Mar

Follow Up With A Call – Telephone Marketing WORKS

By emily

How many of us HATE cold calling? – I know my hand is up in the air!

But how about warm calling? That’s a little easier, isn’t it.

The truth is, no one likes the rejection that comes with cold calling, so the question is, how can we make our telephone follow up a welcome part of someone’s day?

Let’s turn that question around… who would YOU like to hear from when you pick up the telephone?

Personally, I would say this is my list of people I want to hear from on the phone (in that order)…

Friends and Family
People who are going to help me accomplish a goal I am aware of, and ideally have asked for help on.
People who are calling to discuss or warn me of important information. Face it – no one likes bad news, but what if you got a call that the stock market was going to crash tomorrow or your loved one was in the hospital and needed help… you’d rather know than not know, wouldn’t you?

You can accomplish all three of these objectives in a good telephone conversation to prospects.

Sample Marketing Campaign For Real Estate Agent

For example, as a commercial real estate broker, our marketing campaign was something like this:

Develop a "FOCUSED" list of prospects who all owned a certain type of property in a certain neighborhood. Work on becoming an "expert" in this area. (Easier said than done, but there was plenty of "fake it til you make it" going on…)
Send out an informative newsletter to people highlighting topics of interest to them. My goal was always to make these as niche-focused as possible. Instead of sending a generic newsletter to everyone on my list called "What’s going on with Seattle Apartment Buildings," I would send a mailing about, "What Every 5-20 Unit Apartment Owner in Queen Anne Needs To Know About Increasing Vacancy Rates." That’s much more specific and since everyone I’m sending it to could recognize himself as a member of this category, and is likely concerned about rising vacancy, it’s something he’s more inclined to read.
Follow up with a phone call. Note – we do some research and "warm up" our list before we start calling them, don’t we…
Once on the phone call – We introduce ourselves and build credibility with a short statement of our specialization in the marketplace and a reference to the mail we sent out.

We quickly engage the prospect by giving him an exciting, scary, or relevant news item that might effect his strategy and ask him for HIS opinions. Notice we are not launching into a long spiel, but rather we are asking for HIS opinions – who do YOU like to hear talk – yourself or a salesman.

Our goal is to get the prospect thinking about his investment strategy, build rapport and credibility as an expert in our corner of the marketplace and propose a reason to get together to further discuss any concerns he has raised during the course of the conversation.

Altogether, the conversation should only last 4-5 minutes. If it goes longer, it may be that you’re giving too much information on the phone and not asking the prospect for a sit-down meeting to go into further depth.

Follow up with a thank you card for everyone we’ve talked to, whether or not a meeting was scheduled. This will help the prospect remember us and like us MORE the next time we call. For those we are not able to have a conversation with, call and leave a voicemail at least 3 times.
Repeat the sequence quarterly. Mailing and contacting each prospect 4 times a year.

This is just one example of a relationship-building telephone marketing routine. In real estate sales, the "deal" often gets done after the prospect and agent have known each other for months, if not years. You can not antagonize your clients or be too pushy. This is very different than a sales call in which products or services are purchased over the phone.

The thing I want to point out is that it meets my criteria of who I would like to hear from on the telephone. Someone I know – like friends or family. You WILL get to know someone if they call you four times a year. That’s more than my Grandma calls me and she LOVES us. Also, as my prospect gets to "know" me through voicemails and mailings, he will feel more comfortable taking my calls even if I haven’t spoken to him yet.

Second, if the salesperson is doing a good job in delivering value – such as news about the marketplace – that helps the client form his investment strategy, it won’t matter if the client is not looking to sell his property right away, he can still benefit from the conversations, even if he doesn’t plan to sell or buy property soon.

This is the type of relationship that you can develop with your clients over the phone. It can be hard at first, but it only gets better. Keep your focus on the client and providing value for him each time you talk. Ultimately, the client wants to feel like you are a valued expert who will advise them in their best interest, not a salesman who’s always thinking about wringing money out of them and working in his own best interest.