Are You Missing Out on the Power of a Simple Newsletter or Ezine?

Have you ever seen that bumper sticker, “the person who dies with the most toys wins?”  Well, in marketing, s/he who dies with the biggest database wins! 

Building and maintaining your database is key to the success of your business and one of the best ways to build your business is by sending out a regular electronic newsletter (often called an Ezine – an electronic magazine).

The success of your newsletter strategy depends on the three golden rules of my Practice Building Success System.

The three golden rules are:

1. Give value

2. GIVE value!

3. GIVE VALUE!!!!!!!!

Your database is GOLD and if you treat it that way you will become GOLDEN!  Far too many therapists ignore this. 

The fact is, you are missing a HUGE opportunity if you don’t have a way to keep in contact with the people you meet and the clients who have already used your services.  In fact I’ve had several therapists double the revenue in their practice simply by staying in touch with people who already know and love them. 

It’s much easier to have an old client return than to procure a new one.

A newsletter or ezine is a great way to bring old clients back or just to keep reminding them you are there.  Even if they don’t need what you are offering right at that particular moment, at least you have reminded them you are still alive and kicking and ready to welcome them when they do need you.

If you consistently produce a quality newsletter or ezine, your subscriber database will grow steadily through word of mouth ..... when you provide value to your readers.  That last part of the sentence is bold because it is the key to the magic kingdom. 

I don’t know about you but the ezines that hit my inbox and get read are the ones that educate, inform and inspire and these are the very type of ezine I have forwarded onto others because I knew it would help those people.  While very few therapists can solely rely on the proliferation of their Ezine as their primary marketing vehicle, it is an effective way to allow other people to market for you while you sit back and watch the size of your database grow!

So by now I hope I’ve convinced you of the value of newsletters.  Now lets look at what you need to avoid:

The three quickest ways to die in cyberspace

1. Make it about you or your modality

2. Don’t make it about them

3. Don’t give value

My 90 Day Challenge is a very grand example of the “Give Value Golden Rule” in action.  I have had over 850 people sign up to do the challenge from a database of zero.  When I launched the 90 Day Challenge I had to re-sign my whole database onto my new shoppingcart.  You might expect my ezine list, created at the same time, is about the same size.  Well it’s not it’s double that and I can only put it down to the fact that people are saying such good things about me that people sign up for the newsletter despite not wanting to do the challenge.  When people sign on to the database the comment section usually goes something like “a friend who did your challenge told me about you”. 

By steadily plodding along giving value at every turn I got a name for myself that is now becoming unstoppable.  It doesn’t happen overnight but it happens!  The trick is to consistently turn out high content, high value newsletters that are designed to genuinely help people.  Your secondary need should be to publicise events and products that might also help others whilst still keeping your bank manager happy.

So why do newsletters work so well

There are three key reasons why they work:

1.  Credibility

Chances are, when people first subscribe to your Ezine they won’t know much about you or your profession.  Publishing a regular Ezine allows you to build credibility with your readers.  Natural therapies, like most professional services, require a level of trust.  An Ezine is an excellent way to build the necessary trust and credibility just by being yourself.

2.  Enables Relationship Building

Perhaps you’ve heard the term relationship marketing.  In essence, relationship marketing is the process of allowing people to get to know you and your services over time.  Having an Ezine is an excellent way to build relationships with potential clients.  Let’s face it, people are most comfortable (and willing) to hire a therapist whom they already know.  An Ezine is one of the most effective and efficient ways to build relationships with tens, hundreds and even thousands of people. 

3.  Increase Your Knowledge

When you write articles for your Ezine your own knowledge and confidence will increase.  As you know, the best way to learn something is to teach it!  So when you publish an Ezine and invest the time and energy to research topics and write about them, your own skills, proficiency and knowledge increase. 

Why are they so powerful?

It a numbers game.  In marketing a certain percentage of your database will react to your offers.  That reaction level is VERY low.  If you are getting anything between 1 and 3 percent reaction you would be happy. Anything over 10 percent and you will be ecstatic.  So if you aren’t into giving value you can see why a newsletter won’t work for you.  So let’s just look at the numbers for a minute.

