Sales professionals — tired of following up? Read this!
I am not a sales or business development professional by trade. However, I am passionate about networking with sharp people in business and I think that long-term relationships are the most valuable relationships for anyone, whether they be personal friendships or business relationships that develop over time.
Somehow, after attending a webinar on a related topic, I found myself on an e-mail list from Wendy Weiss, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Cold Calling” who dispenses her advice at http://www.queenofcoldcalling.com
Anyhow, I received an email from her today (advertising a webinar) that contained some statistics that I thought were intriguing. I think there is a lot of truth to be revealed in these statistics about networking and relationships in general. See what you think:
• 48% of sales people never follow up with their prospects.
• 25% of sales people make a second contact with their prospect and then they stop.
• 12% of sales people make three contacts with their prospect and then they stop.
• Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts with their prospects.
• 2% of sales are made on the first contact with a prospect.
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact with a prospect.
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact with a prospect.
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact with a prospect.
• 80% of sales are made between the fifth and twelfth contact with a prospect.
Source: E-mail distributed by Wendy Weiss, http://www.queenofcoldcalling.com, on February 1, 2010.
Having been in a “buying” role inside of a business (a buyer of insurance services, banking services, consulting services, employee benefits, payroll providers, etc.) I have to agree with these statistics, particularly the second set of information above.
I recall one salesperson in particular who probably emailed me once every 3-4 weeks for almost 2 years before I bought from him. His contact with me was very professional and appropriate. He would email me from time to time when he encountered an article related to my business that I would find of interest. In this way, he stayed in contact with me without being a “pest”, and also without making me feel pressured to buy from him. But, sure enough, when I wanted to make a change in our commercial insurance brokerage, I picked up the phone and gave him a call.
I hope the above items are substantial food for thought for all of you out there working on building relationships, whether it be in a sales capacity, job seeking capacity, or other business or personal venture.
Why isn’t faxing dead yet?
My original title for this post was “Is faxing dead?” But upon typing out those words, the answer was obvious: yes and no, and so I changed the title to “Why isn’t faxing dead yet?”. If the ancient 20-something-year-old art of placing a paper in a machine that will send the image across phone lines to a fax machine or server elsewhere in the world was entirely dead, then people would disconnect all fax machines, stop purchase fax software, and most importantly they would stop placing the numbers on their business cards. But those things haven’t happened across the board as of yet (in fact, the idea for this post came to me as I was entering an attorney’s contact info off of her business card, fax number included, into my computer the other day). Nonetheless, many DID turn their back on fax machines long ago and so as far as they’re concerned the answer is “yes”. But for the reasons I will detail momentarily, one cannot claim the total death of faxing quite yet.
THE OBVIOUS ALTERNATIVE TO FAXING
With Internet access and Internet use now more ubiquitous than a nearby fax machine, one would think the simple act of scanning and emailing a document would have replaced faxing years ago. The idea of emailing a scanned image, and more importantly the idea of receiving a scanned image attached to your email (as opposed to pages falling off of a fax machine in the next room) is extremely attractive. The electronic, scan/email approach is so much easier (in my opinion) that at one point when I worked at an office without a scanner but that had a fax machine down the hall, I would fax a document to my e-fax number on my computer, walk back to my computer and then forward the email I received from that fax machine on to the intended recipient via e-mail. I did both myself AND the eventual recipient of my fax a big favor by keeping our correspondence digital by converting the hardcopy document into digital format. This would allow us both to access and view the document then and in the future from anywhere and at any time.
REASONS WHY FAXING ISN’T DEAD
All this having been said, why is it then that fax numbers still exist, and fax transmissions continue? I would propose that the jump has not yet happened for 3 reasons:
Reason #1: Scanner manufacturers (i.e. Brother, Canon, HP, etc.) and computer manufacturers (Dell, HP, Apple, etc.) have not done a good enough job of simplifying the act of sending an image to someone else, thus making it as easy for everyone to throw out the fax machine for good.
Despite my obvious preference for scanning as described above, even I must admit that sitting down at a computer, finding the scanning software, and making it all happen together with the device at hand is not as easy as it should be, with different processes, software, and things to consider. Less-comfortable computer users will often find it easier and quicker to use a dedicated device – a fax machine – to send several pages of images.
