What can you do to make your season’s greetings appreciated?

You personalize them! — Uhuh

Right!

You pick a great picture and choose some nice words. Then you change the addressee’s name for each letter or email and you might even consider signing it with a real signature.

⚠️ But is this really personalizing it?

Have a look at the spam you get every day.

These smugs who create it spend endless time forming sentences that sound super personalized.

We’ve all sat there wondering whether this was now spam or real. Looking for clues that show this could’ve only been sent to me.

Probably much more often than we want to.

The result is that we’ve all gotten much more spam-savvy these days.

We know that software can easily insert my name at the beginning of an email or snail mail letter.

We know that the nicest of words can actually be sent out to a hundred customers and we have created great sensitivity to sniff it out.

Now, do you really want to be the one that sends out this kind of season’s greetings?

Can you follow me when I say this can have adverse effects beyond the receivers just being annoyed?

The message that gets to people can easily be: “Think of us” and not “We think of you”. Selfish, not empathetic.

I know it’s not intentional.

So what can you do about it?

Well, you have to personalize it. — The real way. The meaningful way.

You have to sit down and say at least one sentence about your relationship that only applies to the two of you.

Something the recipient knows, which can only be said about them.

Something you experienced together.

Appreciation is shown by departing with some of your hard currency, and that nowadays is time and attention.

You have to show that you’ve spent time thinking about the recipient.

There’s no way around it and that’s the way it should be!!