I am not a Greek scholar but in many cases they have more words that occasionally are useful. For example their keywords for time chronos and kairos. The first refers to chronological time, such as when he checked the clock to see how long you have to wait for lunch or when you announced that dinner will be at eight o’clock.

Kiaros, on the other hand, reveals an event that happened at a particular point in time. If the 8 o’clock dinner turns out to be the most fun you had in a long time and you feel some relief from the pressures of your life, then it becomes kairos moments as well. Kairos refers to significant event — good or bad — that alters your life. Something happened or something was said that made an impact. It may have even made chronos seem to stand still.

Do you remember the day you were married? How about the birth of your first child? Think about a favorite vacation you took with your family. While these are all kairos moments you cherish. Some kairos events, however leave an impact because of the tragic consequences the death of a loved one, a divorce, an argument with a co-worker, the horrific events of September 11, 2001.

We humans are an analytical lot. What a kairos moment occurs, especially one that stirs up negative emotions, we want to study old events that led to this crisis with the hope of preventing a similar thing from happening again. We think that what we need to learn from our mistakes is how not to ever make that mistake again!

We are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Instead of looking back at the event to prevent circumstances from converging in the same way again, we need to look forward to the growth that we can experience from it. Rather than focusing on what we want to leave behind from experience, we should be practiced about what we want for what from the experience as we move into the next asked of relationship or season of our lives.

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.