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Elizabeth Cottrell Champions the Value of Handwritten Notes

Elizabeth Cottrell Champions the Value of Handwritten Notes

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 Bill Lampton: Hi there. Welcome to The Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the biz communication guy, bringing you business communication tips and strategies that will elevate your business. And I don’t do this solo. I do it through a lively conversation with a communication expert who has excelled in business. And I’m very happy today to welcome Elizabeth Cottrell from Woodstock, Virginia. Elizabeth’s career path has been, I’ll definitely underscore this, anything but straight. With a graduate degree in human anatomy, she has been a leprosy researcher, published scientist, wife, mother, grandmother, community leader, and yes, there’s more. Freelance writer, desktop publisher, musician, and amateur radio operator. Since 2016, she has also served as the first woman to chair First National Corporation and First Bank in its 118-year history. Elizabeth is the author of Heartspoken: How to Write Notes that Connect, Comfort, Encourage, and Inspire. And it’s a terrific book. I’ve given it a five-star review on Amazon and I encourage everyone to order that book. Elizabeth speaks and writes widely about the lost art of personal notes through her Heartspoken movement. She encourages people to use note writing as a powerful way to strengthen relationships with family, friends, clients, employees, and donors alike. So I know that you will join me in welcoming Elizabeth Cottrell. Hello Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cottrell: Hello Dr. Bill. What a treat to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this. Bill Lampton: So have I and I know in the meantime you’ve been writing a lot of meaningful notes. Elizabeth Cottrell: I I do my best. I do try to practice what I preach. Bill Lampton: I want to ask you with that, yes, not a straight path career, with all that I just described, it certainly takes strong business communication skills. So I’m curious, where did you and how did you develop the communication skills that have put you even as a as an image breaker in the banking industry? Did you have courses? Did you have coaches or explore on your own? What what was the your path to the incredible wide range of business success that you’ve had? Elizabeth Cottrell: What a great question and and it took me um I’m I’m going down memory lane here but I mean I have to give my father tremendous credit, Jim Herbert, who lived to age 95. Um I’m the oldest of five, uh, and he came from a family of strong women, so he believed in me and my sister and that we could do anything our brothers could do. And, um, and Bill, he taught us, and I hope nobody thinks this is trivial because I think it’s extremely important, he taught us to hop up when somebody came in the room, to shake, shake their hand with a firm handshake, and look them in the eye. And he made us practice handshake because how often have all of us in business scenarios shaken hands with somebody who either had a very unimpressive handshake or broke our hand because it was so strong? So, um, I I think those are the those are the two things that immediately come to mind. But, um, I think he also had a philosophy which I think is really interesting for all of us children. He believed, he said, you don’t need I don’t need to teach you to be the best at anything, but I want to teach you how to do a lot of different things so that if somebody invites you to go water skiing, to go hiking, to go canoeing, you won’t have to say, oh, I don’t know how, I don’t want to do that. And so he gave us confidence in a whole wide range of things that I think then I took that into my later life. Bill Lampton: That’s a blessing and and so you had 96 years of valuable advice from your father. Elizabeth Cottrell: Absolutely. And and then I would have to say in terms of applying, um, that confidence later on to anybody I would any young person I would say is be yourself. We talked about this before we went live. Be yourself, um, show up, and be prepared. And those who have served me well. Bill Lampton: You remind me so much of my childhood because my father managed a department store. And he taught me, and he taught my brother, that when we came back from out of town when we’d become adults even, that it and we came into the store, we were to shake hands with every employee. Elizabeth Cottrell: Ah. Bill Lampton: We were to talk with them about what was going on with them, not what was going on with us. And early in my 20s, that was at first a little bit challenging and maybe awkward, but it it became something after a while. It was so rewarding to to renew contact with people in that store. Maybe if I hadn’t seen some of them in a couple of years, I’ve lived away. So, the the initial contact is is so valuable, and it’s as you say, the handshake is important because Elizabeth Cottrell: It is. Bill Lampton: just walking by and waving or but the handshake and and the right firmness of the handshake, that is that’s a signal of a closer ...
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