Are you of the school that says once you close a sale with a new customer, it’s time to go find another one? Guess what? You’re “Old School,” and you’re leaving easy money on the table. You’re also making your job a lot harder than it needs to be.

Let’s say it really is 5 times easier to sell an existing customer than it is to find a new one. Then you should spend 80% of your selling time staying in touch with current customers and only 20% of your time prospecting for new business. (Oh, look…we created another 80/20 Rule!)

Unfortunately, most of us reverse this ratio, at worst, and go 50/50 “acquisition” and “retention,” at best.

Here Are the Real Sales Follow Up Conversion Stats:

• It takes 12 contacts to convert a prospect to a customer
• 80% of all sales happen after the 4th contact
• 50% of all salespeople quit after only 1 contact
• 50% of all sales leads result in a sale–for somebody!

Scariest of all…your customer is your competitor’s prospect! That means if your ratio is out of whack, everybody will be following up with your customer but you!

Now put on your “80/20 hat.” You’ve got a lot going for you already. If you are doing a good job for them, your present customers are the easiest to approach. They’ll take your call because they know you. They already think you’re the subject-matter expert in your field. Therefore, if they accept what you recommend, they’ll often do so without shopping around.

If you give reasonably good service, are scrupulously honest and sell a product or service that’s in demand in your marketplace, you’ll find current customers will respond favorably when you ask for time to show them more of your products and services.

Does this mean every current customer will buy? Of course not. But many will…and your commission check deposits the same whether you sell to new or existing prospects. And it sure beats making cold calls, spending more money on advertising or investing more time in socializing on social media. Imagine a steady stream of receptive buyers who look forward to hearing from you with your next great idea for them! That’s what you can expect from a good sales follow-up system.

There are many ways to stay in touch with existing customers. My favorite is to call up and invite someone to lunch or coffee. But depending on how many customers you have and where they’re located, that may not be feasible. So here are my next 3 favorite ideas.

3 Ways To Follow up with Customers

1. e-Newsletter, sent quarterly, bi-monthly or monthly to keep customers “in the loop” with what you’re up to
2. Automated Drip Marketing Campaign, triggered off a first sale and scheduled to send a message once a month for a year. Then, even if you get busy, your customer will still feel appreciated.
3. Exclusive Offers. Everyone in business today is looking for shortcuts, new ideas, competitive advantages and proven strategies–anything that guarantees risk reduction. A simple, personalized message with a special downloadable offer of a white paper, special report, case study involving a similar business or a “coupon” towards a next order is often all it takes to make the phone ring or to initiate an email inquiry.

This year, The Database Diva offers 2 new programs to help you gain mastery of your sales follow up to current customers.

1. e-Newsletter Training Course. If you want to learn to “do-it-yourself,” in this class we’ll teach you how to produce a customer e-newsletter that gets opened, read and responded to.  Held monthly for 90 minutes
2. Do-it-for-You e-Newsletter. We will publish a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly e-newsletter for you, completely turnkey.  We handle your copywriting, design, list segmentation, sales call list creation, metrics reporting and flagging of your opt-outs and bounced email addresses.

For more information or a customized e-Newsletter ROI Analysis, contact Stacia Shinaberry.

Sales quotes come in all shapes and sizes. Here's one I call the "Celebrity" sales estimate. It puts your product pics on the runway (and you can add a rep's image and autograph, too.)

In the past few months I’ve looked in every nook and cranny of my business for ways to cut costs, especially the “hidden” costs that you don’t realize are adding up. Like inefficient use of time.

Turns out one of our big time sucks is sales quoting. Some of our services are straightforward and easy to quote…maybe take a minute or 2. But our really lucrative opportunities often take a couple of hours to research, price and “pretty up,” so the sales quote “look and feel” matches the value of our work.

In fact, it turns out we have been spending approximately $25 per sales estimate we create. I checked with some of my clients, and plugged in their numbers, and we got a range from $20 – $150. And as we all know, not every estimate turns into a sale. So this seemed like a great place for a re-think on cost savings.

