One of the reasons I’ve been able to build my consulting business so quickly is that I’m very good at following up. I respond to every phone call within 48 hours (unsolicited sales call excepted.) You’d be surprised, but I, very often, am the first person to respond when people are seeking information. You’d be surprised at how many times people leave messages or send emails to other companies, and nobody ever gets back with them. Do inquiries to my business sometimes fall through the cracks? Absolutely. Though when this occurs, I try to put systems in place so that it doesn’t happen again. Over the years, I’ve been the first to follow up, which has resulted in direct dollars in my pocket. Clients have chosen to work with me, in part, because I got back to them first. Organizations have chosen to have me speak, in part, because I was the first speaker to reply back to their request for information. Journalists have chosen to publish my quotes in national magazines, in part, because I was the first one to respond to their inquiry. There is direct profit from being first to follow up. Do you have any client inquiries you haven’t yet responded to? (Even a simple autoresponder reply to emails is a good start!) Do you have a structure for regularly responding to voicemails and emails? If not, you are probably not making as much money as you could be. Avoid the cycle of ‘feast or famine’ which often plague small business owners. Make a regular practice of being first to follow up. You’ll get a strong reputation and make more money, at the same time. One of the tools I use to follow up: This Autoresponder System
