Following up enquiries

I’ve signed up to Drayton Bird’s 51 marketing tips (see www.draytonbird.co.uk). His site was recommended to me by a good friend, also in marketing.

I’ve just read tip no 5, and it’s about how you spend your time on getting new clients. Mostly people put a lot of effort into attracting new clients ‘cold’ — ie posters, fliers, adverts etc. And not so much effort into following up with someone who enquires - and yet why not???

It is these people, who effectively have said, ‘Hi, I’m interested’ who need to have more attention paid to them, not less!

And as I was reading this tip, I realised I had done this with someone the other day. He had emailed me after listening to a teleclass, saying he really liked the content. I emailed back saying thank you and that I’d visited his website, and thought it was great, and if I could ever help him, to let me know.

A couple of weeks passed, and another email arrived from him, this time wondering if the next ‘Develop Your Business’ Coaching Circle would be right for him or not. I emailed again giving my opinion, but invited him to book a free half hour slot to discuss his needs properly.

At the agreed time, he didn’t ring. I followed up again, and eventually we did have our dicussion. The end result of that was that he decided to sign up as an individual client, and is now focusing and getting results quicker than before.

When I look at this process in the light of what Drayton Bird was saying, I realise that I persisted on following the initial communication. This client bought when the time was right for him — and one reason was because I kept letting him know I was interested in his business and seeing if we might work well together. So I encourage you to follow up with every enquiry, no matter how ‘cool’ — as down the line they may easily turn into a very hot client!