Attending, speaking at and being an exhibitor at large conferences and business events are one of the primary ways that bring me consistent client and cash flow.
If you haven’t considered doing this in your business for your niche or target market then I can tell you that you’re missing out on thousands of dollars worth of sales.
If you are doing this as one of your current marketing strategies then that’s great but I’ll bet you’re not maximizing your exposure or time while you’re there to the fullest extent?
One of the biggest mistakes I see business owners make when they do attend, speak at or become an exhibitor at a large conference is that they don’t have an effective plan for immediate follow up.
I’d say that 1% of them do a decent job at their follow up but seriously NO business does enough – EVER!
So what do you do and how do you know what to send, to say, to follow up about or for?
Here are a few key things you can do to follow up from different situations even too:
What you want to do to prep before you even go:
- Prewrite your email follow up messages
- Preprint your follow up postcards or order letterhead, envelopes, business cards and more to be ready to go to print right away. Much of this though can be preprinted with call to action messages and a reminder of where you met them and what you can help them with.
- Have a system for delivering emails online to be careful not to spam people including having opt out messages.
What to take the time to do while you’re at the event which will save you time later:
- Write notes on the back of everyone’s cards and bring sticky notes to stick notes to the glossy cards you can’t write on (don’t buy those by the way!) – what you talked about, what call to action to take with them (add them to your ezine, or not, call, fax or email, etc.)
- Separate the contacts that have agreed to receive your email newsletters from those that have not because you need to send them different messages
What to do when you get back to make sure your follow up gets done:
- Give all your contacts to someone else to enter into the computer for you within 24 hours of being home – set this up ahead of time (this is the #1 thing that will prevent you from doing your follow up – guaranteed! Because you won’t take the time to enter them)
- Call all hot or warm prospects/contacts within 72 hours or 3 business days of returning home so that you’re name and connection is still fresh in their minds.
- Implement your follow up system – that could include weekly ezines, personal email follow ups, phone calls, direct mail, facebook friend adds, LinkedIn connection, tweets to that person and so much more…do more than you think you need to, trust me.
This is not as easy as it sounds which is why hardly any small businesses ever do effective follow up. It might be tough at first to know exactly what to do or what to say/send but just do something and get something out. Something is better than nothing and good enough is good enough, don’t wait until you get it perfect.
If you want to figure out how to set your business up the right way from the start whether you’ve already started, you’re just getting started or you simply have an idea you want to launch into a business… I invite you to apply for the opportunity to chat with me on a complimentary Strategy Session. You can do that online in a couple minutes or less at www.AskKat.biz.
© Copyright 2010 K. Sawa Marketing international Inc.
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Katrina Sawa is known as The JumpStart Your Biz Coach because she literally kicks her clients and their businesses into high gear. She works with highly motivated women entrepreneurs that want to maximize their business to make more money, enjoy more free time and fully embrace your happiest life ever. Katrina uses online and offline strategies to leverage your resources, contacts and your expertise; plus she kicks you in the butt to implement it all too! Katrina is an author, speaker and coach and she has been featured on the Oprah and Friends XMRadioNetwork and is a regular Business Expert on News 10 in Sacramento. Get her Free Entrepreneur’s Success Kit online at www.JumpStartYourMarketing.com!
