Tactics for Direct Contact and Follow-Up

Cold Calling. Call a complete stranger on the phone. Works best if you have reason to believe the person currently needs your service and you can easily explain why that is.

Warm Calling. Call prospects with whom you have some connection—people you have met before, who have been referred to you, or who belong to a professional or personal community where you are also a member.

Lunch or Coffee (with prospects). An excellent follow-up tactic when your services are expensive or difficult to explain, or the sales cycle is long.

In-Person or Phone Appointments. What many people do to hold a sales conversation to discuss their services in detail. May lead to a proposal or quote, or directly to a sale.

Personal Letters and E-mails. Send a personal letter by postal mail or e-mail to a hot prospect. Most effective when it is truly personal, not just boilerplate, and is coupled with a follow-up phone call.

Text Messages, Instant Messages, and Social Media “Shouts.” Brief messages sent by text, instant message, online chat, or social media post aimed at an individual. Useful for quick hellos, reminders, or requests to prospects who are active on the platform you are using.

Announcement Card or Letter. A great way to let everyone know what you’re doing if you’re just getting started or have made changes in your business. Best when followed up with phone calls.

Nice-to-Meet-You Notes. When you meet someone and collect his business card, send a follow-up note by mail, enclosing your card. Or an e-mail with your contact information.

Sending Articles or Links. Keep in touch with prospects in a nonpromotional way by mailing articles or forwarding links to websites or online posts they might find useful.

Extending Invitations. Invite prospects to a meeting or seminar you are planning to go to anyway. It’s a good reason to re-contact them without doing any selling.

Reminder Postcards or Mailers. An occasional mailing reminds people what you have to offer. Postcards and self-mailers can be easier and cheaper than a print newsletter.

Newsletters and E-Zines. A powerful follow-up technique when your services provide valuable information. Use print or e-mail newsletters to show off your expertise and remind people you’re available.

Broadcast E-mail and Autoresponders. Broadcast e-mails can provide prospects with additional reasons to hire you. You can set up an automated sequence of e-mails to follow up with prospects over time. Broadcast e-mail should only be used when a prospect has already expressed interest in your offerings, and opted in to receive your e-mail.

Don’t limit your picture of networking to mean circulating through a room exchanging business cards. Nor should networking be defined by the time you spend making social media posts. A broader view of networking is creating a pool of contacts from which you can draw clients, referrals, resources, ideas, and information. You can network by phone, e-mail, and online as well as in person, but networking is by definition interactive.

Some of the people you meet through networking will be prospective clients, but you will also make other valuable contacts. Just as you would follow up with a prospect by placing a call or suggesting lunch, you can build your network of colleagues and referral sources in the same way.

You don’t have to wait for word of mouth to build in order to start getting referrals. You can seek out potential referral sources by identifying people who are in contact with your target market and getting to know them. After an initial meeting or conversation, you can stay in touch using some of the same tactics as shown for direct contact and follow-up, plus the following tactics more specific to networking and referral building.