Don’t Contact People To Have A Beverage, Quick Chat Or Lunch

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m happy to follow up when contacted by e-mail asking me To Have A Beverage, Quick Chat Or Lunch if I understand why.

I received a Have A Quick Chat e-mail last week and I didn’t reply.

Why?

There was no explanation of why I might be interested in the subject line of the e-mail or in the first few lines of the e-mail.

The e-mail went on about a what a product did and how it worked and I could not be bothered to read further.

If the writer had explained in the first line that they wanted me to do the following, I might have responded:

• Refer them to my clients along with how this process would work
• Offer their product in my blog or newsletter

This came back to mind during a call with one of my clients.

My client explained that their assistant was not being very successful when it came to calling prospective prospects for an appointment.

I asked my client if their prospect knew why their assistant was calling.

My client said’ “my assistant was calling to book a follow up meeting to an appointment that they had with a prospect”. My client went on to say that; “some of their clients / prospects had asked that their assistant not call to schedule appointments, that the clients / prospects would rather that they ( the advisor ) call”.

I said that I would be out of business if I made every call to schedule client and prospect appointments.

I explained that I thought that this was more about the process than the person.

Getting client and prospect appointments ties in with the client engagement process.

You need to do a proper needs analysis with the client that includes asking them, what are the 3 biggest improvements that they want to make and what are their 3 biggest roadblocks, and then tying your product to the solution or making your product the solution to their problems.

When the client engagement process is done properly it makes the appointments a lot easier to secure.

I told my client to send out an email in advance of having their assistant call for appointment.

It could go something like this example that we use in our business:

Dear Prospect,

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing in follow up to our last appointment where we discussed you improving your business by creating a One Page Business Plan TM , learning to ask for referrals and improving your delegation and time management.

90 days has passed since our last conversation and I’m wondering how you’re progressing.

I’m going to take the liberty to have my assistant call you to schedule a convenient time for us to have a conversation.

Kind regards,

Simon Reilly

This way you are giving your client / prospect a clear understanding as to why you want to have a conversation.

You are treating your client / prospect with respect.

Your client / prospect has the opportunity to say yes or no.

No is OK.