Booklets and The Art of Follow Up

An article this week in Robert Middleton's "Get More Clients" newsletter rang true for me about what's involved in following up with bulk buyers of booklets and other formats of your content.

For your reading and bottom-line pleasure, here it is.

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What's the most important marketing skill? You might be
surprised at the answer.

It's not having a great marketing message, powerful marketing
materials and a bullet-proof marketing plan. All of those are
certainly important but not as important as...

                                   ***Follow-up***

In my teleclasses and talks, I joke how people are looking for a
"killer marketing message" that will make people jump up and
down with excitement when they hear it. Sorry, but that's as
much of a myth as unicorns or a balanced national budget.

But people want to believe that myth, so they spend forever
trying to perfect their message. Look, all your message can get
you is some initial attention. That's all.

And virtually every single marketing action after that is follow-up.

When someone shows some interest in your services (when you
deliver a decent, but not mythical, marketing message), you need
to follow-up with some more information.

Once they've read that information, you need to follow-up to
determine if there's a deeper interest. And if there's a deeper
interest, then you need to follow-up to set up an appointment.

But it doesn't end there.

Once you have an appointment, you need to follow-up to confirm
that appointment (yes, people flake out). And once you've had
the appointment you need to follow-up with a proposal or to close
the sale. Follow-up never ends.

Follow-Up Secrets

Here are some follow-up secrets I've learned over the years that
are important to understand and master if you're going to attract
more clients.

1. Know where you are in the game

When you follow-up with someone, the purpose is to move the
prospect from one base in the marketing game to the next base.
If you try to jump bases (or move too fast), you tend to get
rejected by the prospect. If you move too slow with your follow-
up, you loose the interest you've generated up to that point.

2. Don't move too fast

When you get someone's interest (say at a networking meeting)
and then say you'd like to call back to talk with them, that's fine.
But when you make that call and immediately try to set up an
appointment, you'll likely get some resistance. 

Remember, people want more familiarity and some information
before they meet with you. So your follow-up system needs to
build that in. One way to do this is with pre-written emails and
links to articles or to your web sites.

3. Don't move too slow

If you give a talk and get cards from people who are interested in
knowing more about your services, how soon should you follow-
up? The very next day. For each day you don't follow-up, interest
wanes. If you have only a few follow-ups, use the phone. If you
have many, send an email to set up a time to talk in the
upcoming week.

Stale follow-ups are just that. They've forgotten what interested
them in the first place, so when you call back after several weeks
it's like starting all over again.

4. Balance fast and slow

The key to effective follow-up is balancing the fast and the slow.
Fast to get back to someone when they show interest; slow to get
to know them. Fast to provide information requested; slow to
discuss what this information means to their business. Fast to get
a proposal in the mail; slow to discuss the details of that proposal.

5. Watch your assumptions

What if someone doesn't get back to you? You've followed up
promptly and you don't hear back right away. What does this
mean? Only one answer: Who knows? It could be anything.

But we are quick to jump to the conclusion that it's bad news. Not
always. They might be very busy with a big priority or could even
be out on vacation. So don't jump to conclusions. Just keep
following up. Just watch that you don't sound desperate!

6. When to stop following-up

Let's say you have a prospect you've either met with or done a
proposal for. You thought everything was going well, but they
aren't returning your calls. Do you keep leaving messages or do
you give up? What I recommend is leaving one last message that
goes like this:

"Hi John, I've been trying to get back to you about the project but
haven't heard from you for a couple weeks. I don't want to keep
pestering you, so if I don't hear back from you, I'll assume you
don't want to move ahead. I'll leave the ball in your court. Please
call if you want to take the next steps, but this is the last
message I'll be leaving. Hope to hear from you. My number is ..."

This approach works. If they actually are interested, they'll call
you back. If they don't, well there's your answer. It's time to
move on.

7. Create follow-up systems

To streamline your follow-up, create systems you can use over
and over again. A follow-up system consists of specific steps you
take each step of the way.

It might work something like this:

   a) prospect learns about your service and visits web site
   b) prospect fills out form on the web requesting more information
   c) prospect receives an automated email from you with web link
   d) you send out personalized email requesting an appointment
   e) you follow-up by email until appointment is set
   f) you meet with prospect by phone
   g) after phone appointment you send agreement
   h) after a few days you send another email
   i) after a few more days you leave a phone message
   j) prospect ultimately gets back to you with a yes or no

Once your follow-up system is designed and fine-tuned, you can
use it reliably to turn many prospects into clients. This is exactly
how I built my business. It didn't happen by chance.

I invite you to use it to build yours.

                                           *

The More Clients bottom line: The skill of follow-up is the glue
that holds all of your marketing together. It's what bridges the
gaps between initial connections, information, meetings and
proposals. Make it a priority to master this skill as soon as
possible.

By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit
Robert's web site at www.actionplan.com for additional
marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional
service businesses.
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Until next time,
Paulette - following up with you so you succeed
www.tipsbooklets.com