Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Ask Yellow Dog: Outdated contacts

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facepalm_picard2[2]Last week I received a few great marketing questions after I spoke at a luncheon. Here’s another great question I received that I think may be helpful for you…

What do I do about the piles of biz cards drawing slips and old mailing lists of companies we used to belong to?  I feel like I want to come clean with them and say I did not have a system and now I do. My current company has a monthly email that I ask people if I can add them to but I have not been good at adding them.

It’s never too late to come clean to folks and to reach out to them!  Here’s what I’d suggest:

Send an “announcement” email to your network, pull all those business cards & email addresses and everything and send one email to them (probably as a BCC email and probably you’ll have to do this in clumps) and let them know what you’re doing:

Dear (friends/ family/whatever),

I know it’s been a long time since some of you have heard from me, and I thought it was high time I sent you an update! As some of you may know, I’m working this this great product line and I’d love to share more with you about it…(a couple sentences about it, and a link to your sales page where they can learn more).

If this is of interest to you, I’d love to setup a time to talk about it. We also have a monthly newsletter that goes out and you can signup here (link to it) or just reply to this email and I’ll get you signed up. And if it not, I promise you won’t hear from me again about it!

(Signature)

It’s never too late to come clean, and as I always say: I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need or are up to!

Another Reason to Follow Up Again (AKA I Screwed Up)

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IMG_20141013_174212Yesterday I was running between meetings and I had seen an introduction exchange that I had facilitated come through my  inbox. Great, they’re following up. And then I saw a 3rd email name on the exchange I didn’t quite recognize. So I clicked into the emails on my phone and realized OH CRAP I USED THE WRONG EMAIL ADDRESS. It wasn’t that bad, I introduced two friends because one is interested in a position at the other’s company. But I used my friend’s old work email where he’s no longer employed.

Luckily the email was being forwarded to the company admin who is the one that responded and forwarded the exchange to his personal email. This all happened in a 2 day period, so it’s not a big deal. But this is a great example of why you need to follow-up AGAIN with someone.

If I had received an email from my friend in the next couple of days asking if I’d had a chance to forward the introduction, I would have said I had, then looked and realized what happened. Instead of him thinking that I’m all talk and no follow through (geeze, that’d be bad for my brand).

Human error is part of the equation folks, and this is your friendly reminder to give the benefit of the doubt, and make sure you follow-up again.

Ask Yellow Dog: Inherited Clients

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imagesLast week I spoke at a luncheon and I offered to answer marketing questions emailed to me within the next day. I had some great questions and am editing them a bit in hopes that this helps answer questions you might have as well! This first question comes from someone in direct sales who has inherited clients from other sales reps that have gone on to other endeavors and how to best approach them. 

I have names on my current customer list that I did not add as they have “risen” up to me as their consultant became inactive or as in one case died. I would like to build a relationship with them. Plus we are going over to a new system soon so I want to have everyone know who I am etc.

As for the clients that you have collected from other folks, I would send an individual email (as long as it’s not a ton of individuals) and introduce yourself, offer to meet if they’d like to review any new products or refresh their memories, make sure they have the link to order from your page (or their page/login info if it works that way) and offer to answer any questions.

If it’s been a delayed amount of time since they were handed to you and you dropped the ball, that’s OK, just be honest about it. And in that email you can mention that your company is going to a new system in January and you want to make sure you have all their contact information correct for the system transfer (it’s a good excuse to get them to respond to you too!).