If you send to 100 people and 1% react – that’s 1 person.  Lets say they have three treatments with you at $70 – it means that campaign grossed you $210

If you send to 1,000 people and 1% react – that’s 10 people and if those people have 3 treatments with you at $70 – well that campaign is worth $2,100!  Now are you are starting to see why newsletters work?

About now you are probably going into, “well it's all alright for HER, SHE knows thousands of people”.  Please know the absolute truth is that my first newsletter went to about TEN people – yes, you read right 10 family and friends.  Ask anyone with a big database they built themselves and they will tell you the same story.  Ali Brown, the Ezine Queen reaches millions of people now.  She inspired me to start by telling her list that she too started with 10 people and one of those was her cat!  

The hardest yards are in getting your first 500 people, then the flow becomes a little easier.  If you are a quitter, don’t start, it will break your spirit.  But if you are a plodder like me who kept writing from the heart, kept giving value and bless all of you who told your friends, family and colleagues about me.  But remember I also worked my little tush off in rain, hail, sunburn, sandstorms and tears to build my database and six years later I’m getting the rewards.

So if you are in this for the long haul and if you love what you do, your ezine will bring you a great deal of pleasure and profit over the years but the trick is to start NOW!

Start now and give yourself and become a winner in your prospects eyes!

We Are What We Repeatedly Do!

I was asked for my opinion of what the following message means

OK - here's my best interruption at 7AM in the morning.


We Are What We Repeatedly Do ........ it's along the same lines as:

"‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.'
Jim Rohn"

But because likes attract, eventually the bigger number of people will outweigh the smaller number of people, unless we do something to change the odds and change the mix of people we hang out with.

This article that I found on google goes deeper into the "average of five people" topic - you can read it here

So, if we hang out with people who are constantly striving to be better, who are honest and true - then we will be that too because who we chose to spend our time with, influences who we are.  If we hang out with a bunch of crack addicts who don't respect themselves or others and steal from and abuse others to feed their habit, then, if we don't stop hanging with them, we will eventually become like that too.

If we want to be poor we should hang out with people who are poor and have a negative poverty mentality, then eventually we will become that too because there are immutable laws that say "likes attract and negativity will always pull you downwards".

If we want to be rich, hang out with people who already have money because their actions, thoughts and deeds will be different to the people who are poor.

Same with weight loss - if you want to lose weight - hang with people who are skinny because their actions are different to people who are fat.

So if we are what we repeatedly do in the above examples - if we repeatedly hang with the crack addicts because we grew up with them and went to school with them and feel some sort of guilt if we don't - then by repeatedly ignoring the warning bells and still hanging with them - then despite the good we hold within, eventually bad will "out average" the good and we will find ourselves in trouble with the law.  Then we end up in the criminal justice system surrounded by more crims and we spiral downwards.

If we repeatedly ignore health warnings, those actions will eventually see us ending up sick.

If we want something in life, but don't take the steps toward it, we will not get want we want.

So for instance an Olympic athlete repeatedly gets up each morning and does their training - if they do it enough and have the right mindset, eventually they will make the team.  If they repeatedly lie in bed or keep the thoughts they were bought up with that say "you will never amount to much", then they won't make the team.

Going up to the olympics we often see someone injure themselves just before they get on the plane to go.  If we went down the burrow, despite their best training schedules and despite their talent, they will often be repeating a family mantra that says "something always goes wrong" - or "I'm not really good enough for this team" and bam by "doing" that thought, they attract an injury that will make those thoughts come true or they will over train despite being told to rest and hurt themselves on their very last session.

The people who hit the winning tape are the ones who are the best at repeatedly doing ALL the things that are best for the outcome they desire.

Same with people who are sick - often they don't follow to the letter what their health professionals tell them and wonder why they don't get well - what they are doing becomes what they are.

How often do we see people told to rest and they think better of that advice and do the opposite and wonder why they end up back in hospital.

