Page 239 - 101 Ways to Market Your Business

101 WAYS TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS

the person or should they send them a letter or should they
send them a fax? It really does depend on the individual
situation. If you are not comfortable with talking to some-
one on the phone, drop them a line but make sure you
include some promotional material about your company.

Keep it simple and make it relevant. If the lead was
generated at a trade show mention this fact. Use some of
the tips mentioned in this book to make contact with these
potential customers. Another point to remember here is
that it will often take more than one letter to get a results,
so be prepared to have a series of follow-up letters ready,
encouraging the potential customer to buy from you.

The fourth reason for people not following up on leads
is simply that they are too busy. If this is the case in your
business you may be losing a lot of money. Perhaps it is
worth employing that extra person on a casual basis simply
to process sales leads. This will free up your time and take
some of the pressure off you.

I recently employed a very talented lady to spend one
day per week generating new business. Linda has a good
sales background and as a new mother she is quite content
to only work a day or two every week. Her only job is to
look for business opportunities and new clients that would
suit our business. This is a great relief to me because I can
spend more time processing the work I have to do and less
time looking for new business.

The final reason for businesses not following up on
leads is simply that people are not organised. They lose bits
of paper with important messages, they forget things they
have to do, they can never find the information required
and they are in a constant state of ‘getting back to you’.
The only way to fix this problem is to get organised.

So the point to this section is to determine if leads are
being followed up in your business and if they are not,
identify why not and then do something about it.

224