Author: bodybydesign
The founder of our company use to say often: “People are your working capital.”
And so, on a scale of 1 to 10 your looking for a what? Of course, I’m referring to the prospect you’re looking for.
If you listen to the news you would think we have a real estate crisis and that real estate agents have no business. The other day, I called a real estate company in T town and the receptionist screened my calls by asking: “How many square feet are you looking for?” I told her I was looking for about 1,000 square feet. Therefore, I got the voice mail of an agent and after he didn’t call back I called him. Of course, he asked: “How many square feet are you looking for?” And I said, “I’m looking for 1,000 square feet.” And, he asked: “How long?” And I said, “No longer than necessary or longer than I can get the space.” He said, “You need to talk to so and so.” When the next lady was going to pass me on I asked: “If I was interested in one million square feet would you help me?” She just laughed and said she would get the information I need. I haven’t heard back.
For all they know I am the CEO of Amazon and need 1 million sf of office space in T town next year. At the moment, I need 1,000 sf.
What they don’t realize is that I could easily rent that 1,000 sf of office space for 20 years If I wanted to do so. And, if I ever need more space I just might call them. It reminds me of a story a friend told me about an old farmer he knew. He looked like a bum (not a 10 at all) and he went into the car dealership. He couldn’t get waited on and finally told a salesman: “I’ll take that car over there.” Big shock right? Of course, they called the bank to see if he could pay for it and here’s what the banker said: “Of course he can pay for it. You might want to see if he wants to buy your dealership–he could pay cash for that too!”
Follow up is your biggest company asset. Did you know that your MLM sign up dud knows a “heavy hitter?” He’ll never tell you because you treat him like you see him. What that means is: “Your Not the brightest light in the harbor.”
Seth Godin said this about follow up (Permission: The Missing Ingredient) in his free ebook Unleashing the Ideavirus:
“When Hotmail launched their free email service, they did almost everything right. They built a product that was worthy of an ideavirus. They made it smooth. They built amplification right into the product. They approached the right people and started with just enough push to make the thing take off.
But then they made a huge error.
They forgot to get permission to follow up. They failed to ask their users (the folks who were infected by the virus) if it was okay to send them an anticipated, personal and relevant email every week. They didn’t build an asset.
As a result, the Hotmail website has one and only one way to make money. By selling banner ads. And nobody clicks on banner ads when they’re reading their email. So advertising on the Hotmail site is super cheap. And probably overpriced.
We’re talking a multi-billion-dollar mistake here. If they had permission to follow up with 20 million people every single week with an email that was filled with useful information and relevant ads, they could easily sell the slots in this email for a buck a week. That’s a billion dollars a year in lost revenue, which, using stock market multiples, is a gazillion dollars in market cap. All because they forgot to ask for permission.”
Build assets–follow up!
Money She Wrote Blog 