If you had to rate businesses in general, what would your rate them in regards to follow up? Would you give business an A? Probably, more like a C or a D.
Roch Tranel from Tranel Financial Group in Libertyville, IL offers a quick presentation on the importance of following up to grow your business. To some degree, business is like dating. If you had a date and didn’t hear from your date for a month, would you think they were interested?
You need to have a process for your follow up. Roch Tranel comes for the old school of sales, he likes to use hand written thank you cards and phone calls. Others may like text messaging and emails. We all have our own favorite ways of following up with our customers.
When you’re thinking about your follow up, think about the whole dating process. The more contacts you have with the date, the better. Which makes that person feel really warm and really special. The great thing about follow up is, that it cost virtually nothing.
So think of the dating scenario, boy asks girl out. After she accepts the date, there’s a couple ways that it can go. The first thing that can happen after the date, Boy #1 never connects, never follows up with the girl again.
The second thing that can happen, Boy #2, on the way home, the boy texts the girl, “I had a really good time tonight, 🙂“.
When the girls gets the message, she thinks that was a nice thing for him to do.
The next morning, at work, the girl gets called up to the front of the office. Flowers arrived.
Great follow up.
So, Boy #2 has a lot of different dates with the girl.
Boy #1 calls the girl, maybe a month later.
And the girl says to herself, well did he have a heart attack after our date or did something happen to his mother or was the boy just not interested in her? Or did boy have 4 other dates that didn’t turn out and then, it’s a month later and she’s the only person available?
So we get into business and we have a “date” and if you don’t follow up, what does the person think? In the examples above, Boy #1 or Boy #2?
So most business people and most sales people aren’t really good at their follow up. Roch Tranel has set up a process at Tranel Financial Group. Their clients or perspective clients get an email confirming their appointment, they get a call the day before, then they come in for their appointment and then they send them an email after their appointment.
We all need a good system for our follow up so that’s its unique to you and your business. In the email that Roch sends out the day after the appointment it includes a reminder of what was discussed or done in the meeting.
Most business would get a C or a D if graded on follow up. So think about dating. If you were dating someone, how would you react if you really liked the person? You would let that person know, wouldn’t you? You would follow up with them either though a phone call, a voice message at work, a text message, a card or some communication that said, “I am thinking of you. You are important to me.”
produced by Blue Sky Video Productions
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