Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Nice to Have v. Have to Have

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treatBuying a house also means buying a TON of stuff for the house, which is super fun, until technology fails you. I had a frustrating experience with Crate & Barrel two weeks ago, that was corrected finally, but took a couple days and multiple customer service interactions. And it could have been so much easier and less frustrating if they had better communication and technology in place.

Last week I listened to a webinar my pal Kevin Benson had on improv for business. He mentioned Nice to Have’s versus Have to Have’s. We live in a world these days where you can no longer have “nice to have’s” it’s all a HAVE to have.

You HAVE to have a robust online presence and if you’re selling online. You have to have a quality system in place that doesn’t fail for hours on end. AND you have to have systems in place that communicates immediately to team members when something happens or technology goes off line (it took me 2 customer service interactions to get someone to tell me their site was down, why didn’t everyone know immediately?)

What’s on your “nice to have” or “maybe some day when we’ve scaled” list? What items on that list would revolutionize your business in 2015 if you put them in place NOW. Hire that Virtual Assistant today, outsource the crap that you hate doing, rebuild your website, pay for the better (and probably more expensive) ecommerce solution. It’s no longer a nice to have, it’s hurting your business if you don’t have it.

Your Friendly Reminder to Be Consistent

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logoI was listening to The Nerdist Podcast as I was running errands this morning. It was a live episode so they were taking quements (it’s a question it’s a comment it’s a quement!) Someone asked about getting started and social contracts. Chris Hardwick (the Nerdist) said what ever it is you do, be consistent. Monthly podcast, weekly blog posts, bi-monthly newsletter, what ever social contract you make with your readers, listeners, or clients, be consistent.

I say this to my clients ALL THE TIME. Yes, you can have a blog, BUT you need to blog consistently. I encourage weekly posts, but with some clients it’s two or three times a month. It’s frustrating when it’s 4 weeks in a row and then nothing for 7 weeks. If you want your target market to start to look at you as an expert or thought leader or as someone who can commit and follow through, whatever you’re doing online needs to reflect that. Unfortunately the internet will let everyone know when your last update or post was, you can’t hide that.

If your new years resolution included “blogging every week!” and you haven’t since the 2nd week of January, figure out what you can truly commit to. Maybe a monthly newsletter is a better fit for your brand. Maybe a shorter Facebook post, or LinkedIn update is a better engagement tool for your network and your audience.

Whatever you do, BE CONSISTENT.

Ask Yellow Dog: Buy My Stuff!

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Buy My Stuff!I received a great question last week from a sales rep for a small business the other day:

If a lead gives a verbal commitment to buy, e.g. “Yeah loved the product, I’ll definitely place an order later tonight”, then does not. What is the best way to give them a friendly reminder and how long should I wait to do so?

Your question is GREAT and super common- almost all my clients deal with this issue (we all do!). I would suggest setting a system in place and depending on how frequently this happens, have a template email ready to go that you either automate or do weekly. There’s a few options to follow up…

1. The next day. Sending a quick note that doesn’t talk about their order not placed (people do get busy) but a quick “Hey Joe, it was so nice to chat with you yesterday! If you have any questions about My Awesome Company or need any help getting your order placed please don’t hesitate to contact me.” simple, gets your name in their inbox and may be that something just popped up. This also gives them a chance to respond and say they had a change of plans or something came up and they’re on it. 

2. End/beginning of the week. Set a weekly time to send out a “reminder” email to anyone who hasn’t placed their order yet- this would be if you have a lot of folks on a weekly basis who verbally commit but don’t follow through. I’d write something similar to the first email with a bit more info: “Happy Friday from My Awesome Company! I know when we spoke earlier this week you were planning to place an order on our site. I haven’t seen it come through yet and I just wanted to check in to see if you need help getting the order placed or have any questions/need anything from me.” Again, it reminds them you noticed they didn’t come through yet, but gives them the out and a chance to respond “your ordering system sucks, do it yourself” or “got busy” those kinds of things.

3. Individual a week out – If you aren’t coming across this problem in a large quantity then I’d say about a week after you had the call do the follow up. Again, something super simple and not nagging. I’d lean closer to the language in #2 than #1, but “great to talk with you last week, if you have questions…I noticed your order hasn’t been placed, if I can help please lt me know” 

These are three templated follow up email types that I’ve done for my own business throughout time, and it at the least gets your name in their inbox again. If your company has a newsletter you might also want to get them signed up for that so they have something regularly coming into their inbox from you guys to remind them how awesome you are!