I was talking with my cousin the other day and he told me a crazy story!
He said he had been looking for a dentist to go to, but couldn’t find one. Like a lot of people who don’t want to talk on the phone, he sent the dentist an email. Now, he didn’t just email one dentist. No! He emailed four dentists.
Let me ask you… Out of those four dentists, how many do you think replied to his email?
Go ahead, take a guess. I’ll wait…
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Did you say three? If you did, you’re WRONG!
The correct answer is… ZERO. A big fat ZERO.
Unbelievable right? Yeah, you’d think. But it’s more common than you might expect.
Oh, and it gets even crazier… he waited a week for a response. And he got “Nothing – Nadda – Zip.”
One of the dentists he emailed sent a postcard. A POSTCARD! They were fishing and they caught a fish, but the fisherman was asleep at the reel and the squiggly little sucker got away.
Which brings me to two important things:
- If you’re going to give your prospects multiple ways of contacting you be sure someone is manning the ship!
- If you’re going to spend money on marketing then don’t let the prospects who respond to you get away! What’s the use of wasting your money on marketing if you’re going to let your prospects get away???
One of the many things I learned from Dan Kennedy and GKIC is… If you’re going to ask prospects for their contact info be sure to ONLY collect the contact info you’re going to use. If you ask for name, number, and email address, be sure to use them! If you’re not going to call them then don’t ask for their number. It’ll only create a higher resistance for a prospect to respond to your Call-to-Action.
What’s this have to do with not responding to an email?? Well, if you give prospects a phone number, email, fax, website, Facebook account, etc. to contact you be sure you’re paying attention to those forms of communication. If you have no intentions of using email then don’t have an email address! If you’re not going to respond to someone who finds you on Facebook then get rid of your Facebook!
So, don’t be like these dentists who lost a LOT OF MONEY because they failed to respond to a simple little email. Follow up with EVERY LEAD. Put a system in place to be sure you check all forms of communication (email, mail, fax, voicemail, stop-ins).
If you can’t do this simple little task then you’ll only be flushing expensive leads down the toilet.
What’s your experience with contacting a business and never hearing from them? Be sure to leave your comments below.
Now go take action!