Follow Up Success » Social Media

Creating a Follow Up Strategy

Alan Underkofler — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:55:36 +0000

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the Cool Twitter Conferences at the House of Blues in Hollywood. My topic for my discussion was Using twitter to Attract More Clients, Increase Your Referrals, and Maintain Top of Mind Awareness With Your Customers. It’s a big topic about using twitter one of the hottest social media sites as a follow up tool.

I started the discussion with a question… Are you giving business to your competitors? The answer for many businesses is YES! Have you heard this before? “The fortune is in the follow up” or the really overused yet clearly correct “People do business with people they Know, LIKE, and TRUST!” These are great statements and both are true yet many businesses do not have any follow up strategy and don’t really understand how to create the “know, like, and trust” feeling with their clients and prospects.

So what is a follow up strategy? It’s about creating a system for follow up which will be used with every new client, prospect, or referral source. The system could look something like this:

New Customer Follow Up System:

Day 1 – new customer welcome email
Day 1 – new customer welcome card
Day 1 – new customer welcome tweet on twitter
Week 2 – follow up phone call checking to insure client is happy with purchase
Week 4 – follow up card “It’s been 30 days since your purchase and we want to make sure you are happy”
Week 4 – follow up tweet on twitter similar to the week 4 card
Week 8 – follow up phone call just “checking in”
Week 12 – follow up card Discussion additional products or services you might offer

I can keep going but you have the idea right? The best way to increase your referrals with your customers and clients is to have a follow up strategy in place. Of course having it in place is only the first step! You must be committed to your strategy, you want to make sure once you start following up you keep it going! You might want to read a previous post, Creating Great Follow UP With Your Clients in 7 Simple Steps where I went into more detail about this process.

Do you have a follow up strategy? Please take a moment and tell us what you are doing by leaving a comment.

Two Simple Follow Up Strategies for Speakers and Presenters

Alan Underkofler — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:05:49 +0000

Two very simple follow up ideas for Speakers and Presenters. Yes even Speakers and Presenters need to follow up! This week I had the wonderful opportunity to speak at the Encinitas Rotary group about using Social Media to follow up and engage customers. I have to admit the setting for this discussion was perfect, the room was right on the water with a wall of glass facing the ocean. The room felt like the ocean was coming right in with each incoming wave!

After the discussion I had spent some time outside listening, viewing, and enjoying the beautiful day. When I was about to leave I decided to make this short video on follow up to share with you how I will follow up with the members of this group. Here is the video:

Two simple steps:

Send an email to each person thanking them for the opportunity to speak at their meeting
Mail each person a thank you card

As a Speaker and Presenter why would I want to take these two follow up steps? I can think of many great reasons but I will focus on the basics. It’s about building upon the relationship I have started. This group just listened to me talk for an hour. To this group I would be considered an expert or go to person in social media, follow up, and referral strategies. The opportunity from speaking is to continue the relationship! If I do this effectively I will naturally receive clients, referrals, and additional speaking engagements.

Are you a speaker, presenter, or trainer? Please let me know the methods you are using to follow up with your audience by leaving a comment.

A Simple Step to Start Receiving Business from LinkedIn!

Alan Underkofler — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:09:10 +0000

When I ask a new contact if they are on LinkedIn the common response I hear is yes I am but I have no idea how to use it! LinkedIn is a great Social Network for business but for many people they just don’t understand what it can do for them or have any plan in place to really engage the people they are connected to. So today I decided to talk about how I handle new contacts on LinkedIn.

For me of course it all comes down to follow up! Follow up is the key to really get things moving on LinkedIn! So what do I mean my follow up?

This week I set aside some time to go through my LinkedIn invites. In the end I accepted invitations from about 100 pending connections. After viewing each connection request I sent a simple email to each new LinkedIn connection asking them for a 20 minute meeting with the goal of learning more about them and to explore how we might be able to help each other.

Here is the email I send out:
Hi Shane!
Thank you for connecting on LinkedIn! Let’s set up a 20 minute meeting to learn more about each other and our businesses. The goal would be to explore how we might help each other.
How does your schedule look for next week?
Alan Underkofler

My expectation is to have about 20 people accept my offer to talk on the phone and explore how we might help each other. Taking this one follow up step with each new LinkedIn connection allows you to start a relationship which leads to new business and referrals.

So there you have it, a very simple step to start the conversation with your LinkedIn connections. So tell me… What do you do to maximize your connections on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn: Great Follow Up Tool or Complete Waste of Time?

Alan Underkofler — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:17:20 +0000

One simple question I ask every new contact at some point during our first meeting… So are you on LinkedIn? The answer to this question can be very surprising! I have heard everything from “No, Yes, What is LinkedIn?, LinkedIn? What a complete waste of time!, I think I am on LinkedIn, I get invites but just ignore them, or I am on LinkedIn but don’t know how to use it.”

So is LinkedIn one of the most powerful sales and follow up tools available or is it just a complete waste of time? I know for myself LinkedIn has proven to be a very powerful tool for connecting to new prospects, passing referrals, and keeping top of mind with clients and prospects.

The opportunities on LinkedIn are extensive! In fact I just wrote a post on Square Martini Media titled 7 Top Reasons LinkedIn is a Must Have for Your Business. This is a must read article to learn why you should be using LinkedIn!

So what are you waiting for? Set up a LinkedIn account or find your password and get ready to learn some simple ideas to help you attract more clients and increase your sales using LinkedIn! Over the next few weeks I will going over the 7 Top Reasons LinkedIn is a Must Have for Your Business. When you find that password or set up your new account make sure to invite me to your network!

Are you a Gary Vaynerchuk?

Alan Underkofler — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:11:06 +0000

Have you ever met someone who is filled with passion and enthusiasm? Passionate about their company, passionate about their job, passionate about their relationship, or possibly passionate about their cause… I mean real passion! So much passion and enthusiasm you might think it’s too much! This reminds me of one of the people I followed up with from LinkedIn this week. Lisa Marshall a communication specialist, speaker, and at one time accused of being too passionate! Lisa’s thoughts on this… “It is impossible to be too passionate”! I have to agree with her! Have you ever seen or heard Gary Vaynerchuk speak? Did you have the thought “I wish I was as passionate as Gary Vaynerchuk”? View a portion of this video with Gary Vaynerchuk speaking at Web 2.0 Expo this year.

Do you see the passion coming from Gary? Do you feel his enthusiasm for what he is doing? Are you thinking to yourself “I wish I was this passionate about something”? The thought in your mind should not be I wish I was… It should be why not? Why not live with the same passion and enthusiasm that Gary does? What is stopping you from doing this? The difference between living and believing with passion versus not is so dramatic! People who have passion and enthusiasm are like magnets. People want to be around passionate people!

Many times I have been told to tone down my passion and enthusiasm… I admit at times I have thought this was some kind of flaw and for years I would always keep myself in check. Now I realize this is one of my biggest assets. I love to get behind something I truly believe in with passion. Lots of passion! You can be passionate about your job, company, product, spouse, or your favorite cause. Find something in your life to be passionate about and then share with those around you.

So my last thought to you is if you have ever thought “I wish I could be as passionate as (fill in the blank), why not start now… Passion is something you can turn on and turn off.. Passion is a love for what you are doing or what you believe in. Passion is the one thing that will push you forward and keep you going, passion insures you reach your end goal. Passion is one of the elements of those who achieve greatness and those who do not. Passion is in you… It’s in all of us… We just need to recognize it, feel it, and let it run through us.