How to Get More Callbacks from Your Prospects

If you own or market a business, you have to sell to survive.

That often means chasing prospects, by email and voicemail, to schedule a sales call.

And how fun is that? Not very.

But what if you could reduce the number of contacts it took to schedule sales calls? You could sell to more prospects in less time. You could make more sales. Fun.

After seeing sales expert Jill Konrath speak on Monday and reading her book, SNAP Selling, I made a few changes to my follow-up emails that paid off quickly -- a sales call with a prospect I had been chasing for days.

The solution can be summed up in two words: Piquing curiosity.

Normally, I can do this pretty well. You've read this far, haven't you? You can thank the headline of this blog post for reeling you in -- "How to" is a curiosity "piquer-upper."

But, for some reason, I couldn't get one prospect to schedule a call with me, following his initial inquiry about my copywriting services.

So, after reviewing my notes of Konrath's talk and reading pages 96-97 of her book, I sent the following email to Mr. Hard-to-Reach Prospect:

Thanks again for your copywriting inquiry yesterday; did you get my voicemail?

My schedule is now full today, but if you have 20-30 minutes tomorrow, Wed., I can call you between 3:00 and 4:30 pm ET to discuss your needs.

Please reply to let me know the best time/number to call.

Be sure to ask about the 50% off makeover that would apply to your project before Dec. 31. Also, Sam Smith said something on your Linkedin profile that could be very helpful to you.

His email response came within the hour:

Wednesday @ 3:00 would be best.  I have a 1/2 hour window.

Paydirt!

Check out the last sentence of my email: "Also, Sam Smith said something on your Linkedin profile that could be very helpful to you." 

His curiosity was piqued. And he scheduled a call with me to find out what the heck I was talking about.

As Konrath suggests in her book:

After reviewing what you know about your targeted company and what's important to your prospective customer, determine what would pique their curiosity the most.

Try it and see. As David Ogilvy said, "You can't bore your customers into buying."

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here.