What do you think happens to your business card once you give it out?
What happens to the ones you get? Do you:
file them in a card holder?
stick them in a drawer?
enter the info immediately into your online contact manager?
stick it in the map pocket of your car door?
I’ve done all these things with business cards I’ve collected. I can only guess the same sorts of things happen to mine.
What’s my point? If you aren’t following up with people you meet, you need to ma... Read Full Story
No need to reinvent the wheel here!
Trent at The Simple Dollar has posted an insightful article about why following up with people sometimes yields no results and what to do to make sure it is worthwhile.
Check it out here:
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I spent yesterday at the Women of Visionary Influence Conference in Dallas yesterday. Our last speaker was Victoria Lowe, author of 10 Spiritual Principles of Successful Women, and the woman who built Alert Staffing to $100 million. A fascinating woman who described her meteoric rise to success and wealth and the pain of having a business partner accuse her of stealing money from her own company, Lowe’s primary message was about how to be a woman of excellence.
As she spoke about how s... Read Full Story
Last week I had an encounter that reminded me what a difference a little followup can make.
I was sitting in my local Panera Bread restaurant, and struck up a conversation with the woman sitting at the table next to mine. Turns out her family owns a local heating and air conditioning business. Their name was familiar to me because a company I used to work for used them exclusively, and they needed them a lot.
We talked for a while, found several common interests, and exchanged phone numbers.
... Read Full Story
I love Ari Galper’s training. He markets it as training to do cold calls, but it is MUCH more than that.
Imagine the funny feeling I had when I heard him say not to use the word “followup” when talking to a prospect. I was indignant - of course we follow up. That is how they know we are still thinking about them.
Ari doesn’t say not to DO the followup - he just says not to use the word. According to Ari, it is one of those words that trigger sales resistance in prospec... Read Full Story
Hallmark published a study in March in which 75% of respondents said that receiving a special birthday offer along with a personalized card would make them more likely to do business with the sender.
“Birthdays are a natural opportunity for businesses to reach out to their customers with business greeting cards,” said Marc Wagenheim, product marketing director for Hallmark Business Expressions. “Customers notice and appreciate when a company sends them business greeting card... Read Full Story
I got a call on my cell phone today. I’m still not sure who it was, but she said I had visited her web site. Probably so - I visit a lot of web sites.
There were so many ways she blew this follow up call, I’m just going to bullet list them for you:
She didn’t tell me the name of her web site so I could orient myself
She didn’t give a reason for her call
She didn’t ask if I had time to talk - I didn’t
She jumped in with a bunch of questions I had no reason ... Read Full Story
Shocking Statistics about Referrals – How Much More Business could Your Enjoy?
A teammate of mine sent me an email a couple days ago with these statistics:
91% of our customers say they would give us a referral
80% have not been asked
Before I write an article, I like to check my sources, so I googled the phrase with and without quotes, and guess what? No results. Which tells me that someone made the statistics up. But stay with me.
What if you asked every one of your current customers to giv... Read Full Story
Part of designing a followup plan is knowing your purpose. This falls in line with selling what your customer wants. I’ve heard it a million times. When your customer is shopping for a drill, they don’t really want a drill. What they want is a hole.
I would submit that they don’t want a hole, either. After all, I don’t know anyone who drills a hole in their wall and stops there.
People create holes in their walls to hang pictures on.
They hang pictures to make the s... Read Full Story
Not every marketing contest results in a new client or big bucks. Sometimes you just get bragging rights for a week. Such was the booty I won a couple weeks ago at our weekly Chamber networking group.
Each week, about 30 of us gather to network. Each person gets a 30-second commercial and the winner gets to take home and decorate “Bubbette-a-dillo”. We’re in Texas, ya’ll, and an armadillo is perfectly appropriate!
Poetry seems to get ‘em every time, so I wrote a... Read Full Story
