536: How To Write An Annual Letter For Your Small Business

My Business On Purpose

You know that moment when you open the mailbox and you see the letter with your name on it? Not the spam mail, the credit card offer, or the latest internet bill. That feeling you get when you open a letter personally addressed to you, Hannah or Jason. Behind those words are thought, courage, joy, laughter, tears, surprise, or motivation. Words are powerful, especially when they are directed to you. Words matter. The thoughts and intentions behind those words matter. The way those words make you feel or react matter. Think about this. Every major global religion is all based on a holy book. Writing. The door to every major global movement or cause has typically stemmed from a book, a song, a poem, a prepared speech, or manifesto. Writing. One of our favorite phrases is, “if it is not written down it doesn’t exist.” So why don’t we write more often? We’re scared we’re not that good at it. Novelist Louis L’Amour said, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” One of the most powerful, durable, and recordable ways to share your human thoughts as a leader is to write them out, personally addressed to your team. Of course, you have doubts. Poet Sylvia Path helps us confront our doubt saying, “... By the way, everything in life is writable if you have the outgoing guts to do it... The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” When you write a letter to your company you have immediately created recorded history. When your business is two, or ten, or forty years off into the future, those future team members and leaders will be installed with the founder's or previous owners' principles, ideas, innovations, and foundations. When you do not write a letter to your company, it gets lost to time. We are encouraging you and challenging you to write a letter to each member of your business every year and personally mail it to their home with their name on the top. The first exposure I had to a powerful annual letter is Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in his 1997 Amazon Shareholder letter. I used it in my first-ever coaching session with a client as we built out their Vision Story. In his letter, Bezos works through some key elements that we can put into a simple template to help you think through your powerful letter. First, Bezos begins his letter with key milestones that Amazon has achieved throughout the year. It is short and sweet and very powerful coming right out of the gate. No fluff, dive right in. You may say something like… Dear Hannah, We saw ACME, Co. grow beyond our projections by about 5% and YOU were a huge part of that. Our goal is to move beyond where we are at now and for next year become the second largest XYZ company in our county... Next, Bezos then goes on to discuss multiple opportunities that are in front of them. Even if you are staring down the barrel of a recession, opportunity is in front of you. What is it? What could your business do even if you don’t know the “how” quite yet? Writing this letter forces you to see opportunity and then take the risk of sharing that opportunity. Use wisdom, use discretion, and be bold. You can do all three together. Third, Bezos begins sharing true stories that are aligned with their unique core values of “long term” and “obsess over customers”. With each of those stories, he is also diligent to layout bullet points of what the impact will be to Amazon from those stories, both the fun parts and the challenging parts. For instance, an impact of “long term” is “When forced to choose between optimizing the appearance of our GAAP accounting and maximizing the present value of future cash flows, we’ll take the cash flows.” He’s honest and discrete. Bezos shares what he can share, but I’m sure doesn’t share everything. Also, remember that Amazon is a publicly-traded company so they will tend to be more open about their financial numbers due to their public transparency. You may wish to not share those. With whatever you write, just ask yourself, “how will this impact particular team members when they read it.” The overall goal is to celebrate, encourage, inspire, motivate, show appropriate vulnerability, and vision-cast through your annual letter. Use your discretion with how much information to share. Next, Bezos shares some key metrics that make sense to the Amazon team. What will make sense to your team? Is it the number of increased contracts signed this year compared to last? Is it the user ratings that have increased this year over last? Your performance rating? Safety metrics? What are those key metrics that matter to your team? This may be a great place to share them. Fifth, Bezos devotes an entire section just to the Amazon team... to celebrating them. He is aspirational, saying things like, “The past year’s success is the product of a talented, smart, hard-working group, and I take great pride in being a part of this team.” Bezos is also sober mentioning, “It’s not easy to work here... but we’re building something important.” Near the end of the letter, Bezos then goes into full-on vision-casting and goal-setting mode. It is a sentence by sentence power punch to the soul of each team member as if to say, “I so value you that I’m going to stretch our horizon, so you will always have a place to RUN by doing your highest and best work.” Where are you headed? What are the broad steps that it will take for you to get there? Remember the words to the Jewish Prophet Habakkuk, “write the vision down so those who read it may run!” Finally, Bezos signs off with a two-sentence summary. This would be a great place to reinforce your mission statement saying something like, “This was a powerful year to (insert mission statement), and I am beyond grateful for you. Thank you for your work, your commitment, and for your devotion to (insert a core value here).”