I liked the solution I discovered so much, I decided to resell the quoting software to estimate-intensive, sales-driven organizations. Now instead of one-size-fits-all quotes going to my low-end and high-end opportunities, I can match the quote template to the project.

For example, the image on the top left is the “Celebrity Sales Quote” sales template. It puts your products’ images front and center, almost like a catalog, with complete product descriptions, part numbers, a catchy title–whatever info you have or want to show. But a Quick and Dirty Line Item Sales Estimate may be all you need if need to get something out fast and keep it simple. Finally, a third option is a formal Narrative Sales Proposal, which may be appropriate for responding to an RFP or other situations where the person presenting your products and services is not you. I did one like this years ago that was almost 50 pages. Today, I could create it once in my sales quoting software and use pieces and parts of it for any estimate, and it would only take me a matter of minutes.

On Tuesday, December 20, I’ll be holding a free 60-minute webinar  demonstrating how a sales quoting system reduces the cost of calculating estimates and gives the competitive advantage of being first bidder to respond (because you’re so fast!)

Want to find out more? Register here. If you can’t make it live, I’ll be posting the recording here after the holidays.

Susan Clark, author of the Sage ACT! Quick Study Guide, is guest presenter on productivity kaizen at the November ACT! User Group meeting.

Well, it’s that time of year.

My desk is pleading for a desktop clearance intervention and, at my gym, the increased number of cars in the parking lot confirms that it’s do-over season again.

The good news is that every end of the year brings each of us a fresh chance to rethink how to get things done better in the new year.

Fortunately, the moon and stars are in alignment for our final, end-of-year ACT! User Group on leveraging ACT! for higher productivity. And here’s why. My good buddy, Susan Clark, president of Cornerstone Solutions in Houston, will be the special guest presenter.

Susan has been the author of the official Sage ACT! Quick Study Guide (QSG) for the past 15 years and is the undisputed authority in the ACT! Software world for her expertise in using ACT! as a productivity tool.

November Sage ACT! User Group

Date: Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Time: 8am – 10am Central (Time Conversion)
Place:  Online or “in person” in St. Louis, MO (held concurrently)
Register: Use the “online” or “in person” link below

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No products were found.

What You Will Learn at the ACT! User Group

If you find yourself…

• Managing too many fluid projects at once
• Trying to hold yourself or your employees, team or family accountable to their commitments
• Struggling to prioritize your day, week or month

…then register now to hear Susan address these challenges and the universal question of, “How do I get myself to do the things I need to do most?” In other words, how do you battle inertia, procrastination and other activity blocks that keep you from finishing what you start and are holding you back from accomplishing the very best version of yourself everyday?

You’ll also pick up tips for…

• Creating new ACT! records faster
• Setting up relationships between contacts
• Keeping track of reference files (like docs, pdfs, favorite web pages, etc.)
• Rethinking how to use the ACT!’s Task list more efficiently

Susan will share her A-HA! inspiring Three “S” Grid, which easily breaks down the 4 phases of productivity in a way that will give you instant clarity on where to invest your self-improvement efforts.

Best of all, Susan has already figured out how to apply *anybody’s* time management or productivity system to ACT! so you don’t have to. Just add your industry expertise, and you’re ready to go.

ACT! Productivity Kaizen

Susan’s *thing* in life is productivity kaizen. She’s the one who taught me how to clean my blender with hot soapy water on high speed immediately after use.  She’s the one who knows a month in advance what she’ll be wearing every day of the week at the Sage ACT! trade show, which we usually attend together. (She also hangs up every outfit and then puts it into her suitcase after wearing it, so that by the time we check out, she’s already packed. I’m amazed when I can plan my outfit the night before, let alone a whole month out.)

And, for you gentlemen reading this, she knows more about home improvement than most guys I know. She drew her own home remodel blueprints down to placement of the remote control fireplace, and I’ve seen evidence of her efficient influence on her husband and two sons. She’s truly an equal-opportunity productivity force of nature. (Really, the only reason I can still be friends with her is because she has a “busy” desk like mine.)

