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Creating Effective Follow Up Systems

All right, so let's move to two page twenty seven and we're going to move into answer one of our big questions now how do you create an effective follow up system that keeps potential clients interested before you connect with anyone it's really important to you already know and have your follow up system in place because we all get so busy this is like that business card experience where you're just out collecting cards and everybody I know has a drawer box or goodness forbid a purse ful I was embarrassed last night when I have a pocket two pockets in my purse and one of them's my cards and one of them is a bunch of other cards I don't even know how many events ago they came from I'm embarrassed iq and fast because they all fell out I was like oh my and I haven't done the connecting I needed to do because I was too busy hey so follow up systems air good great to put in place are also a great thing to delegate to someone else once you've built it up because your follow up is where you ...

create your real fortune it's your door to opportunity without follow up nothing is going to happen it would be very rare for any of you to be in that luxurious place where you meet somebody the first time and boom you make that connection there like I'm ready to buy most people need a little bit more relationship development that's kind of like proposing marriage on the first date. It doesn't usually work. Sometimes it does sometimes it does hasn't worked for may, but I usually like to know somebody little better. First imagine ash and so this is also about being appreciative of that potential client or client. You always want to be in a place of gratitude and saying, thank you. Now I can tell you that one unusual way that I used to do, I haven't done it in a actually I did do it on a recent trip on a trip I took to hawaii in june, I did it postcard appreciation on the trips I used to take all the big trips that I would take the first thing I did whenever I landed, I would go teo local souvenir shop, or even at the airport, and I would pick up as many as one hundred and twenty postcards. I brought labels with me mailing labels with me, so I didn't have to write the address is down because that's the tedious part, and then I would hand write a personal note on every single card. Now that note was pretty much the same on every card, but it always had their name and said hey was thinking of you or sometimes it was more than that and it would say hey can't wait to connect when we get back and move forward on this, and this was for both potential clients and clients I already had, and the coolest part about that was I wound up on their bolton boards. I went up on the refrigerator, I went up carried around in their purse, nobody else does this and today it's so much easier because of the internet, you could buy the postcards in advance, you could complete them in advance, take them with you and just mail them at the other end, so they know you mail that while you were there, but they didn't know you bought it all in advance. I'm sure you can buy all those postcards online don't have them pre printed don't you know, go that route because it takes the personality out of it. I want you to personally touch them or have somebody personally touched them, so they're hand written it doesn't have to be you. Yes, somebody else do it, be sneaky about it and take him with you now the other piece to this thank you cards, every single call I would go on, whether it was my first call with you or my fifteenth call with you got a thank you note got a thank you note super super important I had people raving about this thinking is they were all hand written what I did was I had note cards that were, um the width of a full piece of paper but they were usually three to a sheet and they had lines on I need lines because my writing all otherwise tilts all over the place and it was short it was personal and it was very relevant and I did it at the end of each day because if I didn't I'd get behind these air new habit you want to form and you want to form even for potential clients not just clients because that will set you apart from the competition and email thank you everybody does it very few people do hand written any longer and I got to tell you when I get something hand written I treasure it I carry around my purse for a couple of days before I open it even and when I open it I have to sit down to make a ceremony out of it because it's so rare and I say them they go in that little stack of fame and reputation at the top of my desk so be rare be different go against the flow of technology and go back to something hand written it will make an enormous difference mine I have them in my same colors as my as my yeah product colors and I sit down every morning and right at least three and put them in the post so that when the dawson comes they go out in that day's mail awesome awesome awesome! You gotta have it created I have it created. Yeah three a day is awesome you two years in the morning I did mine at night you could even if you're doing a lot of driving and you're saying your clients and you have a lot of that travel time back and forth, what you may want to do is keep them in your car and literally when you leave a client, build an extra five minutes in, write the note right there have the stamps at the ready and those old fashioned stamps on my gosh on dh steve's have gotten expensive, but this is business building bar none so powerful, so impactful you're not sending an email you're not forgetting to sign your name, you're using their name. Our name is our most precious kind of piece of identity, and so when I write e mails to my community, even I use their name multiple times in my emails all use their name in my subject line because I want them to wake up and take notice that this is personal to them gift cards are great to writing a letter that you put in the post is that you have the opportunity of choosing a stand? Oh, yeah, specifically for your a lot of that. So you khun you could like right now, I'm on a big ray charles, because I love ray charles and people who I deal with a lot of people who I deal with love are in that age range where they really love him. So that's a special thing to see that stamp. So you have a lot of chance to really personalize think personalization is priceless. It truly is. You can also include imagine this ah clipping an old fashioned clippings that stand them a link cinema clipping something that you tore out of a magazine or snipped out of a newspaper, they still exist. My mother was famous for that she's to do that all the time, she with may, should it with all of her friends. And I honestly think that's one of the ways that build the relationships that made her as