Even if the Windows and Apple operating systems got their act together, you still have the issue of the scanning device itself. Until the recent popping up of The Neat Company kiosks in airports all over the country, I haven’t seen one vendor get the device small enough, simple enough, and integrated with scanning/filing software well enough to really push scanning into the mainstream. Again, The Neat Company has done a pretty good job with this, although my impression is that their filing system is still proprietary, but their flagship desktop scanning device and system is listed at $399 on the first page of their website — a price too step for most people to consider a dedicated device. Instead most people will stick with a Brother multi-function device or similar (great machines, by the way) and that would be fine, except many of them will never figure out the scanning technology and system well enough to use it smoothly and productively.
Reason #2: Services rose up to fill in the fax -> technology gap, thus prolonging the total death of faxing technology. Efax.com, a leading online fax service provider, gives people free fax numbers and lets them receive a limited number of faxed pages per month at no cost (I use this service, in fact, as some people still want to fax me documents from time to time). For a monthly fee, Efax.com provides outbound faxing, a local phone number of your choice, etc. etc. Within corporations, IT departments have long been acquainted with fax server software made by companies such as GFI which allows for the routing of incoming faxes straight into employee e-mail boxes.
These services have kept people tolerant of the old fax-to-a-phone number approach, largely because people often send and/or receive faxes through these systems without ever touching a fax machine. The tragedy here is that money is spent on fax server software and phone lines are tied up in the transmission and receiving of faxes with this technology. Despite the obvious benefits to these services, over the long haul they will become unnecessary.
Reason #3: The move from transmitting hardcopy documents over the phone lines via faxing to the outright irrelevance of paper documents in many of our homes and companies has created something of a “leap frog” affect. Ironically, I believe one reason few companies have ever gotten serious about giving the average personal/home user an easy, consistent, and inexpensive way to scan, email, and organize paper documents on their computer is that very few things even come to us in hard copy form any more. Bank statements, newsletters, daily news, and correspondence all come to us and are available for later retrieval by us in a web browser. As a result, there almost wasn’t enough time and profit incentive for hardware and software companies to kick out fax machines for good by creating an inexpensive, easy-to-use device that could be successfully sold and marketed to millions.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this is what I believe: faxing will “die” once and for all when desktop scanners become cheap, small, and easy to use– AND when paper document flow slows to such a crawl that an email address will be more than sufficient on a business card for all professionals — even attorneys.
Picking up tree leaves BY HAND: A study in excellence
I have taken a hiatus from blogging for the last couple of weeks or so, partly because my wife and I took a week of vacation. It was our first big trip in quite a while, and so we chose to go to the country of Belize.
Needless to say, it’s a beautiful country — it pretty much stays between 75 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit at all times year round. We were “wowed” by not only the beautiful beaches and fascinating nearby jungle, but also by the tremendous hospitality and attitude of service of the local Belizean people.
There were many manifestations of this throughout our trip, but one sight in particular blew me away.
The resort we were staying at had fabulously well maintained grounds, and every morning as we walked to breakfast, we would see workers trimming the roses, sweeping the walkways, or working on the lawn. Usually the lawn work included the raking up of a few leaves that may have fallen over the past 24 hours or so. One morning, however, we saw a worker picking up a few leaves by hand over a decent-sized patch of grass. That really struck me as an incredible commitment to excellence. The leaves were not extensive and were largely buried down among the medium-length grass, and so the worker was pulling leaves out of the lawn without the aid of a rake, as we had seen workers use on other mornings.
It is true that a person’s choice of tools to solve a particular work or business problem does not necessarily determine that person’s level of commitment to excellent work, BUT it is true that a person’s work ethic and character are truly revealed when the tools and resources they might prefer are not at their disposal or are not easily utilized.
The worker we saw could have easily passed over the area, as the leaves were not visible from even just a few feet away. But he had a job to do and he was determined to do it, with no pride keeping him from pulling the leaves up out of the grass from his knees. There is a lot to be said for the internal drive demonstrated by that small act.
Keep an eye out for excellent performers around you– and model your approach after them.
Mandatory sick days for swine flu?? Really??
As cool of an idea as mandatory sick days for flu patients sounds, is it really such a good idea?
In a Portfolio.com article by Brett Chase, this is explained in summary form: (I am quoting his article verbatim right here in italics below. The original article page can be found here.)
As employers scramble to figure out how they’ll cover the loss of employees to swine flu, a Washington lawmaker wants to guarantee workers have enough sick time.
