Newsletter

Issue #32 Why Follow-Up Matters (Marital Bliss)

ByJeff Loehr
Table of Contents

My wife is lucky.

No, not because she is married to me, that is more of a consolation prize.  She is lucky that I kept my little black book.

See, I met her in 1991. Then we didn’t talk for eight years. And then she called me out of the blue and suggested we meet. She left a message but no number.

Jeff and Wifey jpg
The day I met my wife, yes I had hair back then.

Remember 1999? There was no Facebook. I had a spiffy new ISDN line (well, two ISDN lines, I could download The Oregon Trail in under an hour!) Outlook and a Palm Pilot.

I was ultra-modern.  I kept my contacts in a database.

But since our meeting was pre-Palm Pilot, the woman I once knew wasn’t in my database.

She didn’t call again, and a few weeks passed. Then, while cleaning out my drawer, I found a little black book tucked away in the back (seriously, it was little and black, just not very full); her number was in it.

I called.

Now we are married with two teenagers.

I like to use dating as a sales and marketing metaphor, so think of it this way: her “prospect” was interested in “buying,” but she didn’t follow up, so she almost lost the sale.

In our experience…

  • 1-3% of prospects are interested in buying now
  • 7-12% will buy soon
  • 20-25% are in the buy someday category.

And there are dozens of studies showing that if you want to build trust and relevance, you MUST follow up with them 5-8 (or more) times.

But most people don’t follow up more than once or maybe twice.

How do you keep in touch without it taking over your life? That is where CRM takes over. Your CRM should make the essential process of follow-up easier and even automated.

Follow-up is key, but it doesn’t have to be hard.

Or, you could randomly call people hoping that they have your name jotted down in a black book somewhere that they randomly find and feel motivated enough to look you up and call.

It does happen.
Enjoy,
Jeff

Why aren’t we working 15 hours?  

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes was worried.  He wondered what we would do with all of our spare time.  He predicted that technological change and productivity improvements would lead to a 15-hour workweek.

Clearly, he’d never met Netflix. No need to worry quite so much, Mr. Keynes.  

But he also did not realize how effectively we’d create technology that would increase our workload rather than decrease it. We’ve seen the technology boom that he predicted, but we have managed to increase our work requirements right along with it so that a 15-hour workweek is still elusive.  

Technology can help. The challenge is to find technology that makes work life easier rather than piling on the work.  Read more about the 15-hour workweek here and implementing technology to scale your business, not your work here.  

From Around the Web

  • 🕙 15-hour week, what about the 40-hour week. Remember the 40-hour week? This survey by the alternative board suggests that MSP owners are definitely not experiencing those, but we knew that already.
  • 🍺 Have you played the Beer Game? The Beer Game is a business school staple that explains supply chain issues, the bullwhip effect, and why your favorite beer isn’t always available. Now there is an app for that. It is expensive, so if you want to play let me know, maybe we can put something together.
  • 🏡 Want to live the nightmare? The home from the movie Nightmare on Elm Street is for sale for a measly 3.5 million. Freddie is not included, but It is in LA, so you get the daily traffic nightmare. For all of this joy and happiness, you’ll have to move quickly, though; bids are due on Halloween.

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