well known as she wass, if you don't mind me saying it's something else that you khun dio when you when you're in the habit of sending notes to people, is that every once in a while, when you send a note, you can include a little card that said, would you mind taking just a second to say away? Worried about your experience with my product and put a stamp on it so that all they have to do is fill it out and send it back to self addressed stamped on, and there are a postcard and they're delighted always to send you back a little note in the mail, and then they don't have to if they don't want to, but ninety nine percent of the time there's the rails, the sending back a positive note if you got the experience with you, if you make it easy for them, and then you have something for your all right testimonials, which is that we're gonna get to exactly without having to go through a big email plea or anything like that. It's personal, it's, singular and it's they're delighted. You can also take your testimonials, have postcards printed with the best ones, and send those out as a way to reinforce your value and send those out to both existing clients and potential clients so that in the front of the podium, especially when you're releasing and you proud of you. Yeah, really cool way to do it. Gift cards worked really well, too, especially if you seem like amazon or starbucks because everybody likes this to resource is, um, I'm a big fan of promotional products, and some of you have experienced some of this already this the measuring tape is a promotional products this is one of my all time favorites I've used this one for years because this is not merely a tape measure no no this is where you measure your results this is paper and a pen to record your progress and stay in balance so when you use these you want to have a story behind them you don't want them to be just another little gif t you want there to be a story that you share, I often will attach a little piece of paper with this that shares that if I don't have a chance to present this in person but the beautiful part about this is it's a non consumable so I don't worry about them eating it and forgetting me I don't think they're going to think this I don't know instead of saying we're going to keep with them keep at their desk keep in their purse keep in the car and I don't have my web address on here I don't need it my name is my company name, so I just have that and if they want to look me up they can but it's just a little helpful on edge and it's something useful so I'm a big fan of things like that um the rest of these things will we'll go through that night? I was so excited because it was so useful yeah it has your name on it and I thought that was really cool I think that makes a big big difference and I was try to come up with goodies that I don't see a lot of other places I want the unusual ones and you buy them in bulk I mean and by one hundred, two hundred three hundred time I don't buy a thousand at a time I'm um and I try always to make the handoff something more personal I try not to do this, you know, where I'm giving one hundred of them away at a time although I will but if I do and I'm doing it from stage, I'll hold the item up and explain why they have it because without that it's just another little trinket but pens and things like that I'm not as big on because unless the really cool and fun and we do have some of those um talisman talisman could be a simple is you've seen a lot of these things it could be a little glass rock piece with a word on it could be an actual little rock with a word on it um there's a number of different things in the market it could be a fortune cookie that you actually get to declare what the fortune is that goes inside, they hang onto the fortune, they eat the cookie or they just preserve the whole thing and remember you is they're lucky fortune cookie person there's so many different things you could have but something that's a happy reminder of their connection with you whether or not they've done business with you is a little less important then creating a happy reminder that maybe they keep it in their pocket a good one for this would be the the cause bands and in case you haven't seen, they have him in one inch wits, which I certainly considered recently and I may be doing that for an event going forward the one inch is a really cool marker and you can put you know the name of your company or a little reminder message on it we're both because you have the choice of printing the front and printing the back and you have the choice of pretty me inside and some of those companies are really easy to work with really fun and I've been exploring that one, but I like the bands a lot of people will wear them make yours different that's why I like the one inch with and mine would be in my company color, which is teal so or awkward depending on the day three yeah, this is a good example right here now these in fact um were sent to me via a coach that I did some business with who I have been in her program and she sent me these is a parting gift and they each have a different expression on them and they came in a little bag like this and the committal padded envelope so super easy for them to send out and it's it's fun it's it's I like the different messages on them and it's something that she's got is part of a follow up sequence see all this could be sequenced in a way that you know exactly at what point in the relationship you send this you provide that how you're going to ship it nail all that down and then you can actually hand that hole thing off to a virtual assistant and ship them the product if they're not in your same hometown and let them take care of all of that for you thie only place that gets a little tricky is if you're needing to send things out of the country because then you got to deal with customs and all that what not so that doesn't always work so well but sometimes little things like this and like the tape measure padded envelope sails right through without any problem at all but it's a really great way to stay top of mind be remembered and be useful at the same time be useful at the same time so what's your favorite followup method what method would you use the most to follow up what has stood out as anybody mention anything a b standing out for them. Well, we have a few quick questions here about this process. Now, for instance, someone on facebook says since I work with people remotely and online, collecting mailing addresses isn't part of the process got you'd have to figure out a way to make collecting them justifiable in order to send something like this. Is there any tips on justifiable? I've got a gift to send you weigh all love gifts we really dio e had somebody recently that I signed on tio there listen their community and they said, I