Susan’s 500+-page QSG is packed full of ACT! tips just like her lifehacker tips. In other words, she doesn’t just show you what ACT! buttons to click. She shows you smart ways to use ACT! that increase your quality of work life and put you fully in charge of your precious allotment of 86,400 seconds a day.

Since she and I will be together this year on ACT! User Group day, she agreed to share some of her ACT! productivity tips with you, whether you join us in person in St. Louis or via online meeting from wherever you are.

As an ACT! user, you already own a great technology tool. Why not tap into all that internal greatness you’ve bottled up inside and seize the new year with a fresh approach turning ACT! into a productivity tool?

Register now to join us in St. Louis or from anywhere via online meeting.

Ever since the very first recorded sales call, sales reps, sales managers, business owners and sales trainers have tried to perfect the sales process.

The sales call is the championship arena, when honing the sales process and all that sales training really pays off. Sales people shine when they’re in full salesmanship glory in front of a qualified prospect. But we don’t enjoy the process of  *getting in front of prospects*, especially after they’ve gone into what I call “radio silence.” This is where the sales process typically breaks down.

Sales statistics bear this out. Most sales close after the 6th or 8th contact. But on average, sales people stop following up personally after the 4th try, leading to the aggravating outcome of setting up a competitor for an easy “bluebird” sale from all our hard work. Demoralizing.

The trusted sales process doesn’t typically help with sales follow up. In fact, at any given time, 87% of prospects in our sales pipeline is not in the market to buy right now. So how can we focus on the “needles in the haystack–the profitable 13%?

Drip Marketing

A proposal follow up drip marketing campaign is a proven system for closing more sales in a shorter period of time with less human resources. For example, take the common trigger in every sales organization’s daily activities: the writing of estimates, quotes or RFPs. You send one out and then what? A few “Are you ready yet?” follow up calls and then…typically nothing.

Most of us are pretty good at following up personally for the first 30 days. Maybe even the first 60 days. But what’s the systematized follow-up plan if the prospect puts off a buying decision for 6 months or a year?  Especially when we’re not exactly sure of what the timing will be? How can we guarantee this sales opportunitywon’t fall into a black hole?

A sales proposal drip campaign is a multi-step series of timed touches that have the look and feel of a personalized response, as if you sat down at your PC, tablet or phone and fired off a personal message. It’s the “perfect” follow up you would do yourself, if you had time to do it, but you probably don’t.  And if between now and 12 months from now you close the deal, the client can be diverted from a prospecting campaign and placed on a new customer campaign.

Potential To Increase Sales by 10%

Launching this one, simple drip marketing campaign has the potential to increase pipeline sales by at least 10% this quarter. So many sales organizations fall victim to conventional thinking, “We need more sales. Let’s do more of what we’ve always done.” Then they continue to be surprised when they get the same lackluster results.

Drip marketing is easy to implement, but the strategy of what to say and when to say it does take time to think about. That’s why I created my exclusive Mini-DripMarketingCamp for Sales Proposal Follow Up.

Over 3 weeks, we will work together in an online group mastermind to perfect your drip for your business. I will provide you with:

• The Sales Proposal Follow-Up Drip Marketing Letter ($77 value) that explains the follow-up strategy start-to-finish
• Pre-written templates that you can modify for your business. These are active messages that I use in my own business that are proven to shake the bushes and bring in orders
• A 30-minute one-on-one consult to discuss your proprietary questions and strategies
• A 100% money-back guarantee if you do not increase sales by at least 10X your Camp investment within the first year, if you follow my instructions and do all your Camp homework.

I have offered this guarantee for several years because DripMarketingCamp works. The current economic conditions have only strengthened my guarantee. In the 4 years I’ve trained over 200 campers, I’ve only issued a refund one time. Because campers who come to Camp and follow the simple steps I teach predictably experience major outcomes.

Download the Camp flyer now or register for Camp here.

