I’m often asked if email or voicemail is a better tool for following up with a prospect. My answer is: BOTH. But I really believe that there is actually more going on behind this question. And that is, there is often a fear in “messing up” or “making a mistake” on the “how” to do the follow-up. Often people feel they only have one chance to follow-up with a hot prospect and they better get it right!
I don’t believe that at all. In fact, what I see more often than not is people only following up once (either through voice mail or email) and when they don’t get a response, they figure the prospect is no longer interested, or doesn’t like them, or changed their mind. More likely what happens is, a prospect is very busy and your email or voicemail get lost in their day to day activities-not from a lack of interest, but from a lack of busyness!
I have a fairly high success rate in getting people to return my follow up emails or voicemails. Not always on the first try, but eventually we make contact again to continue our conversation.
And the key is this:
Appropriately (keyword is appropriately) continue following up through both emails and voicemails until you make contact again. Now, you may ask, what’s appropriately?
Start with either voicemail or email. Wait three or four days, then you might want to alternate and use the other medium. Wait about a week or so, and then send another email.
Remember, keep your emails short-all you are looking for is a date for a follow-up meeting or phone call. Do not sell in your follow-up emails or voicemails. Repeat: DO NOT SELL ON YOUR FOLLOW UP!
Being appropriately persistent has served me well. Many, many times I hear from a prospect, “I love that you were so tenacious in connecting with me” or “I love your persistence, I’m so sorry it took us so long to connect-I’ve been swamped”.
So I urge you to pull out your current prospect list and continue to appropriately and systematically follow up with prospects until you reach them.
If you are interested in learning more about how to systematically follow up with prospects and turn them into sales, or how to get more referrals from friends and family, or you would just like to change the way you look at the “dreaded sales call”, then I hope you’ll consider joining me for my ever-popular, 4 week teleclass, “How to Overcome Your Fear of Sales and Get More Clients-NOW!” which begins on July 10th! Click here for all the information.
 Mandy works with talented, high energy self employed professionals and very small businesses who struggle to market their business effectively, stretch their capacity and play a bigger game. Mandy’s client’s receive proven, specific information on what they need to do to get more clients and grow their business. As a result, those who coach with Mandy increase their business, get more clients and make more money, faster and easier than they ever would have on their own. Sign up for her free Cd “7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs” right down below. |
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