If we repeatedly do negative behaviours that don't support our dreams - we won't get our dreams

If we repeatedly do the positive things that support our dreams and set our goals and do ALL the behaviours and actions that will get us to those goals, then eventually we will get what we want.

However, this applies to everything including our thoughts, so if we let negativity into our thoughts then we become those negatives - hence why it is so important that our thoughts, actions and deeds are in alignment.

Have a read of Keith Richards bio "Life" and you will understand why they became the Rolling Stones - in the early days all they did was play their guitars and live the life of a rock star - they literally slept with their guitars.

Bands that make it tour constantly - they just "DO" so often that eventually become what they want to be.

While watching the INXS doco recently it was plain their success comes down to the number of gigs they did.  Most bands fail when they stop repeating the one thing that will make them successful - playing!

No one would go through the poverty and loss those guys did in the early days, but they just kept doing it way beyond anything anyone else ever would put themselves through.

I heard Bono tell Elvis Costello once:  "For anything to be really amazing, there has to be a long obedience in the same direction."  You can read about that interview here

What I think he was trying to say was that you have to obediently do the right things over and over again for many years to get something amazing.  He was talking about how The Edge had the luxury of not being in the limelight so much so was able to just play guitar all the time whereas he doesn't feel he is as talented as The Edge because Bono was pulled off track by the political "earth saving" stuff. 

Let me know what you think "We Are What We Repeatedly Do" means below.

An Innovative Way to Get in Front of Clients

I had to smile today as I enjoyed my green tea and a scan through my emails.  I love when people start taking innovative actions when times get tough.

Humans never move when they are comfortable but watch them go when times get tough.

I loved what we can learn from an innovative way hotels are getting more guests in beds.

As it gets harder to sell hotel beds as less people travel the globe due to factors such as technology advances bringing people together virtually, a greater consciousness of the ecological damage the travel industry brings to the planet and overall the financial crunch means less spending in general.

So hotels are needing to get smarter.


We can learn a lot from this industry because therapists have exactly the same problem hotels have.  At the end of each day, any beds not filled are never available to sell again on that day.  Yes they can sell tomorrow’s beds, but today’s beds are never available again.

Treatment rooms or consults are the same.  If you didn’t fill yesterday’s diary - the opportunity to get revenue from those spots has gone.  So watching the way hotels think and market is a good habit to get into.

Springwise had a link to a service that scans twitter and picks up on destinations people have mentioned in their tweets.  The hotel sends those people some local area knowledge or a discounted room offer to that twitter account. 

Some hotels are reporting a 9% uptake on their direct twitter offers.  This is huge as most direct campaigns would celebrate if they got a 2-3% response.

Why the big difference?

They are adding value, saving their customers time and solving a problem for their clients. 

In some instances they are solving a problem before the client even thought too hard about fixing it.

This is marketing genius which you can replicate on a smaller scale.

It's our equivalent of dropping a flyer on the bedside table of someone who is about to get out of bed and complain of an ache and pain or emotional deficiency.  They are delivering a solution at a time of pain. 

Humans are lazy creatures.  

In most instances if a suitable solution comes their way at a price and service level suitable to them .... they will most likely take it.

The reason this campaign by hotels is working is because this is very targeted marketing.  The hotel knows its customers well and presents only one solution to their problem - a room in a hotel in the city they are visiting in the near future. 

Its your classic WHO & WHAT situation.  They know WHO their customers are and WHAT those customer want.

These hotels are getting under the noses of people solving problems AND saving them time.

How can you do that?

If you are very clear WHO you work with - simply figure out where your people are hanging out - what their problems are on a daily basis and get yourself, your message and your offerings in front of them, at a time when they are thinking about their problem.

People with a certain problem start seeking solutions in similar places

The golden question to answer is .... where do your people hang out????


But an even better question is ..... who else has my people?  This is the question the hotel has answered - they have figured out that their customers tweet their travel plans out to their network. 

Do people tweet or facebook their problems on a daily basis - YOU BET!  If you exactly solve their particular problem, then a simple google search to see if that person has a public profile and you could drop one of your flyers in the post to them.  It can be that simple.  If you are really brave you could make the offer directly in the post they've made - but truly I find that a bit intrusive.  You must discern what's the right level of contact for you. 

