Acceptance Speeches

Perhaps the Academy Awards are more famous for actors’ acceptance speeches than for which films actually won awards. Who could forget Sally Fields emoting, “You like me! You really like me!” Or Cuba Gooding proclaiming, “I love everybody!”  And of course James Cameron’s “I’m the king of the world!” exclamtion.

What are YOU grateful for business wise? Who are you grateful to? If you were accepting an award for your accomplishments, who would you thank in your acceptance speech and why?

Gratitude Lists

Gratitude lists are frequently utilized in recovery programs to get people thinking in a different way. If people have more “gratitude in their attitude”, they’re less likely to become self-defeating and relapse.

In that spirit, you can celebrate Thanksgiving in ways that don’t have anything to do with pilgrims or turkey. You can also choose to decorate your website accordingly. Thanksgiving is a holiday that is often overshadowed by glossier holidays, but it can be celebrated in its own right.

The first step in celebrating Thanksgiving can be making a list of everyone you’re grateful to. You could start by making a list of your professional accomplishments this year. That might help you organize your thoughts so that you can more clearly see who to express gratitude to. It could also be utilized later when creating a New Year’s email.

Time Capsule Gratitude

A common form of goal setting is to have gratitude for things you want to happen in the future, as if they have already happened.  Create a Thanksiving time capsule document and list everything you will be grateful for in terms of accomplishments, goals, and experiences.  File it away and put a note on your calendar one year from now to refer back to it.

Thanksgiving Email

Which items from your gratitude list could be sent out to your clients for a Thanksgiving email, included as part of a blog article, or broken up into social media posts? This kind of email can easily segue into announcing or reminding current and potential customers about Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, promotions, and campaigns.

Customer Appreciation

How else can you utilize these marketing items to simultaneously show your customers appreciation and invite them to your upcoming sales, promotions, and campaigns?

If many of your customers or the people you’re grateful to live nearby, what about having an actual customer appreciation party? This would not only be a good way to get to know your customers in person, it would be a way to create and celebrate your professional community. It would be an opportunity to actually give your acceptance speech and announce your upcoming sales, promotions, and campaigns.

If your customers are spread out around the planet, how about a virtual customer appreciation party? There are many sites like virtualcelebration.com that walk you through how to host a party online.

Whether in person or online, Thanksgiving is the perfect time to show your customers how much you appreciate them,  no matter how you decide to do that.