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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 prospects - the last thing you want to do, right? Ari believes, and his students testify, that certain words and language patterns activate your prospect’s defenses and other words let you slip right under the radar.
So, what do you say instead? As usual, it is pretty simple, but easily overlooked. Tell the truth about what you are doing. Here is the language Ari believes works best -
I just wanted to see if you had any thoughts or questions since we last talked about …
Now you might think a rose by any other name would be the same, but I’ve been using this one for a week with my prospects and our conversations do last longer.
If you try it, let me know how it works for you. (Don’t follow up on it, just let me know your thoughts and questions!)
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 cards and good wishes around their birthday. Our study confirms what our business customers experience–business birthday cards make a lasting impression and encourage repeat business.”
One company mentioned in the article started sending birthday cards to their best customers along with a coupon. Between 35 and 40% of the customers used the coupons - a pretty respectable response rate!
Are you using this strategy in your business? Or do you celebrate other occasions with your customers?
Personally, I think there are several reasons Thanksgiving is a perfect time to send a business greeting card along with a personalized discount offer:
- Most people don’t send Thanksgiving cards, so yours stands out more
- A coupon for your service just before the holidays would most likely be welcome
- It is a natural time to say “Thanks for Your Business”
Of course, since Hallmark did the study, the article focuses on their business greeting card products. I checked these out - they aren’t really custom, of course. And with a minimum order of 25 cards at almost $2.00 each, they aren’t particularly economical either. To check out a truly personalized, economical, and time-efficient way to send these kinds of cards, get your own copy of my free report, “7 Keys to Claim Your Followup Fortune”. The system is in the Resource section!
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 to answer
- When I said I didn’t have time to talk because I was on my way into a meeting, she continued the conversation
- When I repeated for the third time (I was about to hang up), she just apologized for bothering me, but she didn’t try to set up a more convenient time for us to talk
What is sad is that we might have developed a relationship if she had handled it differently. I’m always looking for people to network with and I’m willing to help whenever someone asks politely.
What is even sadder is that I could tell she was operating from a script. Which means that someone taught her to do what she was doing. Which means that someone is teaching her to fail. Big time.
My Mom always said not to say anything if you couldn’t say something positive (I guess that rule doesn’t apply when you are talking to daughters ;(), so here is my idea of the proper way to follow up a web site visit by phone.
- Identify yourself and your web site
- Ask if the person you are calling has time to talk (I usually ask for a minute)
- If they don’t have time, ask for a convenient time to call back
- If they do have time, tell them up front why you are calling
- Ask for permission to ask questions
- Keep it short, unless the other person is obviously engaged and asking questions. Even then, you put yourself in a better light if you keep it short and make another appointment for a longer call. After all, if you don’t have anything better to do than to talk for 40 minutes when you said it would only be 5, you must not be very busy, right?
The best resource I know of for talking to people on the phone without making the mistakes my caller did today is Ari Galper’s Unlock the Game training. Ari has a great membership site where people can buddy up with others in their industry and practice with each other. I’ve gotten some great ideas from my buddy and he says I’ve given him some good ones, too.
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 give you a referral? And what if only 20% of them complied? And what if only 20% of them resulted in new business for you? That’s 4%, right?
If you had 4% growth in your customer base next month, what would that do for your business?
What’s that? You don’t have time to call all your customers and ask for a referral? Then take a look at the system I use to follow up with my customers. The details are in the “7 Keys” report offered here.
