Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Follow Up Templates That Kick Ass!

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kick ass follow up templates to grow your businessAs you know, I love follow up. It’s one of my two favorite things to talk and blog about. I often tell people, there are thousands of dollars I don’t spend each year because no one followed up with me. That’s RIDICULOUS. So, I started to investigate. And I discovered people don’t follow up because they don’t know what to say.

My mind was blown. I really thought people didn’t follow up because they were disorganized and don’t like making money. Not so.

I talked with a few colleagues who have struggled to know what to say and based on those conversations and a lot of feedback, I created the Kick Ass Follow Up Templates to Grow Your Business.

In this 14 page Download you receive:

  • A plan for when to do your follow up
  • A spreadsheet to help you keep track of your follow up
  • How to use social media in your follow up
  • Template email to send your next great client
  • Template email to a prospective colleague or strategic partner
  • A template and plan for when you don’t get a response
  • Template to follow up and close the deal when that prospect goes MIA

I want small business owners like you to be successful and GROW. My templates are here to help you with this! Check it out and see if this might be helpful for you. Let me know what you think. And if you’d like to download it – use code YellowDogBlog to save $20 as a thank you for reading to the end of this post!

February Pop Culture Round Up

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Norm, Matti & my book
Trying to get some reading done while dog sitting had it’s interruptions…

I typically write my blog posts a few days in advance, I know what pop culture I’ve consumed so far this month, so I can get a head start on it. But this month? I thought this post was done, but the final weekend of the month included reading a book, watching another Oscar nominated film, and then the craziest Oscars ending EVER…The shortest month of the year sure packs a pop culture punch doesn’t it?

Listening

As per the usual, podcasts are always in my ear holes. Besides the usual Pod Save America and The Watch (the re-up with Chuck Klosterman was really fantastic…), I’m also enjoying Pod Save the World (a great look at world affairs) these days. The Nerdist had a great interview with the fantastic Alan Tudyk who’s on a very fun new show Powerless that I’m enjoying. The Nerdist also had Nathan Fillion on a live episode earlier this month, so if you need a Firefly reunion this helps…My husband and I finally started listening to Crimetown and it’s a good filler if you miss Serial.

Reading

I finally setup my subscription to The Washington Post which is keeping me busy. I need to create a rule that for every 5 minutes of screwing around on Twitter I have to read a chapter of a book. I read way more in the summer than in the winter. But I did start Dark Matter earlier this month and didn’t think I’d finish it. Thanks to a quiet weekend I ripped through the last 2/3 of the book this weekend and LOVED IT. It’s a crazy story and although a bit science-y you can survive if you aren’t a science person. I’m behind on my comic book reading, which I’m hoping to catch up on in the next couple of weeks. We just booked a vacation to Maui for 8 days, so I promise April will have a LOT of great books…

Watching

So much fantastic tv right now! If you aren’t watching Legion you are missing one of the most visually stunning and craziest shows maybe ever. I love it. It’s a show you have to pay a lot of attention to – just a heads up. And if you’re an X-Men fan and aren’t watching it stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW.

Big Little Lies just started on HBO and so far I’m in. I read the book a couple of years ago and really liked it. Lianne Moriarty’s writing style is super fun, I have her newest book on my kindle just waiting to be at the beach…I happened to catch the pilot for Crashing on HBO. I’ve never been a big Pete Holmes fan, but read something in Entertainment Weekly that made me decide to check it out. And I really loved it. It’s a show about a comedian in New York, and there’s a lot of New York comedian cameos if you like that kind of thing.

Speaking of comedy…CNN’s The History of Comedy series is spectacular. You really need to be watching this if you like comedy or like to laugh. The “Fairer Sex” episode about women in comedy was so wonderful and well done. I’m learning a lot and getting a good ab workout from laughing so much!

Thanks to Hulu I’ve been watching a lot of Happy Endings, which is a fantastic show you should have watched and then we’d still have it on the air. I didn’t expect to like Imposters on Bravo as much as I do, but it’s pretty fun. And I heard a podcast interview talk about Riverdale, and it is the campy teen show I didn’t realize was missing from my DVR. Jane the Virgin has been on a SPECTACULAR run these past few weeks thanks to a 3 year time jump (and woah, did NOT see that coming). And that ending to My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s season was something. I read they have a 4 season plan for the show, at the half way point, I’m excited to see what’s next!

We watched Hell or Highwater a couple of weeks ago and it was really fun. A friend of mine raved about it when it came out last year and said it was a favorite of his. I trust the friend so finally got around to watching it, and while there’s nothing amazing, it’s a great story, told well with great acting. If you like westerns or bank robbers give this a try…On a whim Saturday I watched Arrival. It’s a movie that’s sticking with me a couple of days later and I just heard someone on a podcast say that months later it’s stuck with her. I like a good alien invasion and this one has some great twists about WHY they’re here and WHAT they want. Add it to the list. I know that after The Oscars I still am not that interested to see La La Land but my interest in Moonlight sure has sky rocketed. My friend came over to watch the Oscars and we were screaming at the tv those last few seconds. What an awkward situation, and always comforting that the accountants weren’t paying attention to the details…

Okay – what Oscar movies were you rooting for? What shows are you addicted to these days? How excited are you for Stranger Things Season 2?

Pick One Thing and Own It

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Norm and his ballI was talking to someone the other day who heard me speak recently. They mentioned one thing I said that’s been working well for them. In my 2 hour presentation I obviously covered a TON of ideas and made a variety of recommendations. But their favorite recommendation and take away?

Pick One & OWN IT

During my presentation we talked about using social media as a follow up tool instead of a sales tool (more on that soon). I made recommendations for Twitter, LinkedIn and yes, even Facebook. But my recommendation was to start with one thing. Wherever you’re active, pick one and try it. Not just once, but a few times. Play around with it to see what works.

Overwhelm gets the best of all of us. When I present a 10 page task list to a client, they’re likely to ignore it. But if we walk through and prioritize it, that’s going to help to ease the overwhelm. Start with one thing.

I just started working with a client and they asked about Google and Facebook Ads. With all the OTHER marketing efforts we’re about to implement my recommendation was to wait and save the money right now. Let’s see how this work we’re doing together fits for their business first. If it brings them in business, great. If we need to add in Google ad words or Facebook ads, then we can try those out in the future (by them hiring a qualified person to manage it, because that’s way outside my scope).

When you go to a speaking engagement and like EVERYTHING the speaker says, start by implementing just one thing. Get that down, then add another one to the mix. I know this isn’t something new or crazy, you’ve heard it before. My challenge to you this week is to actually do it. One thing.

Let me know how it goes!