Follow Up Your Contacts
I’ve been in business for several years now and have the privilege of working alongside some of the brightest minds in business.These are people who have real experience of doing things that lead to success. I remember one lady Louise Fowler, who I worked with for 2 years and who to my knowledge built 2 £1/5 million businesses, who said “the fortune is in the follow-up” and it took me a while to really grasp what she meant. Follow-up is often talked about as part of the marketing process but in reality it is far more about building relationships and enabling people to trust you.
Follow-up can be broken down into two areas Active and Passive:
Active Follow-up might include:
- picking up the phone and calling a prospective customer/client and asking some very un-sales like questions like: “How are you doing”? If they’ve been on holiday ask them how the trip went. If you know that they had a daughter getting married ask how the wedding went. Don’t try to sell them anything – just ask them some open questions. Just find out what they like doing – kite surfing, flower arranging, extreme sports – just find out what they like doing.
- inviting them for a coffee or lunch or dinner at your place
- sending a complimentary sample product for them to try and then asking for feedback on what they thought
- Skype Chat messages – it is very easy to see when someone is on-line and a simple chat message could lead to a lot of business – but it can also help with creating relationships
Passive follow-up is much easier but less effective as they are much easier to ignore and might include:
- a e mail or printed newsletter
- good quality postcards with your details on mailed with an order or separately
- special offers – less effective as they are perceived as ‘selling’
- audio postcards – sent electronically – they have to be good and preferably with your voice – using a produced voice is less effective
- write someone a letter by hand – they are still very effective – it shows that you care enough to put pen to paper.
There are many variations on a theme but we would love to hear your ideas and what works for you and conversely what doesn’t work for you.
Remember in these days people are more inclined to be interested in your business if you take an interst in them first.
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