Just a few weeks ago I asked this magical question to all of my contacts on LinkedIn. The answers that I got were absolutely fantastic! I can’t wait to share them with you here. After I throw my two cents in, I’ll be summarizing some of the best answers. Here we go!
When I think of follow-up, my mind naturally begins to remember methods that pushy self absorbed sales people have used on me in the past. Here are some of the issues I’ve had to face. I’ll bet that you will identify with at least a few:
- They don’t even know my name
- They haven’t gotten my permission to contact me
- They talk to me only about their offer or why I should be interested in them
- They don’t prove any level of competency that even a reasonable person would trust
- They fumble through a canned presentation
- They’re too familiar (I don’t even know you for heavens sake)
- They don’t even tell me how they came to contact me (I really want to know which of my idiot friends put you up to contacting me)
- hey ask stupid questions like “would you like to save money or make money Mr. Powell” (my answer is “NO-click”)
- They follow the same old sales tactics that didn’t work when I actually did answer the phone
- They offer no real value up front (really why should I listen to you or call you back?)
- They pass me on to someone that really knows what they are talking about (Did I say that I hate that? Just in case, I HATE THAT!)
- I know more about their products or services than they do
- They argue with me about what I want (If I don’t know what I want by the way, they tell me that their product is the solution for everything I could want)
- They make outlandish unsubstantiated claims
- They make no promises or interesting claims at all