How many times do you get an enquiry from a prospect, send them some details and then file them away and hope they get back in touch? Too often I suspect. Some of these prospects could be good potential future clients but they do not receive enough contact to be converted to buying from you.
How many times do you think you should follow up a prospect?
People tend to lead busy lives and if the email you send or voicemail you leave arrives with them at an inconvenient time, they may forget to respond or, be full of intention to, but then something else happens that takes priority. Past research has shown that it can take up to seven touch points with a prospective client before they take action and with the huge rise in social media, this figure can now be significantly higher.
I have included a simple diagram which shows 13 touch points but illustrates how the buying process can take time and most salespeople do not make enough contact to keep in the potential client’s mind. You may not see yourself as a salesperson, but in reality, yes you are if you are trying to gain paying clients.
Therefore, you need to set up a system to ensure regular activity to try to make contact and if no response is forthcoming after a set period, to at least add them to your mailing list for an ongoing newsletter (you did take their email didn’t you?).
After someone has requested some information on your business and you have sent it out, a simple seven-point contact plan could be as below. Once a prospect buys from you, they would move out of the remaining sequence and be added to your client mailing list so that ongoing contact is still maintained. The types of contact you have will be determined by the information you have available so at the point of the initial enquiry, get as much information as you can. Ask for an email as the bare minimum but if you can, take a phone number and mailing address.
Attempt contact via email or phone call to see if info received and if any questions. If no response, leave a message or send acknowledgement email (within 24 hours)
Follow up call to prospect and if not there, leave a message (+24 hours from step 1)
Send follow up email (+ 1 week from step 2)
Send a written letter (+ 1 week from step 3)
Final phone call (+ 1 month from step 4)
Final email (+ 1 week from step 5)
Final letter – confirm no further contact will be made but will add to the mailing list (+ 1 month from step 6)
Once prospects have moved off the main seven steps and on to your mailing list, this database of contacts can be used for sending out your newsletter, free advice, and tips and for future marketing purposes including competitions/surveys etc.
Running a home business has a whole set of challenges of its own. You are solely responsible for being disciplined in your work and not drifting off to do a spot of housework or accepting friends in for coffee who turn up on your doorstep.
If you are running a home business, here are my top 10 tips to help make the difference between treating your business in a professional manner in order for it to be successful, or letting it slip into the realms of an expensive hobby.
1. Create a separate workspace
Make sure that you have a separate home office or area for working so that you can keep all your paperwork and work-related items in one place. This helps to shut off at the end of the work day rather than having bits and pieces all over the place. It is important to let other household members know that this is your sacred space and not to be interfered with on pain of death!!
2. Get organized
The amount of time it takes to get organised in the first place will repay itself tenfold (or much more) further down the line. Get files and organise a filing system for your workspace. Clear away non-essential items that are causing unnecessary clutter. Make sure you have all the necessary items for doing your work close to hand to save time hunting in the back of cupboards and drawers. Treat your workspace with the importance it deserves. Remember, you are running a business, not a hobby.
3. Define your working hours
One of the biggest failings of women running a home business is not setting working hours. This results in either working a straight 15 (or more) hours with no break or working intermittently and fitting in household chores between work tasks that distract and disrupt the workflow. Firstly, determine when you are most productive and then at what times you need to be available to clients. Decide how many hours you are going to work each day and stick to this!
Running your own business from home gives you the flexibility to decide when you are going to work and it doesn’t have to be all in one chunk like a traditional 9 to 5 job. You may want to do a few hours in the morning, take the afternoons off and then do a few more hours in the evening. Having some sort of structure to your day can make you much more productive than just working on an ad hoc basis.
4. Have a support network
Constantly talking to yourself and losing your grip with what is going on in the outside world is all too easy when working from home which can easily lead to losing your motivation. Make sure you remove yourself from your home once in a while to network with others to make new contacts, pick up new ideas and realise you are not alone.
5. Get into a routine
Having a routine and putting some structure into your day can make you so much more productive. Create a monthly, weekly and daily routine where possible. Block outset days/hours for marketing, admin, checking the finances, networking, calling new prospects etc. Have set hours for checking emails and social media so that you don’t keep dipping in and out constantly which will take up far more time in the long run and keep distracting you from your key work.
6. Plan your work
The old adage goes ‘fail to plan, plan to fail’ and this is so true when running a home business. If you just get up each morning with no clear plan of what you intend to do for the day, you are likely to dip in and out of different tasks with no clear direction and end up not getting a lot actually completed.
At the end of each day set out your three priority tasks for the next day. Make sure one of these is a key task that is going to take you, at least, one step closer to your end goal. When you complete these three key tasks, you can then move on to a more fun task that you love doing but isn’t high on the priority list. Working this way will help keep you motivated to complete the necessary tasks first with the reward of doing something more fun at the end.
