What are the best ways to follow up? The best ways to follow up, there are a few things. Obviously the old school and the new school or the offline and the online world. It’s all about not one or the other, I believe. Masa and I believe there is a place and a time for old school kind of process and a new school online world and the best thing is always to match them and put them together so you have layers. The more layers of follow up that you can have, the better, so people will not fall through the cracks, let’s say, so you can actually get answers, so you can help them to make good decisions.
First of all, the best way to follow up is when you’re asking that person to have a look at your opportunity or to come to that event, especially when you’re doing everything on the phone and then you’re actually asking them to watch your presentation. The best way you follow up is by setting the follow up before you hang up that phone.
Before you get off I would say something like this, if I was talking to Peter I would say, “Peter as you know, you’ve been talking to me so many times about you not having enough time and not having enough money to take your family on holidays or to buy these presents or to take them on a Christmas vacation. If I could show you a way for you to be able to do that, would you watch a video that is about eight minutes that can show you a way for you to actually have extra income and money and time to actually take your family on vacation this Christmas?”
Most probably Peter would say, “Yeah, I think I can have eight minutes to have a look.” I would get him coming in first of all to have a look at the video, so I would say, “So when do you think you will have a chance in the next 24 hours to have a look at this video that is eight minutes?” Peter would say, “Probably this afternoon.” “Okay, perfect. This afternoon, so you think about 2 or 3 PM?” “Yeah I think so.” “Perfect.” When Peter is saying okay I will have a look to the video at 3 PM, as an example, the next thing that I’m going to do, and this is the important part.
You don’t hang up the phone and then hope that you can call them back and set up or actually do the follow up. Before I hang up the phone I say to Peter, “Peter, since you’re going to have a look at the video or the opportunity at 3 PM, you may have some questions. Make sure that you write them down. I will call you back at 3:30, since you’ve been watching the video at this time you would have been finished by then, you think?” Peter would say, “Yes.”
“Okay, perfect. What I will do is, I will give you a call back around 3:30 PM today and I will answer all the questions that you may have. I know that you will have lots of questions because this is what happened to me. I want to make sure that I’m there to answer any questions you have. Make sure that you write them down. Okay? Perfect, so I will call you back at 3:30.” Then I hang up the phone. That’s the first thing. Obviously I’m setting up that follow up, so I’m going to call Peter and follow up.
In addition to that, as I’m doing that follow up, if Peter has not decided yet that he wants to join my opportunity or that he wants to have some products, what I’m going to do is, based on the experience that Masa and I have, it’s always very good to set up a follow up email sequence and again, that depends on what kind of systems you’re following or how you’re following and how much aware you are about online marketing, for example. If nothing else, you can do the offline.
In addition, if you’re able to do extra layers of follow up, that will be another thing that you can do because when you set up follow up reminders on email, you can set four or five if you want and you can talk to that person about the things that they told you that they like. If they liked the product you can follow up on product. If they like opportunity, you can send them emails about the opportunity and the benefits that the opportunity can bring to them. You can marry both worlds, the offline and the online.
