Keep Those Lines of Communication Open (All The Time)

It’s absolutely essential to keep your lines of communication open no matter what, especially when you are at your busiest.

In business, we sometimes get caught up in what we are doing we never look up from our desk to manage our communication with customers. We have really busy times when we can’t take a minute to scratch out heads much less send out an email blast or Twitter but you may find that usually when your customers need to hear from you the most.

For example, the tax season is coming up. A CPA that I’d written a few press releases for when I was freelancing for a PR firm on Long Island a few years ago kept me on his list. I received this email from him today:

Just a quick reminder not to wait until you receive all of your personal tax information before sending me your business tax information.

While you may not receive all of your personal tax information until mid-late February, you should have all/most of your business information ready by mid-January.

Sending me your business tax information as soon as you have it ready will ensure that your business tax return is completed well before the March 15th Corporate Tax Return filing deadline.

Thanks,

Mike Hanley

Nothing to dramatic or creative. Just a plain fact. Around this time of year, accountants get swamped. I remember an accountant I once used to use got so overburdened at tax time I’d be lucky to get an email response from him to set up our appointment to do my taxes, much less have him send out a mass email like this one.

What I liked about Mike’s email was that it reminded me that I can get a jump on something that most people dread doing: filing taxes. Second he was taking some of the weight off of my shoulders by offering to have me start sending him my business tax information as I get it. He also had good timing. He was reminding me that I should be getting all my business tax information by a certain upcoming date at the end of this week, which is not too close to make me panic, but not too far off to make me forget. He’s reminding me that I need to start thinking about things early to make March 15th Corporate Tax Return filing deadline.

Lastly, I got from this email a gentle reminder that I should also be thinking about my personal taxes and he set me a timeframe when I should have received everything, by mid February. Most of all, he gets across the fact that he cares about me and my business, not just his own.

All this is a simple note by email. Nothing fancy. No crazy HTML or Flash or even an animated GIF. Just a nice note. It feels personal, friendly and sincere, the way a small business communication should.

I promised Mike that I’d give him a plug for letting me use his email as a case study so here goes: Michael T. Hanley, CPA is a managing partner at Merl & Hanley, LLP located at 12 Bank Avenue, Smithtown, NY 11787. (A CPA office located on Bank Avenue! Can you get more ironic than that? – LC) You can buy Mike Hanley’s book, “Effective Tax Planning for the MicroBusiness” in stores now! Find Merl & Hanley, LLP at www.merlandhanley.com or call (631) 360-CPAS. Mike can also be found on the social web on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Also, subscribe to his Blog, Making Life Less Taxing.