have an executive news letter that I sent by mail. Give me your address and I just jamie, my dress, you know, I get so little mail. I'm not worried about being inundated. I'm way more careful about giving out my email. Yeah, and that I'd rather give you my snail mail that my email a week. So yeah, that should be an easy fix. That's changed over the years. It is interesting how it's changed that's. Why? Hand written notes stand out so much because the only thing we get the mail, our bills or the occasional junk mail direct mail was still working very well. And do you have any advice of people are looking to create for instance, something like that tape measure where do you get those things people are looking for resource is on where you look up online promotional products I use a company called pinnacle promotions okay um but you can look up promotional products different companies have different lines of things some are very high and very exclusive some are less so and pricing is based on volume quantity so obviously the more you buy the better the tricky part is if you're anything like me I have a tag line coming at me a new one every single day of the week and I think I could just change my tagline well, the trouble is there's a set up fee for all of this stuff that you have your logo on all that done on if you have just your logo that's fine, but if there's a logo on a tag line and you never want to change it, you're paying a new set up faith so you want to try to keep your costs down on this or you'll get gobbled alive? Yeah, this is why people have t shirts with their logos and what not? I don't think that's nearly as interesting I'd rather something was a bit more creative if you got something easy that you can produce in quantity in your home office and make an original from you so much the better and we're about to dive into that too so how do you turn them from a prospect into a client and it's about getting the relationship building skills to turn curiosity into cash and one of the best ways to do that is with a taste of what you do offer them a taste now obviously and wine it's easy the interesting thing about wine is in napa you have to pay for all the tastings in australia you don't in australia everybody goes to their wine country once a week they don't have a d u I issue all the tastings air completely free and everybody sits around has lunch a couple of glasses of wine and select their wine for the next week buys it and goes on their merry way fascinating love australia very different way of doing things and it's one of the reasons I almost relocated there a number of years ago um yeah I do still have time I do you still have time either one of the few countries that actually really life's americans what about this but if you for example are a coach and you want to give them a coaching taste there's some simple ways to do that juicy names capture attention if I call it a strategy session not very interesting anybody can have won this discovery session not so much but a success strategy session a revenue breakthrough session a relationship renovation session okay, these are terms that are juicier they sound like they have a tangible result okay really important for a taste this is a taste of how you work when I do my breakthrough sessions um I treat the person just like their client already I don't treat him any differently so they have a full understanding of what I'm like toe work with and that's incredibly important don't tease him about it don't do a half job make him feel like they really are your client in that moment in design I was always a sometime and I just assumed that the person at the other end of the phone was going to work with me so I dove right into the way I normally work with them and I would ask them questions and I would invite answers and I would do exploration and it wasn't how I did I didn't do it differently for clients than I did from potential clients. I treated them all as if they were my clients and ninety five percent of the time they became a glance. So when you stop treating your potential clients differently and give them the rial taste it's going to make a difference now if you are a writer, a writing sample could be a chapter of a book a blonde post, a white paper, a special report writing super easy to give samples on small samples consumable bite size ok, please don't think, oh, I'm going to give him an e book of fifty pages. It's too much, too much to consume quick short um, checklists are also awesome for that an artist teaser, an oversized postcard with an image of of what you've created on it, a refrigerator magnet. I know I'm going to get some people rolling their eyes at me on that one little piece. Here we get comments coming in from the gallery over there. They're like no refrigerator magnet, eliza, depending on your art form, I think that'd be pretty cool. I actually one point I am an inveterate collector. I had a collection of refrigerator magnets to end all collections. I had the museum of refrigerator magnets on my refrigerator. Unbelievable, I think I still haven't actually in storage now have a collection of buttons to the buttons that you've been on. I think I have, like, five hundred two thousand those puppies so note cards, you know, usually artists sell their note cards, which is great, but why not create a set of five that have different images on them? And you give them away now? Not randomly to people on the street, but to people who are interested in your work as a lovely reminder. Maybe they're going to post one on our bulletin board, maybe they're going to write notes to their family and they're going to really rember the family's gonna say, well, it was a beautiful note card would you get that more business opportunities for them and a miniature of a large work a miniature of a large work so artists have a lot of really cool ways that we don't think of um certainly leaving a loan of a large piece to try and context that's almost a no brainer you always want to be willing to allow your work to be tried in context because art is very, very contextual and easy to consume by many makes you memorable people will start buzzing about you you look at someone like peter max and how he did it by by putting his designs on t shirts and imposed her format um at some point it also took him down the path of devaluing him. So you have to be a little careful about this. Like I said, this isn't going out to everybody these these air selectees air gifts and tasers that you're creating if speaking is your opportunity podcast radio show youtube video compilation dvd so easy to consume hey small bites don't make it on our podcast make it a three minute podcast nobody has time and it's why ted is twenty minutes said designed denno it's your portfolio it's your website and branded presence really important