A couple of obscure questions came up this week about using Sage ACT! Software and also one that many people think is a “gotcha.”

Q – When using Swiftpage for a newsletter, it will not recognize my secondary contacts. How do I include them in my email blast?

A – Sage ACT! only recognizes primary email addresses. This can also be a problem for insurance agents, stock brokers and financial planners who capture spouse and child data in their ACT! contact management systems. The best time to figure out how to email secondary and additional contacts in a company or family is before you build your database. But if you’re past that stage already, then consider “promoting”  your secondary contacts to primary contacts, then linking them via the Relationship tab (in ACT! 2008 – 2012).

Q – I work in St. Louis, MO, and I have 10 users on my ACT! contact management system. They like to “freelance” the entry of the city name as STL, St.L, or Saint Louis. The Edit List feature won’t let me fix the variations to standardize the list. It drives me crazy.

A – The city field can be modified in Tools > Define Fields. Go in and clean up all the variations on the drop-down list. Then check the profile setting to “Limit to List” which will allow users to choose a city name only from the drop-down menu. If you need to add a city, go back into Tools > Define Fields to do it. To fix the mistakes already in your database, do a lookup of your entire database in the List View. Tag records that have non-standard entries. Then Lookup Selected. Use Edit  > Replace Field to standardize the city names to “St. Louis.”  (This process works on any field, but run a backup of your database before you use the Edit > Replace Field feature, as changes will overwrite any value in that field and cannot be undone.)

Q – I’m using an old version ACT! Software. If I want to use all the new features in ACT 2011 or 2012, I have to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010.  That’s a little costly.

A – What can we tell you? Software companies are in the business of releasing new software to provide more features and a better user experience. Unfortunately, those pesky software engineers want to be paid for what they create. Cloud computing (like Salesforce.com) promises to change all that, but the trade off is you pay for your software in perpetuity, kind of like a data plan on your smart phone bill (but typically several times that much).

As value added resellers of Sage ACT!, we frequently witness the utter lack of attention spent by many of our clients on planning their technology upgrades–until something stops working, crashes or they inadvertently upgrade something they shouldn’t have.

We’re all for not spending money you don’t have to, but if your technology is more than 3 years old or you plan to purchase new workstations, laptops or tablets, have a chat with your IT expert first. Make a list of all your software (including your server software) and find out what the system specs are for each program–especially the mission critical ones like your contact management or accounting software.

Laptops used to be on an 18-month obsolescence track; we’re sure it’s much faster than that now with all the new devices released seemingly every month. Do not expect or assume that all your toys will continue to work in harmony. Upgrading any part of your technology may trigger a domino effect.

Even internet browsers can cause a conflict. Swiftpage Email, for example, is not yet compatible with Firefox 4.0.1, and Firefox has no “downgrade” after you upgrade. So before you upgrade anything, check it out with IT or each software app’s technical support center to find out what will be compatible with your current technology if you upgrade.

If you have any questions about whether ACT! will play nicely with any of your current or prospective software apps, call us at 1-314-485-4350 or use our Contact Us form to ask.

Sage ACT! 2012 is on deck as a new version release in September, and one new feature is a direct-from-ACT! Google calendar sync.

To use the Google sync, you’ll need a Gmail or Google Apps account. A Gmail account is YourName@Gmail.com. Any email ending in gmail.com is a Gmail account.

A Google Apps account is still Gmail, but it lets you use your own domain, which is more business oriented. The free version of Google Apps lets you sync to the Google calendar. The paid version of Google Apps, approximately $50 per year per email address, syncs to both the contacts and calendar.

Until ACT! 2012 is released, the current way to sync ACT! to Google is through a third-party add-on app, such as Handheld Contact, Companionlink or 123Synchronization.

Each of them passes thru Outlook as an intermediary. So the flow is to sync ACT! to the add-on software to Outlook to your phone or tablet device. Almost every device can be synced, including iPhones, iPads and Droids. Once the ACT! to Google sync is available, contacts and activities will flow from ACT! directly to your Google calendar.

