf 🤣).
I used to send a gold star image to clients, telling them they were my gold star client of the month. Most months, I sent it to more than one client - they didn’t know each other, so I was safe from them knowing they weren’t the only “client of the month.”
I can’t do this with my team members as they are sisters, but my inner evil child has thought about sending one or the other the gold star of the month and seeing how that would play out 😈.
I give my clients little gifts when they hit milestones or at our fiscal re-engagement. Again, it’s just a gesture of gratitude for doing the things they should be doing, but it is always appreciated by them. My team members will be getting a little year-end surprise (although one posts my blogs, and the other reads them, so it won’t be a surprise that they are getting a surprise…) even though they are “just doing their jobs”*.
The week I penned this, a client sent me an LCBO gift card along with a lovely note even though I was doing what I had been engaged to do. It will stick with me for a long time how thoughtful she was (especially knowing I would most certainly welcome a gift card for wine…).
At Intuit Connect just passed this October there was a keynote speaker, Mark Matthews. He talked about expressing gratitude. While many speakers and storytellers talk about feeling gratitude, I loved that Mark is clear about letting others feel your gratitude for them.
During Mark’s Life Beyond Fear keynote he tells a story about how he learnt to access an emotional state of gratitude and the profound effects it has had on his life.
He then shares a series of techniques audience members can use to do it for themselves.
One of these gratitude practice techniques is the Gratitude Text.
The act of writing and sending a text message of gratitude to someone in your life can shift your nervous system from an anxious sympathetic state into a parasympathetic state which optimises your immune system and ability to recover from stress.
And this text message that you send then makes the person who receives the text feel the gratitude. More often than not that person will send a message of gratitude back, creating a Wave Of Gratitude.
I have been receiving and sending texts of gratitude from my accounting friends since that keynote, and have become more mindful of sending them to my other-life friends and family (shockingly, I have friends who are not in the accounting industry - crazy, right). And the Wave Of Gratitude has been lovely.
Back to the business front, making our clients and team members feel appreciated:
What are the ways you are thanking them, making them feel proud and confident in the work they do with you?
What technology are you leveraging to help you with this?
What more can you do?
“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” – Cynthia Ozick
Simply yours, Kellie :-}
*They both “just do their jobs” incredibly well and with such great attitude - lucky, ducky me.