Representative George Miller, a California Democrat, says employers who send their workers home need to pay those people up to five days of sick leave. People who live paycheck to paycheck, can’t afford to be off work without pay, he says. Miller, who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, says he’ll hold a hearing on his bill Nov. 16.
Miller’s proposal sounds reasonable. Most big employers provide sick leave and no one wants to infect the entire workplace, right? The Centers for Disease Control says a sick employee will infect one in 10 fellow workers, the New York Times reports.
But the Times cites another interesting figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Almost 40 percent of private-sector workers have no paid sick days. Among the bottom quartile of wage earners: 63 percent do not get paid sick leave.
That’s a lot of people with an incentive to go to work sick.
Here’s my question — when he says that “the Times cites another interesting figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Almost 40 percent of private-sector workers have no paid sick days. Among the bottom quartile of wage earners: 63 percent do not get paid sick leave.”, does this statistic take into account the companies that have blended sick days and vacation days into personal days, or in some places better known as “paid time off” or PTO? The trend to combine these two types of time off into PTO is well-known and has been going on for years now. And typically, if a company offers any time off whatsoever, even if just referred to as “vacation” days, they typically will allow use of that for sickness.
So, putting in legislation that creates a temporary requirement related to swine flu is a bit dangerous. It makes a lot of assumptions about the 40% statistic mentioned in the article. And even if the statistics are completely accurate and not at all misleading, what does that mean for the 60% of workers who already receive sick days? Do they get 5 more? It is very difficult for companies to control and predict costs when legislation can pop up and suddenly add a new requirement on them based on any given “problem of the year”. Much has been said about the lack of “time-off” laws in the U.S. unlike other countries such as France. I would support some type of national requirement, but a very minimal one (such as 5 business days a year after 1 year of continuous employment) and not dicing up a minimum number of sick days, a minimum number of vacation days, etc. The problem of course with beginning to regulate time off is that it could become a slippery slope towards more unpredictable legislation.
If the couple in the photo shown at the top feels like they can kiss through a mask and not spread their illness, and if that belief is fairly representative of the population, then maybe we should simply create legislation mandating that those who show signs of illness wear blue surgical masks at their workplace all day 
Mom-n-Pops alive and well in my city… But why?
Austin, TX is known for a lot of things– the self-proclaimed live music capital of the world, a fairly progressive social and political agenda, and an eclectic culture thanks to the concentration of artists and the tens of thousands of University of Texas undergraduate and graduate students that make their way–and home–here for most of the year.
I have also come to discover, since my move here less than 2 months ago, that the city contains what I believe is an unusually high number of mom-n-pop stores, most of them focused on very narrow, niche products and services.
Here are just a few of them near my house – I jotted the names of these down as I went out to run an errand the other day – these are literally all located within about a 2 mile radius of my home.
The Light Bulb Shop
Another light bulb shop (didn’t get the name down, but only 0.5 mile away from its competitor)
The Vacuum Shop
The Front Door Company
Tonecraft Amp Repair
Austin HappyMac
Find-N-Grind Skate Shop
Austin Books & Comics
AAA Medical Oxygen Supply
Great Hall Games – an awesome store devoted to board games!!
Austin Nuts (nuts and candy shop)
Scooter Revolution
Light shop (can’t remember the name)
Ceiling fan shop (can’t remember the name)
Fancy Plants (silk plant store)
Dozens of hamburger joints around since the 50′s
A dozen or so used book stores
Here’s my question: why do these, and countless others very close to me, continue to exist (and do very well in most cases!) when in most cities such small, niche shops have long ago fallen prey to larger retailers?
Despite a lifelong interest in how cities develop, grow, and change, I don’t necessarily have complete answers to this question and so I would love to hear some comments with suggestions. Why they do they thrive here in Austin while in other urban centers (particularly in the South where I have spent my life), these types of shops closed decades ago?
Most of us understand that in a free-market economy, producers will produce a good or service when they can sell them at a reasonable profit margin. Granted, that is a very simplified explanation, but it works for this illustration. In most cities small business owners lost out to giant malls in the suburbs from the 1950′s to the present, who sold items for lower cost and in many cases presented shoppers with a greater variety of goods. The “mom-n-pop” owners could no longer justify keeping their doors open, with little or no profits, and in many cases finally closing shop after months or years of losses.
