Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

I Followed Up, Now It’s Your Turn

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Norm is Waiting for Your responseI got an email from a friend the other day:

If you ever need a topic, I think you should do a courtesy of business email. Close the loop. How to decline services. That kind of thing. I’ve had so many people just drop off the face of the planet lately for whatever reason. It’s so rude.

This is one of the more frustrating aspects of running a small business. I’ve followed up and done my part, why do you have to be so Pacific Northwest Passive Aggressive and ignore me? Plus, if you tell me no I probably won’t come around nagging you every couple of weeks which is driving you crazy. But what do you say?

Be HONEST

  1. “Thanks Elizabeth, we’ve found someone who’s a better fit for our needs right now. I appreciate your time.”
    • I’ve received this email before and I was totally fine with it. They wanted someone who also does stuff I don’t. I get it.
  2. “Thanks Elizabeth, after reviewing your proposal this isn’t in our budget right now.” You’re super expensive and I can’t believe anyone would ever hire you.
    • If budget is the issue know that they’ll probably respond with recommendations to make it work. But if you’re coming in at their lowest price point then they may realize you aren’t ready for them yet.
  3. “Thanks Elizabeth, I’ve looked at my goals and need to wait a few months before getting going. I’ll contact you when I’m ready”
    • Use this response if you mean it. If you get a proposal and realize it’s not in the budget, OR if something happens and your goals have changed and you truly do need to push this off, then say so. And either offer to follow up with them, or ask them to follow up with you in a few months. “If you want to check back in 3 months, that’d be great.” This also puts the responsibility on them – which is one of my favorite ways to get things off my plate and make people work to earn my money!

Be honest and straight forward. I don’t need your excuses. If it’s not in your budget right now, that’s okay. If after talking you realized you can do it yourself (or someone on your team can) that’s okay. If we didn’t hit it off and you aren’t sold on me, that’s okay. But as a business owner this falls into that treat others as you’d like to be treated category.

How Do You Handle Unsolicited Requests?

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If you have a contact form on your website, EVEN with a CAPTCHA to help with spam, you’re going to get the occasional spam request. If your industry isn’t in your title, or your title leads people to believe you’re in a different industry, you get emails like this one that I received last week…

unsolicited requests

Good Day indeed! Typically I just delete the emails, but this one was worthy of a screen shot and an Instagram post.

If you are contacting some one through an online form hoping that eventually they’ll hire you, here’s a couple of suggestions:

  1. Know what their business is. This isn’t hard – it’s on my home page. I’m not a dog groomer. I also have a short haired dog who you can clearly see, on almost every page of my website, doesn’t need to be shaved.
  2. Check for Typos – we all make mistakes, but do a once over before you hit submit
  3. Be Specific in who you want to talk to  – “Hi to Everyone at Yellow Dog Consulting” – when it’s very obviously a one woman/one dog show. You can find out my name pretty easily….
  4. Be Polite – Alex is polite but pushy. He doesn’t bother to ask if I am accepting guest blog posts. He clearly hasn’t looked at my blog to see it’s been a while since I had a guest blogger, AND that I have never written about dog grooming on my blog.
  5. Give me More Info – I know literally nothing about this guy and he doesn’t give me any info. They wrote a new article (good for you) do I want to share it with my readers (please cast your response in the comments below!)?
    • Who are you?
    • Why are you an authority on this topic?
    • How did you find my website?
    • Do we know anyone in common?

The next time you’re contacting someone via a form, take into consideration how you respond to these requests and make sure you’re handling it in a way that you would appreciate.

Respecting the Schedule

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norm caught his tail
After a sick week – Norm was so excited for daycare he caught his tail…

I live and breathe by my daily schedule. Because of that, I’m able to be flexible when changes come up. A good friend of mine is a massage therapist and I scheduled an AMAZING massage with her a few weeks out, and since it was on a weekend I mentioned that if she needs to bump my around in the schedule as it fills up, that I’m flexible that day. And her response was awesome…

She said that every time she does bump one client to accommodate another it inevitably ends up a mess. Her belief is that if you scheduled first you win. And I really like that she respects it. The conversation was a good reminder that I need to be better about that. On the other end of the spectrum…

The place I get my nails done is great, and they are ALWAYS hustling. I can usually get an appointment within a day, but often times they’ll call me back and ask if I can come earlier or later in the day. Just this week they called in the morning to see if I could come earlier (nope) then they called an hour before and said to come a half hour later because another appointment showed up.

Respecting your clients and customers that are loyal and consistent should be rewarded. We all have days where the schedule goes out the window and we need to cancel or reschedule, or you’re running late to an appointment, but make sure your priorities are straight and you aren’t burning bridges.