branded presence deliver ideas in advance I would always go out to someone's home never for free by the way that part was paid for because I was completely free and giving them all of my ideas and I would create a fabulous you know, seven or eight page report for them which included oh, gee, my goodness, my letter of agreement but two to four pages of it was about their home. Every single room I walked through, they said, I'm only working on delivering, you know, design is contextual, I really I'm going to need to walk through the entire house guess what would happen. The project would expand, explode, grow and develop because they had no idea they needed all these other things and because design is contextual, so that if I moved a chair out of one, we might have a hole and then I'd have to fill that hole, so deliver ideas advanced, create a plan for a theater and then deduct that feat when you get hired. Deduct that thing when you get higher. Don't do it for free but deduct the feeling you get hired so it gives them incentive gap between needs and wants you've got to uncover their want for real profit now easy way to understand this they need a chair didn't he? The walmart six dollars here that's a chair and it is shockingly comfortable or do they want a postmodern master for three k? They say they want a chair it's up to you to find out what they really want they made a chair what do they want where they willing to invest in hey, same thing with an author they need a publisher but are they going to go smash words and d I y or do they want to try seeking a traditional publisher like penguin? Okay, big difference they need a piece of art they got a gap on their wallet want put something up there is it going to be opposed to print where there's millions of those available or is it going to be a piece of original fine art? What do they want? Not just what they need. You've got to ascertain this I will I need and it's up to you to go in deep and find out what do you really like? I have an innate gift for doing this and when with my design clients it was very simple I found out what they wanted and that's how I grew projects without any resistance because I could read between the lines you get good at listening, watching their eyes light up when you show them certain images and when they make comments like oh we've got money that's always very helpful they need a website well they're going to die why they're going to get themselves with wickes or with one of the other services or they're going to hire you and hand off that responsibility hey, once our investments needs our budgets we've already established the value of creating investments instead of budgets haven't way so this is about becoming the best cookie baker you khun b now you don't want to be a sugar cookie baker you don't want even be a chocolate chip cookie baker you want to be the neiman marcus cookie baker the cookie with absolutely everything in it and here's the really important part you never ever want to slap their hand when they're going in for more cookies it is not your job to ride herd on their investment that's their job okay well what I don't understand why you would ever even think to do though tons of designers dio and tons of professionals who have what they think or budgets to work with him instead of investments now my clients have never been railroaded they get to say no at every step along the way they get right of approval absolutely absolutely you never do things without approval however there is a big difference between asking for approval in presenting it and not even presenting it because it's out of there budget and that's what the vast majority I find of creative's and business owners in any field do they look at a budget as an absolute cap and they never present the bigger, better ideas that often the client doesn't even know about and would love to go for if they knew about it so don't ever assume the limitation don't place your own limiting beliefs on your client's either it's a really important piece of it so creating loyalty and lifetime clients is about learning to pay it forward to become the go to expert in your niche you want to become someone who's helpful even if it has nothing to do with you I've always been in that place where I have referred financial advisers I've referred doctors I've referred caregivers I referred florists party planners um childcare boutiques whatever it was my client's needed I'm a source of referral for it that keeps me top of mind they're like oh melissa l know oma whistle now I'm a little now and it may not be money my pocket yet but guess what the minute they have anything related to my specialty I'm in because I'm the one who gave them the resources for everything else don't be shy about giving of yourself before you get somebody on board is a client it creates euna lee is an expert in your field but exact zeller makes you an expert in general it does it does and it makes you very very valuable in the reality is you don't have to know it all you just have to know who does you're not expected to know it all you just let me check on that I think I've got a resource for you I never say no I say let me check on it I've got a resource for you maintain your expert I know it's an old term role adex debate it's your database ok and you will be remembered and it is all about being remembered staying top of mind is critical you've got to stay top of mind what resource is or referrals have you made into whom lately now I'm betting in the chat there people referring resource is to each other oh yeah yeah very slowly and they're paying it forward take that same behavior and do that with your potential clients and your clients be free with your resource is don't stress over what you're giving away it will come back to you it's a state of mind is the strait of gratitude anybody have any pack your bag moments on this one any ah ha moments any takeaways that you didn't have before you started this's from I had a catering company and full service event planning company for twenty five years and that was my expertise and it's what I found is carried over into my arts community and over into so many areas of my life is just being conscious of who fits with who who can I put with here who can I tell about who and people come to me just because they know that I know someone who knows someone who can help them with something your connector and it's it's. I realized that my life is really all about relationships, and those relationships are what bring you the lifestyle and the income, because you've worked hard at developing those in maintaining them, and you take good care of them, and they're really, really important to me. Yeah, there everything. Relationships are the food and the fuel of life, especially a business. And most people forget that along the way.