Currently, ACT! has several ways to sync to Outlook. If you are using version ACT! 2010 or earlier, ACT! has an automatic ACT!-to-Outlook sync built into the system for the  calendar only.

Sage ACT! Outlook Integration

In ACT! 2011, you can sync contacts and calendars, but not notes. If you create an activity in ACT!, the sync will copy the activity exactly, including the date, time, and location details–but no contact information will carry over to your Outlook calendar.

We recommend that you look up your contact in the database first. Then go to the Edit menu and copy the contact (or press CTRL + C on your keyboard) to copy the contact information onto the Clipboard. Then you can create an activity with that person and enter their contact info into the details tab (CTRL+ V). The details do synchronize with the built-in ACT! sync for ACT! 2011, and now you have the contact information plus the activity record.

Some people consider that extra step a limitation with the built-in ACT! sync, so another option is to get an ACT! add-on like 123Synchronizer, which has a one-time charge of approximately $125.00 per licensed user.

123Synchronization will automatically transfer the contact information with the calendar. It will transfer the notes. It will also sync sales opportunities and secondary contact information. The sync goes in two directions, too. Use the ID/Status field to categorize contacts that you want to transferred to your device.

Companionlink has been around a long time. We don’t recommend them as often because they’re software often creates duplicates. You can get into an endless loop with trying to fix the duplicates and…creating another set and another set. Some ACT! users use it and love it and don’t have this problem. But Companionlink does go directly from ACT! to Google, bypassing the Outlook sync altogether. Companionlink has two products ranging from $80 for a manual sync and $130 for an automatic sync.

Companionlink vs. Handheld Contact

Some people like it. Some people have not had any issues with it at all. If you go in one direction; if you always say go from ACT! to Outlook or ACT! to Gmail with Companionlink, you have no issues at all. It’s only the going back and forth that has the issues. So it’s kind of up to you. There’s no one answer for what’s the best for everybody. It depends on what version of ACT! you’re on, and what you need to get out of it. There’s all your different ways of doing it.

Handheld Contact is a third synchronization option. It supports Blackberrys and the iPhone. This add-on is a $179 subscription you pay for on an annual basis. It’s unique feature is that it replicates an instance of ACT! on your device.

Some of our clients like this product, but the ones who don’t say its interface is kind of clunky. Even though it’s ACT! on your phone, users say it doesn’t work it like address book and calendar they’re used to on their phone apps. It’s a completely separate interface for the contacts for the calendar, and they don’t integrate with each other.

So if you need to get driving directions to a contact, for instance, you’d actually have to copy that contact into the iPhone’s contacts separately. Additionally, Handheld Contact only supports older version of Windows, not Windows 7.

Improve your ACT! user experience by setting personal preferences under the Tools > Preferences menu

Just like apps for smart phones or iPads, ACT! Software lets you set a “profile” of personal preferences so you have a better user experience.

Some preferences are for your computer or laptop. Some are global database settings and will change the preferences for every user on your shared contact management system. Here are 5 custom settings to set up “just for you.” Almost all of them work on any version of Sage ACT! Software:

