Yesterday, I wrote a recommendation for a friend on LinkedIn. It was my pleasure to do it, I meant everything I said, and I hope it leads to her securing some solid business in the new year. She in turn wrote one for me, so my profile was enhanced a bit in the exchange.

Recommendations are powerful, and not enough of us are proactive about procuring them from clients. Trading recommendations only took a few minutes, which got me to thinking…

Why don’t we incorporate recommendation-writing into our normal routines? I realize that not everyone has a LinkedIn account, but an email works just as well. So we could start by spending some time every week writing brief recommendations for individuals we’ve worked with recently, moving on down the line to those we’ve worked with in the past.

And once we’re all caught up, we can simply make this a part of the process following collaborations, contractor engagements, and the like. It requires little effort to accomplish, and can be used by the recipient for years to come.

Why not?