Sorry its been a while since I posted. Its been a whirlwind of activity, attending the Dan Kennedy seminar last week and the CAPS (Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Conference this past weekend. I am back in the Eastern time zone again but this time in Toronto…heading home Thursday!

An interesting comment was made during the Dan Kennedy conference that I thought worthy of sharing because sales reps are always asking me how often they should be following up, with their prospects. Most reps, in my opinion are not following up enough, and now I have a guru to back up my opinions!

Direct marketing master Bill Glazer, who runs the Glazer - Kennedy Inner Circle along with Dan Kennedy, spoke at the conference about the direct mail campaigns he ran to his client base when he operated Baltimore's #1 retail men's clothing store, Gage Menswear, along with his late father.

Bill shared a a story about one of his first direct mail campaigns. He told his dad that they were going to mail a special promotional offer to the same list three times. His father was appalled.... yelling at Bill that he was stupid and wasting their money!

Bill persisted and mailed all three pieces of the campaign. His results revealed that mailing the exact same offer three times doubled their response AND in- store sales poured in!

According to the latest statistics we are inundated with over 4000 distinct messages every day! In order to get your message heard, you need to repeat it over and over. This is why repetition works. Without repeating your offer at least 3 times to your audience you are never going to break through the clutter to actually get your prospects attention, get them to listen ,AND get them to respond.

How can you use this in your sales practice?

Your newsletters - Are you publishing and sending your company newsletter often enough? Can you send 1 per month rather than 1 per quarter…or even 2 per month?. How about adding a newsletter from a different medium (e-zine if you are print only or visa versa)

I believe you should be reaching out and "touching" your prospects and customers at least once a week, if not more. The best way to do this, without annoying customers is to mix up the types of communication medium ( paper, ax, email, phone)

Events - When promoting events, you're going to need many more than one or two announcements or mailings. As a general rule, when I'm really trying to fill up a Web class for Engage we send out 3 emails dedicated to the promotion. 2 in our newsletter and 1 as a separate email. For a live event, we will send dozens of announcements, well ahead of time.

Sales calls - How many times are you following up? Using my voice mail technique we find that you can follow up 3 times per week, 2 times per month without annoying the customer. Don't be afraid to call or mail again. Harvard Business Review points out research showing that decision makers claim 37% of sales people don't follow up enough!

Advertising - Instead of blowing your budget on a few large ads per year, try running a smaller ad much more often. Most publications, both online and offline, will provide discounts for purchasing more than one ad at a time.

Repetition is the key. You don't have to be overly creative with your marketing - just saying or mailing the same thing over and over is better than not saying it or mailing it again!


Cheers, Colleen

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P.S. – If you have not already taken advantage of my 30-Day no-charge trial of Lead- Up sales mentoring program, here is another opportunity to see what you have been missing: http://www.lead-up.com

"Colleen, one of our reps went from one or two conversations out of 10 cold-call connects and no prospects (previous week average), to 6 prospects from of his 10 cold-calls on the day immediately following your training. That is a pretty dramatic and immediate result!" – Thanks, Lewis Prochnau Corporate Sales Manager Protus IP