This giant revelation has completely turned my business and finances around (That sounds darned obvious, now!)

Here is some of what I took away from that meeting and how it increased my lead generation and improved my relationships with my clients and prospects. I hope you take away what I've learned and apply it to your business.

What is on everyone's mind right now?

High Gas Prices and Bad Economy!

What, if anything, can you do for your clients right now?

You need to contact all your customers now and let them know that you are still open for business. I am doing that very thing with my current list, including past customers that I haven't spoken with or contacted in months and in some cases, years.

An interesting thing happened when I started contacting old customers. If I could get them on the phone, one of the questions I asked them was what are they doing to generate business today?

You see, my business primarily deals with B2B and what I found was disturbing. Many of my customers were inaccessible when I called because they seemed to be in meetings all day long. My only options were to either leave a voice mail or send an email. Those are not my favorite things to do but I had no choice in most cases. Our clients that had answered the phone were not very enthusiastic about their choices for marketing so they weren't doing much except having meetings. And then I found out what was happening; They Are Having Meetings About How Bad Business is. They were experiencing what Dan Kennedy categorized as an "Economic Enema".

All failures are owned. What you need to do now is "enter the conversation inside your customers mind". You need to follow up with your customers.

How Do You Start Fixing Flaws in Your Follow Up?

Before we can talk about fixing the flaws in your follow up we need to find out how you go about generating leads.

When generating leads you must ask, "What are some reasons your prospects don't respond?" I have listed 4 of the leading reasons why a prospect doesn't respond to your ads. 1. They didn't pay attention. 2. Mismatch - they want 'x' but rejects your proposed way of getting it. 3. It's the price or ability to pay. 4. Distrust! Wants 'x', accepts your way of getting it, but doesn't believe in you.

You need to engineer a follow up system to deal effectively with all 4 of those objections.

One thing you need to do right now and that is to Show Up More. Send them snail mail, email them weekly or call them with service specials and do it often.

I'll have much more information for you on How To Fix Your Follow Up in future articles. The best thing to do right now is to let your customers know that your doors are still open and invite them to come by or call even if it is just to say hello.

Another thought that came to mind while listening to Dan Kennedy talk was some of the principles written by Robert Collier. What he wrote about in his Letter Book is just as prevalent today as it was in the 1930's. Here is Collier's Principle:

Collier stated that once you understood the wants and desires of your target market it's smart to enter into the conversation inside your customers mind.

Collier goes on to say: "you have to compete in the same way for your reader's attention. He is not looking for your sales letter. He has a thousand and one other things more important to him to occupy his mind. Why should he divert his attention from them to plow through pages of type about you or your projects...?"

Copyright (c) 2008 Hal Hoadley