Have you ever called a prospect a number of times, but they haven’t yet responded back to you, and so you find yourself wondering, “How many times should I keep calling this person?” This is a fairly normal question that brokers oftentimes ask themselves, and in keeping this in mind, here’s a solution that I’ve come up with that has worked very successfully for the brokers who I’ve had implement it.
I recommend not only calling your prospects, but also alternating between calling them and emailing them for a period of six weeks, reaching out to them by phone or email weekly, and one of the reasons this can work more effectively for you is that some people will prefer to respond to you by email–simply because they can write and send you a response within 10-30 seconds, rather than risk getting onto a phone call that may take significantly longer than this.
In addition, responding by email will bypass the traditional and ongoing trading of voicemail messages that can happen back and forth between both of you, too.
So as one specific example of doing this here, and this is something that I’ve trained my coaching clients to do, begin with a phone call to your prospect during week one, and if you haven’t heard back, follow-up by sending them an email during week two. Then continue alternating like this for a total of six weeks, so that you will now have made six attempts to contact them, one per week, alternating back and forth between both calling them, and sending them an email.
This now gives you a more systematic approach for following-up with your prospects, such that if they still haven’t responded back to you by week three, for example, you already know that you’ll be continuing to contact them three more times, which now completely takes the guesswork out of your follow-up schedule.
Then, if you haven’t heard back from them by the end of the sixth week, you can pause for several weeks if you’d like to, and then begin the process again.
Typically what you’ll experience by doing this is you’ll get a substantial increase in the total number of prospects you’ll eventually be speaking to, because you’ve systematized the process, and you’re not giving up on them. In addition, by giving your prospects the ability to also respond to you by email, you’re now giving them the opportunity to respond back to you in the manner that may really be the best one for them.
But at the same time, being able to implement this approach requires that you have both the phone numbers and the email addresses of the prospects you’ll want to be contacting, and if your database still needs work to get it into this kind of ideal condition, this is the kind of work that the right virtual assistant will do for you.
If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching, having me do a one- hour strategy session with you, or in having me lead a webinar or a training for your organization, send me an Email or give me a call!