Writing a Professional Thank You Letter Part 1

One of the key parts of making connections is after meeting them from an event where they were speaking or giving advice, a great way to have them help remember you is by writing a thank you letter. After asking them a question and addressing your name, the third and final part is to write a thank you letter after they came. That generally should let the speaker remember who you are. When you write these letters they need to be sincere and not just a generic letter and specific. So I am going to go over some key things that compose a professional thank you letter.

Salutation/Closing the letter

This may seem overlooked at times, but how the person is addressed at the beginning based on what kind of relationship you have with the speaker. If is is informal then you can address them by their first name, but if you are trying to be formal I would suggest using "Dear, Mrs,/Mr., speaker's last name". If they have a title I would use that as well if they are a professor have a P.H.D After beginning the letter, one should close the letter with either a Best Regards, Thank again, warmly, or Best wishes for example. Just keep in mind what kind of relationship you have with this person, because if you write, "Hugs n Kisses, or XOXO, then that could not be professional or appropriate.  

Sincerity

When you are writing this letter, these are usually short and to the point. So right away you should be thanking the person, and be specific on what you are grateful for. If you received a gift you should describe the gift and make it clear what you thought about it and that you cherish it. Now if it was a guest speaker who came, you need to be very specific about things that they talked about and points they made specifically and how that will help you.  After just thanking them, you need to include how much that meant to you if it was advice or a gift, or etc. Also one might want to include is sharing an update about your life of where you are heading and include, if you know the person well maybe, some personal questions about how they are doing since you last were in contact with them. 

So right now I have gone over what type of content should be in the letter, in the next post, I will go over what type of formatting and different ways to compose a letter to make it more personal. Hope everyone enjoyed their break!