One has to assume the mom-n-pops that remain in Austin only do so because they make sufficient profit to allow them to continue to operate and give their owners motivation to keep the store open. Maybe this is due to the unique products that many of them provide, not found at major stores (i.e. specialty front doors, amplifier repairs, etc. per my examples above). Obviously, there still has to be sufficient demand for scooters or silk plants for even a local store to focus on selling those things. If the demand grew too strong or the products became something desired nationwide, such mom-n-pops (unless they could transform themselves to a chain of stores of growing significance) would likely lose out to a company or individual with deep pockets who will inevitably grow a nationwide presence to meet the new national demand.
So, my point is this: local, niche stores can generally only exist successfully when the demand they supply is of a local, unique nature– or when protected by other geographic or legal barriers. For example, the unique population in Austin drives much of the demand met by these niche stores. An amp repair store is most likely to thrive in a city with many musicians. Likewise, a shop focused completely on light bulbs will do better in a city where utility rates are higher and there is high value attached to energy conservation (such as here). In addition, Austin is a fairly progressive city and within the city limits you often find citizens who fight to keep big box stores out of the city center. As a result even shoppers who might be happy to drive over to a Wal-Mart to buy a vacuum bag will likely find themselves going to a specialty vacuum shop if going to the Wal-Mart means a 20 minute drive as a result of the legal blocking of an in-city store.
The mom-n-pop store is not necessarily gone for good, or just restricted to cities such as Austin. Times change, and the once-dominant suburban indoor shopping mall is now struggling as infill developments inside MOST cities move retail activity back into the city, and as the open-air shopping concept picks up steam in the suburbs and in the city. In fact, I read one source recently that claimed not one new indoor traditional shopping mall has been constructed in the U.S. since 2006. With these changes, individual shop owners have an opportunity yet again to get in front of the eyes of valuable potential customers, by developing a niche offering that matches local demand and preferences. Don’t try and beat the big retailers at their game– play your own game. THAT is what you can learn from Austin’s retailers.
Conflicting headlines in my email
I opened my email this morning to find two emails with very different subject lines/headlines….
The first email was from the Austin Business Journal: “Banks lose billions in 2nd quarter”.
Now, not only do I receive daily emails from a wide range of news sources, I also am inundated with a steady stream of emails from various job, career, and recruiting websites, as the start-up business I’m involved in competes with them in a variety of indirect ways.
And so one of those sites, SimplyHired.com, sent me an email saying “The End of the Recession is Upon Us”.
Funny how different each of those headlines read.. and the truth is, they are both intended to evoke the same response: Open the email! Besides, I don’t deny the truth in each of the statements–but they are just a bit ironic.
Target & iTunes
According to an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, Minneapolis-based Target is partnering with iTunes to promote music on iTunes.
I think this is a fairly interesting development, as Target begins to leverage its brand outside of the brick-and-mortar space. Sure, target.com has been a favorite destination for women (and men!) for years now — and yet, it’s not yet often that you see a traditional retailer join forces online with another online company to encourage purchases that otherwise COULD have come through them (via physical cd’s through their website or in their stores).
This clearly demonstrates Target’s commitment to change with the times, and acknowledges the fact that cd sales are quickly dropping away. It is widely known, in fact, that Apple surpassed Wal-Mart in 2008 as the largest music retailer in the United States.
It is astounding to me, however, that Target is to my knowledge the first major retailer to take the obvious step to partner with the leader in online music sales. A trip to the music section of Best Buy’s website promotes the revamped Napster heavily– and who can blame them, when they paid $121 million to buy Napster last year? Of course, they do sell iTunes gift cards online, although this is virtually pointless except when buying them for a gift — who wants to pull out our credit card, buy an iTunes gift card at BestBuy.com, wait for it to come in the mail, then go to the iTunes store and wip out the gift card and enter the card number?
Barnes & Noble has recently gotten wise on the rise of e-books and jumped on the bandwagon by launching their own e-book store at the same time they launched a Blackberry and iPhone reader app — as well as indicating they will be selling a reader device very soon. This, of course, in response to Amazon’s Kindle device and in realization of the virtual disappearance of physical books, for the most part, coming upon us in the very near future.
Target is wise to take a similar strategy with music — they are getting a piece of the online music action before it can take a bigger piece out of their sales.
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