1. Grid Lines. Any feature that says “List” (Contact List, Task List, Group List) can show grid lines for easier readability. Info in the History and Notes tabs can also show grid lines. To add them, go to Tools > Preferences. Then go to Colors & Fonts. Pick the view you want and check the box at the bottom that says Show Grid Lines. This change only affects your ACT! database use. (The grid lines do not print out on ACT! reports, but any list can be exported with 1 button push to Excel.)
2. 4-Hour Work Week. Let’s say you want to schedule yourself for the perfect business lifestyle, a la Timothy Ferris. In ACT! you can set up your work week to work only Tuesday and Wednesday from 8am – 10am…then take the rest of the day (week) off! Go to Tools > Preferences > Calendar & Scheduling Tab > Calendar Preferences. Choose the day you want to start your week and the hours you want to work. Your calendar reflects your changes. Again, you are only adjusting your own calendar; everyone else is free to work a full 60-hour week, if they so desire. The actual calendar view will always default to the daily, weekly, work week or monthly view you looked at last.
3. Changing Default Activity Settings. Each item in Calendar & Scheduling has a default setting which can be adjusted. For example, if you want your scheduled calls to ring an alarm 15 minutes beforehand, modify the default setting. You can always override that, but each call will automatically alert you 15 Minutes in advance. You can also set your activities to Automatically Roll Over to the next day if you don’t have time to get to them all on the day they are scheduled.
4. Colors & Fonts. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I hate Times Roman and Arial fonts. My urge is to change them to anything else—immediately—if I have control over the situation. Fortunately, ACT! gives you that option. You can change the font type, font size and font color. Some people assign different colors to different salespeople, but that can look pretty busy if you have a lot of shared database users.\

Set Up Custom Preferences for Everyone on your ACT! Database

Starting with the Sage ACT! 2011 version, there is a new tab under Preferences called Admin. This tab is for ACT! administrators only who change preferences that will affect all ACT! users.

Some options for this tab are preventing users from editing notes, history or creating a history everytime one ACT! user sends an email to another ACT! user.

Prior to Sage ACT! 2011, you didn’t have that last option. If you sent an email to another ACT! user in your office, it got recorded in that person’s history, which meant all inter-office email was being recorded as well. This created many uncomfortable situations in the past because it was possible to transmit sensitive information back and forth.

Note: If you were (or are) an ACT! version 6.0 user, you saw profile changes update immediately. On new versions (ACT! 7.0, or ACT! 2005 – 2012), changes are not automatic. If somebody makes a change to the database and you’re on that record expecting to see that change, it’s not going to happen.

That’s because ACT! now works more like a website. If you’re on a website page and someone makes a change to it, you’re not going to see the update until you refresh it. You must do that in ACT!, too, using the F5 Refresh key. (You can also get to the Refresh command under the View menu).

You’ll enjoy using ACT! a lot more if you set up each tab in your preferences. Why repeat an action when you can set a default for some of them or just make ACT! look more aesthetically pleasing to your eye?

Save time with Sage ACT! keyboard and mouse shortcuts shown on the Lookup menu.

As everyone’s attention span dwindles, now’s a good time to re-visit the keyboard and mouse shortcuts on the Sage ACT! menu. Hey, a fraction of a second saved is several hours earned over a year, right?

A couple of things that I really like with the newer version versions (Sage ACT! versions 2007 – 2012) is that you can right-click on just about any area of a layout or data field. A dialog menu will pop up and, the majority of the time, whatever you’re trying to do is going to be an option on that ACT! menu.

One of the fastest shortcuts you can do is a lookup on any field in the database. Right click on any field, and a mini lookup window will pop-up, pre-filled with the field you want to search on. Rather than going to the Lookup Menu, then choosing that field from a drop-down list, just go to that field, right-click on it, and complete your lookup. It’s very simple.

A second shortcut is to right-click on the background of your layout. You can:
•    Schedule your calls
•    Create a New Contact or duplicate a Contact
•    Record a History on an unscheduled call or meeting
•    Insert Notes or
•    Attach a File

You can find this right-click option on any screen. You don’t just have to be on the contact screen. Try this on the Groups, Companies or Calendar views, too.

On the calendar view, we can right-click and Schedule a call. I can also click and drag my mouse to highlight an activity’s start and end time. When I let go, it pops up and automatically fills in the date and the time that I had dragged my mouse on top of that to fill that in.

Sage ACT! Menu Shortcuts for Keyboard or Mouse Lovers

These same commands are available on your keyboard too, if you’re not a mouse person, but a keyboard person. The keyboard shortcut equivalent of right-clicking usually starts with holding the control key (CTRL) plus another key. For example, to create an unscheduled history item, all you do is press CTRL + H. Just complete the dialog box that pops up with all the details.

