It's my Birthday!!

I woke up to some joyful, singing birthday messages, and am already excited at what today is going to bring. Pretty soon I'll be meeting some friends for banana pancakes- YUM! I also have a fun lunch meeting followed by a reflexology appointment scheduled as a treat to me, by another friend. I am so looking forward to this, though I have no idea what to expect with that. This evening I'll be getting picked up in a motorhome by my family, to head off to Lake Powell, one of my top favorite places in all the land! Pretty much- happy birthday to me!
On this subject- are you the type of person who remembers people's birthdays and sends them a card that arrives in their mailbox on their exact birthday? Or are you like my friend who three days before my actual birthday- wished me a happy belated birthday?
Even as a very organized person, I'm just not good when it comes to tracking everyone's birthdays, especially with enough time to actually send them a birthday card. It's actually been bothering me lately, so I'm going to start, TODAY, (ok, realistically when I get back from Powell), to capture all of my friends and clients' birthdays, (I'm on top of it with the family), and begin a system to keep on top of their special days. Are you with me?
Here's what I'm going to do...

• Send out a blast email to a list I make up ahead of time of people's birthdays I want to remember, asking them to send me their current address, and birthday.
• As the responses come in, I will click and drag their email into my calendar section of Outlook, and schedule a reminder one week ahead of their birthday. By doing this, the calendar automatically has the email info contained with it- including their address.
• At the beginning of every month, I'll look ahead and see what friends' birthdays are coming up, and schedule a small chunk of time to write cards and address their envelopes. I'll have a folder for "birthdays" set up where all the current month's cards will go, and as I get the reminder in Outlook one week ahead of time, I'll mail off the cards accordingly.
  
• For clients, I'm going to set up a few generic birthday greeting messages using SendOutCards. At the beginning of every month, I'll take a monthly look at what birthdays are up for the month, and schedule a half hour to add any necessary personal touches to my generic card message, and then I'll flag in Send Out Cards, when I actually want the card to go out. (Just because I'm writing them at the beginning of the month, doesn't mean I have to send them out then. I can set the date I want the card mailed off).

Now if you're not using Send Out Cards, you have two options. Sign up for an account with SOC, (and I can refer you to great people who represent this business), because it's a fantastic business tool. Option 2 is handwrite the cards for the month, and then drop them into the birthday card holding tank, (file folder), and mail off when Outlook reminds you to do so.

Wow there are so many directions I could go off and write on within this blog, considering all the different tools I'm talking about, but I'll save it for later. Ok- are you with me? This will be a painless, simple enough way to make everyone in my life feel special, as well as stand out a bit, help the ol' marketing efforts and continue building on those relationships... all by sending out birthday cards!