People leave clues everywhere - you need to get your intuitive super power glasses on and start seeing those opportunities everywhere.

It is so much easier to sell something to someone who wants what you’ve got.  You’ve just got to get very creative about figuring out where the problem YOU solve occurs in THEIR life.

For instance, if a child is having a hissy fit on the supermarket floor and the parent looks up and sees a flyer on the notice board for a hissy fit behaviorist or a golfer walks into the club room from a round of golf and finds a person who can improve their swing by loosening up their muscles - I reckon they will be pretty interested in at least hearing about your services.

Where are your people and what are their problems?

What You Need In Place When A Big Online Opportunity Comes Calling

Many experts and online entrepreneurs dream of the day when someone with a big fan base or database mentions them or promotes them.

Few are ready for what might occur next.

This week a client released her first product and the night before it was released her WordPress site got hacked. When she phoned up the people at the help desk of the company who hosts her site she may have well of been speaking Swahili.

They a) couldn’t even see the problem and b) even if they could – they would have had no idea how to solve her now massive and stressful problem.

When big opportunities come our way – we must have good systems in place and be ready for the onslaught of visitors.

I have an even sadder tale to tell – I remember I had something going off one time = people were hitting my site AND purchasing AND my scummy hosting provider automatically shut my site down because my plan ran out of bandwidth. It ran out because abnormal numbers were hitting the site.

At the time I didn’t even know what bandwidth was, but I suddenly became very aware of the consequences of not having enough because people stopped buying!

When you consider that you pay for a service that allows people to hit our sites, you might expect that they might give you some time to sort the problem out before shutting you down.  Most will send an automated reminder to tell you that you are nearing your limit and if you are getting loads of visitors, that little extra you had up your sleeve is gone in 5 minutes due to high visitor numbers and BANG they shut you down!

So to make the most of the dream of hundreds of people visiting you and your website – this is the minimum you need in place to ensure you don’t get shut down or that your system doesn’t fold under pressure.

Back up – Back UP – BACK UP!

A hacked or attacked website usually means one thing – a complete reload from a clean source to ensure everything has been removed. If you don’t have a backup of your current website files (yes including that small change you made yesterday that took hours to complete) then you may need to re-write the whole site! OUCH!

I have all my files on my GoDaddy* server, on the hard drives of my TWO Macs and then use Dropbox to store all my hard drive files using cloud technology. Total overkill *yes* but it means I can access my files anywhere in the world that has the Internet if I need to reload my site.

Extreme perhaps – but you will thank me the morning your site gets hacked and now looks like a porn site and you are due on stage in 30 minutes to sell a big event and your website is the point of entry for the hundreds of people in the room.

Pay for unlimited bandwidth

I still don’t know what bandwidth is, but I don’t have to care because I’ve got the problem covered - again GoDaddy* sorted that for me. All you need to know about bandwidth is that you need a lot of it if you do get a rush on your site so it won’t fold.

My best advise is to pay the price for an unlimited service and never worry about it again!

Get reliable hosting

Use a company to host your website that is available 24/7 AND their staff are experienced.

I have the GoDaddy* unlimited bandwidth and website package. They promise to fix your problem on the first call and have 24/7 support staff who have always fixed my challenges in one phone call.  There are many other great suppliers you can use – and these days the cost is very low – it truly is a case of invest before you need it.

Who ever you use, make fine sure they are set up to handle big volume traffic – and be aware most hosting companies are set up to take the traffic like you might expect the local hardware store to generate. Ensure all your suppliers can take a worldwide online product or event release.

Its also good policy to have some of your eggs in one basket.  Most tech companies will start blaming each other when you have multiple suppliers.  There are pros and cons from having one supplier host everything - but when there are problems it is nice to know a) they see how everything is functioning together and b) they can't blame third parties and c) you won't end up the one with a massive problem and no idea how to solve it.

Capture those hot leads!