Even when you're on one peron's contact record, you can record information about an unscheduled activity for another person using the CTRL + H keyboard command, one of the ACT! menu commands.

One of my favorite Sage ACT! shortcuts (really an ACT! tip) is using this command when the phone rings and interrupts me right in the middle of something I’m doing. I type CTRL + H, and when that person starts talking to me, I can take notes during the call.

Since chances are that this is not the person who’s record I’m already on in ACT!, I just change the contact to this person’s record (or press the Contact button on the right and then the New Contact button on the lower left to add a new contact to my database).

My notes are automatically added to the history tab, documenting my conversation. The History tab is the “daily diary” of everything that happens with that contact.

The Difference Between the ACT! History and ACT! Notes Tabs

Some people confuse the History and Notes tabs because ACT! used to show them as one tab. But Notes are for “facts” about your contact, such as directions to his office, his dog’s name, his favorite restaurant, things like that. The keyboard shortcut key for Notes is F9.

Other useful keyboard shortcuts are:

• F8 takes you to the Contact Detail View
• F11 goes to the Contacts View
• Insert Key (usually above the backspace button) adds a New Contact or, if you’re on the Groups view, it adds a New Group

Everyone wants more time to spend on the non-work-related good stuff. ACT!’s menu commands for mouse and keyboard shortcuts get you in and out of your database fast.

Creative email marketing content can be mined from hobbies and holidays.

Last year on Cinco de Mayo I published my secret recipe for frozen margaritas. This year I decided to go more historical with a great Swiftpage E-Marketing case study.

Every Cinco de Mayo, history buff, Sage ACT! Software User and Texan Les McGee gets one more holiday to showcase his email marketing creativity. Les sells 100% made-in-the-USA United States and State Flags and flagpoles for Betsy Ross Flag Girls Company Inc.

Les combines his hobby of researching history with his business need for lead generation. Before e-marketing, Les’ prospecting strategy was territory “drive by’s,” looking for flags and flagpoles on commercial properties like apartment buildings, schools and big companies. Whenever he’d find one he didn’t know about, he added the information to his Sage ACT! database.

“I’m very database oriented,” Les says. “It’s the only way I keep up with my market. The property management business is very transient. One of my buildings has had 4 managers in 8 years. Big properties may have 10-12 flagpoles. So if I don’t keep up, I miss sales.”

About a year ago, Les discovered email marketing and enrolled in The Database Diva’s Drip Marketing Camp. “I’m a huge fan of the internet, and I love email marketing. But I hate when I subscribe to things online and they try to sell me new products without giving me the info I thought I was getting. I didn’t want to do my marketing that way.”

That’s how the marriage of history and marketing was inspired. Les doesn’t try to sell flags in his email marketing messages. “My philosophy is ‘I want to share something pithy and short about our US history and remind you that we’re a local resource.’”

Email Marketing Content Inspiration

At first he thought he’d send messages quarterly, but once a month is proving to better timing, even though Les acknowledges it’s often hard to come up with a different concept each month. Some of his historical flag topics have included:

• The story of the first United States flag
• The 48-star flag (the one Les grew up with)
• Flags in the Revolutionary War

“I read books on flags, so I write about any flag having to do with the history of the US,” he says. “We share the border with Mexico and I like to celebrate their hard-working culture and religion on Cinco de Mayo.” Later this month, Les will send a reminder to his list to lower all flags to half-staff for Memorial Day.

Besides his flag books, Les relies on Wikipedia and Google Images. He finds he’s more inspired to do his writing at the end of the month because “it has to get done–I feel the pressure!”

Swiftpage Email Marketing Results

What’s the payoff for all this hard work, we asked Les? Here are some of his tangible results:

1. A pre-school in his territory reads the history lessons to its children.
2. A local radio station reads his messages on the air (he’s working on converting them to customers).
3. A principal at a local school caught a “wrong date in history” and pointed it out to Les to correct (school’s never out for lifelong learners).

