Follow up check!

March 21, 2008 · Filed Under Virtual Assistant Tips, Virtual Assistants · 1 Comment 

I’m a firm believer that simply following up with your leads can lead to paying clients. It really has worked for me. You can’t just send out a sales letter or email to a prospective client and leave it up to them to get in touch with you.

I’ve written an ebook on the subject of follow up for virtual assistants, and I’m working on a second edition, to cover even more scenarios.

One thing I’ve been faced with since I wrote that book was simply being too busy to keep on top of my follow up. Bad, bad, bad. When I do take the time to follow up on quickly cooling off leads, I do notice a difference.

Let’s look at a scenario.

You sign on a new retainer client and everything is going great. Full steam ahead. After a couple of months, something comes up in the clients’ life that causes them to either dramatically reduce their hours, or cut off the retainer all together. Total bummer.

It’s easy to forget about these people when you’ve moved on and taken on another client in their place.

But what happens if you take a couple of minutes to follow up with that person?

Just write a brief email:

Dear Old Client,

I hope everything is going well with you. I have some hours available next week, and thought I would offer them to you, if there’s something I could be helping you with.

I sincerely enjoyed working on your projects, and I’d like to let you know I’m here if there’s ever anything I could help with, even on an hourly basis.

Regards,

Your name.

It’s not hard. And it’s effective. Sometimes people are constantly putting something off, and all it takes is a simple prompt to put them into outsource mode.

Try it!

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