Have a way to capture visitors to your site by way of a free product or offering that collects their email address so you can stay in touch once the hoop-la dies down.

These days just offering a newsletter isn’t enough – you need something unique and appealing to your target audience and you need to be able to follow up. People don’t start to purchase until they have had at least 7 “touches” from you. If you haven’t friended them or collected their email address you can’t touch them again – the magic is in the follow up.

Stay tuned

Be around to respond quickly to queries or problems that come up – just before an event or product release is not the time to take that vacation or go sit on a mountainside to chant.

Use companies who already have big name clients and are used to high volumes.

You MUST HAVE a good customer relationship management system (CRM)

OK so you’ve got it all down to date – you have a robust website that will take whatever is thrown at it – you have a free product and the visitors are sucking it up like ice cream on a hot day and BANG! Your CRM tells you that you have reached your capacity and it has stopped letting visitors sign for your free program.

When this happens anyone who comes to your site will visit and go and you have no way to stay in touch with them in the future – in fact you won’t even know who came by!

Mail Chimp is an excellent free service that allows you to store up to 2,000 people for free. Those numbers make most people think its "enough", but when you consider at any given time there are millions of people on Facebook and there could be millions watching an ad roll past and decide to click on it, then 2,000 people simply isn’t enough.

You are going to fold pretty quickly if your system won’t allow those people to give you their email details so you can stay in touch with them in the future.

I have a system called Infusionsoft and a package that starts to tremble at 500,000 people – no that’s not a typo that’s half a million people securely stored before it even starts to get antsy.

There are many other great CRM systems out there but always be certain you can talk to someone who can answer your questions very quickly. Always check their customer service hours and rates before you sign up.  Some now charge you big bucks if you want to speak with them – they have you over a barrel if something does go wrong and this then becomes an expensive mistake on every level.

Don’t just sit idol

Be promoting the event yourself, just don’t sit back and leave it to the promoter – help the promoter promote you by promoting them! It’s a win for everyone if you do.

Ensure you are wired to stay in touch

Link up your Facebook, twitter, newsletters, blogs etc to your website (tell me you have those!) – we want to create as many opportunities for new people to interact with you as is humanly possible.

Are You Mobile Friendly?

High numbers of people now view your website via mobile phone devices or iPads - make sure they can see you and not just a jumble of rubbish that they will click out of fast.

You have 10 seconds or less to impress

Stats show you have around 10 seconds to interest and hold the attention of a new web site visitor. Ensure your site is ready to serve immediately – that your core message is communicated within the first 10 seconds - hello and welcome – is not a good opening – they need to understand immediately what’s in it for them to stay.

If you fail to captivate and capture that 10 second opportunity you can be assured it will be a lost opportunity unless you can figure out how to get them back.  Think about it, why would someone return to anything that failed to appeal the first time - this really is the time to get it right the first time.

Form meaningful relationships

Then once all these wonderful opportunities are harnessed – you need a way to go back and form meaningful relationships with your new Facebook friends, Twitter followers or newsletter subscribers - or by whatever means you have captured them. Again if you want to keep these new people in your circle of light for the next few years, you are going to have to start reminding them who you are and how you can serve them …. without scaring them away with hard sell tactics.

If you've built it - they can come!  

Great opportunities need to be taken seriously and you need to take yourself seriously.

If you want to be seen as an expert and present yourself to the world as someone worth working further with, you need to be ready, have invested in systems that not only work but will take the load.

Now is not the time to rely on free services that are patched together with band aids.  If you want people to take you seriously, you need to take your  IT seriously and learn what you need to do to be successful out in the big wide world of the internet.

All too much??

Best book a complimentary session with me if this overwhelms you but you know you need to get this right.  Not being ready for opportunites can cost you in SO many ways.  It may be the one time in your whole career where you have the world come to your doorstep. You need to be ready to offer a big slice of home made cake and a big soft comfy sofa to sit your guests on.

Most fail to offer their internet friends and visitors even the most basic of hospitality and wonder why they don't stick around for a chat.