That’s just the fun part. The business part is even better. “For the first 4-5 months, I didn’t get much response,” Les says. “Recently, I had 15 people email me back with orders. People are always on their computers, so they’ll receive one of my messages, open it, call me and say, ‘Les, I need some flags.’ On sales calls, many times people think they’ve done business with me–even when they haven’t!”

Les sends about 1,400 messages per month and averages about a 15% open rate. His favorite time to send his emarketing campaign is the first or second day of the month at about 10am because “the apartment complexes don’t open till 9am.”

After 8 years of “drive by” prospecting, Les says he doesn’t get in the field as often as he used to. But he writes twice as many orders as the other reps at his company, even though his territory is not in the most affluent area. “I’ll take quality when I can get it, and quantity when I can’t,” he says.

Les says there are 4 secrets to his email marketing success.

1. Prepare your database so you can do something with it. This takes time. “I had to go back and code everybody on my list with P1 for flagpoles, P2 for Flags and P3 for both, then code all my prospects and customers,” he said. “But I look forward to doing postcard mailings and email blasts, so I had to have an accurate list.”
2. Always be prospecting. “When you start out in sales, you are prospecting more than writing orders. The longer you stay with it, the more writing of orders you’ll do and the less prospecting. But you still have to keep up with everyone. Even now I still find flagpoles off the beaten path, even though I think I know anybody who’s got one. Some customers buy at the corporate level and some buy local, but they all go on my list.”
3. Be persistent in acquiring email addresses. It increases your marketing options. “In the old days, tracking business on 3×5 cards was cutting edge. Not anymore.
4. Be consistent. Schedule messages and get them out on time. “Despite not being in the field as much, people still instantly recognize the Betsy Ross brand.”

And how much did Drip Marketing Camp help Les organize his database and launch his emarketing campaign strategy? “Lori, you’re better than I thought you were, and I thought you were fabulous.”

Here is a common question I hear from my clients:

I know there are companies who do lead qualification for a fee (I personally don’t know any) but I think they’re too expensive for our small business. When we hire our new sales rep, I’d like to find a good person to qualify prospects for me. Do you have any suggestions?

This question makes me sigh. It reminds me of the saying, “The best time to plant a shade tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is now.”

The moon and stars will never be in alignment for the perfect time to start prospecting. And while the best people to do your prospecting are ones with the most product knowledge, they’re usually too valuable to put on this low-level activity.

If you assign your lead generation to newbies, they burn out faster than you can earn back what you invest to train them. Subcontracting lead generation is expensive if there’s no follow-up sales system in place or if you don’t know the dollar value of a lead.

What’s the Best Way To Prospect for New Business?

There is no one way. The answer is to experiment with lots of ways that attract your buyer to you, starting with a compelling, interactive website that solves a myriad of his problems or pains.

Most business owners get ahead of themselves with their websites. They believe the purpose of a website is to sell. If you run an e-commerce store, that’s true. But if you sell products or services to other businesses (BTB sales), the purpose of your website is to generate leads. If you master that one step in the sales conversion process, you could consider not hiring a salesperson (or firing one).

Rarely will a new prospect visit your site, then call you up to buy something. Most online searchers who eventually become customers research their purchase on many websites, ask friends and colleagues for their opinions and stalk your site several times before deciding to reach out to you by phone or email. Can your online presence stand up to that much scrutiny?

Most cannot. Which is why it’s so important to add the interactive component, such as a web form offering something of value, to your online presence. If you can capture a lead, you can follow up–proactively insert yourself into an active sales opportunity. Contrast that with phone calling or “cold” emailing “leads,” hoping they’ll be interested in what you sell.

So at the very least, if you don’t have time or money to hire a salesperson or outsource your lead generation, do this:

1. Put up interactive web forms on your website
2. Offer something of value (free consult, free special report or guide)
3. Follow up with a drip marketing campaign that enhances and extends your ability to get to know your prospect
4. Add the lead to your follow-up sales process.

If you’re not sure about how to set up a prospecting system like this, check out our Drip Marketing Letter campaigns.