Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

3 Ways to Automate Your Follow Up

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I had a call today and we ended up talking a bit about how you automate your follow up. It may sound weird that you would automate something so personal. Sure if someone downloads something from your website you should automate that process and then add them to your newsletter (right?) But what about someone you met networking? How do you “automate” that process? Here’s 3 ways you may not have thought of…

  1. Social Media – If you’ve followed your Kickass Follow up Templates then you’ve already connected with them on social media right? Right. Don’t nag them or harass them. Instead be ACTIVE on your social media. Stay on brand and make sure that if they are also active on that social media platform that they have the opportunity to see you’re alive and kicking and available to connect and be hired.
  2. Your Newsletter – I think of my newsletter as a long term drip campaign. It’s a way to get my name in your inbox and to educate you about my awesomeness. This is what it would look like to work with me. This is how my mind works. This is what you’re missing out on. If I have met with someone and sent them recommendations or a proposal for work, I consider that implied consent to add them to my newsletter list. You may decide to be more (or less) explicit about it, and that’s up to you. But don’t underestimate the power of the newsletter. It’s brought me more business than I could have expected.
  3. Networking – Yes, networking. That thing you did where you met that prospective client you don’t know how to follow up with for the 7th time. People need to see you. They need a reminder you’re alive and kicking and a REAL person. Leave your office, put pants on and go to a networking event. It may take months or even years for someone to finally realize they’re ready to hire you. If you keep showing up, it’s a visual reminder that you are alive and kicking and ready to work with them. When the time is right.

How else can you “automate” such a personal process? In your business can a more formal email automation work or does it need to be more personalized?

Be Friendly to Customer Service

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The other day I posted this to my Instagram:

PRO TIP: be friendly to customer service folks. A few weeks ago I had a weird issue pop up in @mailchimp so I chatted with a friendly customer support person. I was nice & he was helpful & after we finished the chat and he resolved my issue he sent me a link to order a prize! And now I can’t wait for winter (or to see if norm will let me put it on him tonight after daycare…)

Update – he did:

Norm and the hat

So what are the marketing lessons to be learned here?

  1. If you’re in customer service – kill them with kindness. I’m a paying MailChimp customer and most of my clients are not. And my question was for an account that’s not paying for this technical support. But they answered my question anyway. They could have been an asshole about it, but they were awesome. And I was rewarded for my gratefulness with a new winter hat to terrorize my dog with.
  2. If you’re speaking to customer service: BE NICE. It’s not their fault something happened to you. It’s probably some glitch in code somewhere way down the line that they’re in no way responsible for. Plus – if you’re nice you could win a prize!
  3. Empower your employees! I didn’t need a hat – or any free MailChimp swag. But I’m pretty excited for it! And now I’m writing a blog post singing their praises. Empower your team to reward your customers.
  4. Dog’s in human clothing are always funny.

I hate when I get further by complaining to a company on social media than being able to handle it politely behind chat rooms. Start by being nice and polite. Yes, you can be super frustrated too. I often start out conversations (not the one with MailChimp) with “I’m super frustrated and I know it’s not your fault so I apologize if I accidentally yell or blame you for something outside your control.” That also helps put them at ease. They know they aren’t the villain in this story, but does the customer?

Be Friendly to Customer Service.

Sales Lessons From a 3rd Grader

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jog a thon!A couple of weeks ago I was visiting with a friend and her 3rd grader had his jog-a-thon sponsor form on the kitchen table. I asked him what it was, hoping he’d get the hint and ask me to donate. After some coaching from mom he asked if I’d like to donate. I said OF COURSE!

He explained to me that if I donated $9 per lap and he ran 9 laps that’d be $81! (Mostly he was just showing off his mad multiplication skills.) So, I asked how many laps he thought he would run. And he had no idea, and didn’t seem to remember how many he’d ran in the past. So, I told him to put me in for $5 a lap. His math estimates seemed safe enough, I figured he’d be somewhere between 5-10 laps, it’d be fine.

Cue to Friday morning and a text from my friend. “Dude. We may want to change your jog-a-thon donation to a flat rate. The poor kids are trying to keep warm in the rain and are running their asses off.” I told her I was sure it’d be fine, how many laps had he run? How much time was left ?(4 laps in 7 minutes, 23 minutes to go…) Well, it’ll be fine.

15 laps later I learned a flat rate might be a safer way to go in the future.

What does this have to do with your business?

How often has someone tried to renegotiate the rate when it gets too high? If you agreed to it up front, you need to pay your bill. And yes, get an estimate. I could have pushed more on his past lap average, or just done a flat rate. But changing my donation in the 11th hour is a weaselly move. When I’ve seen business owners try to change things half way through a project, it’s always a red flag.

Being straight forward and honest is always good if you realize the scope is more than you quoted for. This is why a contract is a great idea – here’s the rate, here’s the estimate, here’s what’s included. If the estimate changes, or you want to add something else in, that’ll be more or changes the terms of the contract. Every time I skip a contract with a client (“it’ll be fine, it’s a small project,” “she’s friend!”) it bites me in the ass.

Learn something from this awesome (and financially well supported in his jog-a-thon) 3rd grader. Get it up front, in writing and then run your ass off to make the most of it!