Show em you care, form meaningful relationships and give extreme value and they will stick around for a very long time ….. and isn’t that what we are about – being of service to others for a very long time?

*GoDaddy’s CEO has taken a lot of flack from PETA over the elephant shooting incident. I don’t condone the shooting of anything, but sometimes things get so far out of whack I can at least see why it is necessary to protect villager and their food supplies. You can read his response on his blog and discern if his product is right for you. As for the racy ads – well those women have choice and they are being well paid for the sponsorship and why should the guys always get these highly paid sponsorship deals – again discern if this is right for you.

Some Different Ways to Discount

There are many different ways to discount your services without cheapening your brand.

If you want to fill some empty spaces in your diary fast, a lot of therapists are posting what I would call "cheap and dirty" offer on discount websites.

In fact it seems to be all the rage right now.  This site is a broker for the discounters www.allthedeals.com.au and will give you a list of all the different sites that allow you to advertise.

Indeed it is just another great way to pull new people into your practice.  It's most certainly a spray and pray tactic in that you spray out the message to a vast number of people, praying that it hits your ideal client.  Spray and pray tactics give you little control.

Its also a PUSH tactic meaning you have to push into a crowd to get a result.  My system much prefers PULL tactics where you build relationships that pull people toward you.

A pull tactic is much easier because eventually it surrounds you with people who know and love you and they want to love you more.

Push tactics often solve short term problems and fill gaps in your diary, but they may not sustain the business well, because you haven't qualified the people yourself.

A pull tactic means just by being you, you have drawn people to you via your opinions and by your ability to show your expertise in a particular area.  This takes longer and so a pull strategy is a long term way to get clients, but it a sure fire way to ensure you end up with a practice full of clients who love everything about you.

The difference is subtle but a pull tactic requires a bit of time to build the relationship, but once people who have experienced you a few times are ready to work with you, they require very little conversion because they have already decided that they know and love you.

These people may have been sitting as prospects on your newsletter list or have been following your blog, or they met you at a speaking engagement and became a facebook friend.  In these instances you have given them a taste of what you are all about before they phone you and they feel as if they know you.  If you build any sort of relationship with a prospect, the chances of them booking something with you, goes up the more they relate with you.

So internet advertising (that isn't targeted) is a lot like a virtual letter box drop - you are marketing to total strangers who have no idea who you are.  The pluses are that it doesn't cost a lot to get to a heap of people, but your advert may not bring huge results because the people looking at your offers, won't know you and may not be the type of people who want and need your services.  But if you only want to sell a couple of spots each week in this discounted category, then its another way for you to get the message out.

However, you need to consider if you are cheapening your brand.  

You also need to remember your current clients, paying top dollar may find these sites and wonder why you are overcharging them.  So as always discern if a service like this is right for you.

Using the discounters will potentially bring a lot of tire kickers, people who consume the cheap massage and then never return - that is a big risk in these types of offer.  But if you have your rebooking patter down, and encourage them to book again before they leave after the first treatment - then you have a potential loyal customer in your midst.  It's the strength of your re-booking patter that will determine the long term value in advertising on discount websites.

I believe you have to be careful about discounts - you can end up sounding like K-Mart if you are constantly discounting, and people just end up wanting to pay less and less for your services.

I'd consider other ways you can discount, without just slashing prices.

Maybe consider a discount club, where your current people may pay say $20 a year or month to join - up to you to decide the fee.  But the joining fee would get them access to your "last minute club" for a year.  The difference being that the available spaces in the club spots may be a bit random and they don't get to have regular times with you.  That way you are only offering discounts to certain "last minute" types who like to book last minute.  This type of strategy allows you to fill what is known as "distressed space" - someone has cancelled an appointment or you just have a gap in the diary.  The other plus is that you get back some of the discount back via the membership fee.

You could also consider a "come on short notice" deal for specific types of people - small business owners like me who have control of their own schedule or hospitality workers who have the whole day to themselves or are finishing work at weird times.  These types of people could come in your downtimes.  All you have to do is email or text them with your downtime specials and they can jump in and grab them. 