If you find that you are not completing your three key tasks, move any unfinished item over to the next day and put a red dot next to it. If it doesn’t get completed on day 2, move it forward and add another red dot against it. If you get to any item with three red dots you have to stop everything you are doing and either just do it, delegate it to someone else who can do it or delete it as it simply cannot be that important.
7. Take time out
Working from home can become all-consuming and we forget to take time out to recharge and refresh ourselves. We keep trying to squeeze in just a bit more work and then a bit more which leaves us frazzled, irritable and resentful. Schedule regular breaks from your workspace to do something non-work related such as going for a walk, reading a book or going out to lunch with a friend. As they say, ‘a change is as good as a rest’.
8. Schedule family time
A danger of running a business from home is starting to neglect your family. Just because you are at home and they can see you, doesn’t mean that you are spending time with them if you are constantly working. Make sure you set out your working hours and allocate time out each week to focus purely on the family. No taking calls or dipping into emails. What is the point of working so hard if you can’t have some quality time with the ones you love?
9. Set expectations with family
When running a home business, it really can become a struggle balancing your business with having family around. To help ease frustrations, set expectations with your family. Set yourself specific working hours and let your family know that during these hours you will be working.
If you work from a separate room let them know that if the door is closed, you are not to be disturbed unless in an emergency. Also, extend this to friends so they know they cannot just pop in for a coffee and a chat when they feel like it. You need to be able to communicate with friends and family so they understand that just because you work from home does not make your work any less important than if you were out working for a large corporation.
10. Have fun!
It is all too easy to get so caught up in the nitty-gritty of our business that we start to lose the passion and forget the fun we had in starting up. Recapture the passion and love for your business by taking some time to have fun. This is both by booking time out and also looking for ways to have fun in your business day. If you can start to enjoy it again, you gain more energy and the creative juices start to flow once again.
Follow these tips for running your home business and if you have any tips of your own, please share them in the comments box below.
If you do any form of social media marketing (and I sincerely hope you do), you will more than likely come across suitable groups and/or pages that allow you to promote your business or special offers.
The sad thing is that all too often I see people wasting a valuable opportunity here by not making it easy enough for interested prospects to find out more about them.
There are some great posts out there that are really engaging but when I go to find out more information or how to book/get in contact, it is so difficult to find where I need to go that I give up.
Please, if you ever post out your offerings on social media, grab a coffee and watch this short (7-minute video) that will hopefully help you to make the path far easier for those valuable prospects to find you.
When you get a business email from a client or contact, how quickly do you respond? Or do you respond at all?
An email is very much a dominant form of communication in today’s world and perhaps because we all get so much of it, we stop dealing with it in the correct manner.
All too often I will email a client or contact and then sit in silence awaiting a response that never materialises. And according to others, I speak with this is becoming all too often an occurrence. This simply isn’t good enough. Quite frankly it is plain bad manners.
Whether you receive a business email from a prospect, a client, contact or anyone else for that matter, if someone takes the time to contact you to pass on some information that you may find useful or to ask a question, it is only common courtesy to respond.
Even if you send a quick holding email if you are busy or don’t have a full response as yet at least you have shown enough respect to let the sender know that their message has been read and you are not just ignoring them.
A simple line such as ‘thanks, I will be in touch soon’ is better than complete silence.
Don’t get me wrong. You don’t want to be responding to emails at all unearthly hours as you need some clear set boundaries of your working hours. You don’t need your phone on email alert so that you check and answer every one the second it comes in. But if you want to run a professional business and for your clients and contacts to remember you for all the right reasons, you do need to have an email policy in place and to respond within a reasonable time frame. You just never know when that person may be in a position to either do business with you in the future or pass the business on to you and if you have left a negative impression in their mind, they may choose not to!
If for any reason you know that you are going to be busy and unable to respond within 24 hours, simply set an out-of-office reply to let people know.
So come on, up your game and abide by email etiquette to let people know you care.
If your email box is overflowing and out of control which is causing a knock-on effect on your response time, read the related article ‘how to control your inbox’.
I have been asked by a few people for recommended reading material covering subjects such as time management, self-improvement, business success etc.
So here are my top 10 books for you to pick from which are my personal favourites. Go order them now or put them on your wish list for someone to buy you as a present.
If you have any suggestions of your own please add them in the comments box below.
As soon as I see anything by the mastermind that is Brian Tracy I have to read it and this is my favourite book that he has written. I keep coming back to it again and again.
What can I say about this book? I have only just finished reading it but I feel already it has had a huge impact on my life. This book is about developing 6 habits to transform your life and help lead you to success. I simply love it and the simplicity of it.
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