Costco Connection - October 2009

The art of follow-up

BECAUSE ENTREPRENEURS are passionate, and love pitching to prospective customers, we often forget the importance of following up with prospects, and even with current customers. Add to this the difficult market environment, which has would-be customers more reluctant than ever to pull money out of their wallets, and practicing the art of follow-up becomes even more important.

The key to following up effectively with customers to win more business is to understand that people don’t buy when you’re ready. They buy when they’re ready. So it’s imperative to be “in front of them,” ready to do business, at exactly that moment.

Here are some recommended ways to master the art of follow-up.

Build trust. Do special and thoughtful things after coming in contact with a pos-

Rich Sloan is co-founder of Startup- Nation.com (www. startupnation. com), a leading business advice and networking site for entrepreneurs.

sible customer. Mailing a handwritten note goes a long way these days. Also be sure to be prompt. If you set an expectation, always meet or exceed it. Promptness is a simple way to build confidence and trust.

Use a variety of mediums. In regard to how and where people prefer to receive their marketing messages: Is e-mail marketing viable? Others may respond better to direct-mail postcards. Yet others may be faithful to talk radio. And there’s always the option of just placing a call or meeting up in person.

Be a thought-leader. Instead of constantly trying to sell, figure out how to posi-

tion yourself as a provider of very interesting, valuable information related—or unrelated— to what you offer. This will give you lots of ways to stay in the minds of your customers and will help poise you to make a sale when potential purchasers decide they’re ready.

Automate it. You might consider leveraging new technology to automate your follow-up process. Some companies offer a software-based approach that makes the art of follow-up into somewhat of a science by giving you automatic reminders and generating follow-up e-mails or other forms of correspondence if you wish.

Whatever approach you choose, the data from these solutions are very compelling, indicating that significantly more deals are closed with well-executed follow-up. C

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PHOTODISC

ing and good management and decided to compile them in a book, Motherhood Is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to Be a Better Boss (Thomas Dunne Books, 2009). Storm offers some samples for consideration. • You see the big picture better than they do. Kids and employees often think only in terms of how a change affects them personally. Help them understand the broader implications. • Whether you are the par- ent or the boss, you are two steps ahead in the process. Expect them to take a bit to catch up with you. Give them time to accli- mate to a new idea. No matter how old we are, moving from one stage of life to another can be disorienting. • As the parent or the boss, you have more control over the future than your kids or your employees do. Whenever possible, allow them to exert some power over their situations. • There’s no such thing as a family secret. If you treat your employees poorly, they will figure out a way to pass this information on to your customers or your community. • If an employee is doing something you do not like, speak to him or her directly and in clear terms about the behavior you want changed. C Parent as manager

for business

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IF YOU’RE A PARENT, you may think you have to keep your work life and family life separate. Some women (and men) view parenthood as a career liability. Shari Storm ( www.sharistorm.com), a Costco member in Seattle, and a high-level executive, thought so until motherhood opened her eyes.

“An employee at work started being disruptive because he was angry over a change,” Storm recalls. “I jokingly told my boss, ‘Oh, he’s just throwing a tantrum. When my kids do that, I take them out of the environment and talk quietly to them until they’ve calmed down. Hey! Maybe you should try that.’ ”