From the category archives:

What do I say?

What does Ari Galper have against followup?

by million

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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!)

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How NOT to Follow Up with a Web Site Visitor

by million

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.

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Marketing Strategy - Are You Promoting a Drill, a Hole, or a Beautiful Space for Your Family to Relax?

by million

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 space beautiful.

They want the space to be beautiful because it makes them feel good.

In NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming), this is called chunking up or eliciting values.

If your marketing efforts aren’t getting the results you want, check out what you’re selling - is it the hole or the happy family?

What is the top value your product or service supports?

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