Its about getting creative with your discounts and making sure you don't end up with a bargain basement style practice.

FOLLOW UP UNTIL THEY BUY OR DIE!!!

Question

I did my very first public speaking gig last night- and they loved me and I loved doing it too! It’s kinda cool to be paid to talk isn’t it? I handed around feedback forms at the end which they all filled in positively and at the bottom I had a ‘please write your contact details if you would like more information or a private consultation’ section – and they all filled in their names and numbers.

My question is – what time interval is appropriate to ring them – within the next week or two? Sooner? Later?

Answer

This is a great question and the short answer is FOLLOW UP UNTIL THEY BUY OR DIE!!!

Leads get cold very quickly and the longer you leave them the less chance you have of getting these people as a client. We like to think our messages are memorable and people will remember us forever but in most cases we are gone from their memory banks within a few days. This is why newsletters, follow up activities and making the phone your friend are so important. If you don’t keep yourself in front of your prospects someone else will swoop in and pinch them from you.

So in an instance such as above – the answer is to ideally follow up the next day with a phone call. If you can’t do the phone call immediately you need to at least make email contact within two days and then a phone call a couple of days later.

In future, whenever you speak, as soon as you get the booking, schedule time in your diary for the very next day so you can do your follow up immediately.

Well done on getting out there and doing speaking engagements. This is one of the best and most powerful ways to get known and grow your business.

If you would like to know more about follow up please visit my website and read the follow up article that appeared on the Empowering Women website.

The Power of Effective Follow Up

Have you ever been in the situation where you set up a course or did a mail out but didn’t get the response you desired because you didn’t follow-up?

If you aren’t going to do the follow up from a mail shot or networking event you might as well have been at the beach instead of doing the mail out or networking event. The net effect from not following up or being at the beach will be the same – no clients. There is no point slaving over these things if you aren’t going to follow up and convert at least some of the leads you get to clients.

Unsure about whether to call or email?

Wondering how to be diligent and professional with your follow-up without seeming needy or pushy?

I recommend the Call/Email/Call approach.

STEP 1: Make a follow-up phone call

Begin with a follow-up phone call. Calling is a great place to start because if you reach the person you have an immediate opportunity to reconnect. If you get their voicemail, leave a message.

Here is a sample voicemail message script:

“Hi Sue, this is Sally Jones, the Kinesiologist. We met at the Business Women’s meeting last night. You mentioned you would be interested in having a treatment with me to help you move forward with that health challenge you have been experiencing.

I’d love to schedule a consultation with you to discuss if my treatments could help you. My phone number is xx-xxxx-xxxx and the best time to reach me is xxx. I’ll also send you an email in case that is a better way for us to connect.

Sue, I really enjoyed meeting you and I look forward to speaking with you soon.”

STEP 2: Send a Follow-Up Email

Your follow-up email should communicate the same basic information as your voice mail. In addition, offer a way that he/she can stay in touch in case the person is not currently ready to schedule a session.

STEP 3: Make one more follow-up phone call

If you have not heard back from the person after one week, make one more follow-up phone call. The key points for this call are to briefly reiterate your offer and remind them why they would want to speak to you while still leaving the decision totally up to them.

For example,

“Hi Sue, this is Sally Jones. I’m calling to see if you received my voice and email messages last week. Based on our conversation at the Women’s Business meeting, I’m guessing you’ve been busy and might be hesitant to add anything else to your ‘To Do’ list.

My offer of a two for one session still stands. If you decide to schedule it, my goal would be to give you some real value so you can experience for yourself how working with a Kinesiologist can really help you find a healthy balance in your body.

Of course it is totally your decision, so if you would like to set something up please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx or email me at xxx@xxx.com.

I hope to hear from you!"

STEP 4: Let go!

Don’t be like the fisherman who keeps thinking about the “one that got away.” If the person doesn’t respond, simply let go. Feel good about your professionalism, the actions you have taken and the value you have provided. You have planted a seed and that is never a bad thing. Keep looking forward and taking inspired action in your business. Some of the seeds you sow WILL grow in the future, you just don’t know which ones!