After you have garnered the names and contact information, it is important to commit to follow through with your prospects and clients. You need to call, email, or write a card to the prospects to remind your contacts of who you are and how you can be of service to them in resolving their problem.

Best Follow Through with Your Prospects and Clients

1. Contact prospective clients within a few days of having spoken to them. Otherwise, they may soon forget about you and your services. Remember that when they spoke with you about their need for a service or product, they were not interested in you or your company. They were interested in resolving their need by purchasing a service or product. Assure them they will get what they need from you. Make sure they sign up with you and not with the person who vigilantly stays in contact with them.

2. Repeat your offering to them. What exactly is your product or service? How will it help them to meet their need? Your prospects have probably spoken to other service providers. Make sure they understand your offerings and don’t mix them up with someone else’s. You don’t want them to reject you because they are confused and believe it is you and not your competitor who is offering a product they don’t want.

3. Make a case for some speed in their selection process. Is there a sale, an early registration discount, a limited-time, special price bundling, or a gift offer? Also, remind them of the cost of not buying your service or product. Sometimes the cost is a memoir that never gets written.

4. Point out your value over the competition’s. This is an opportunity to place yours as the product of choice and the competition’s as merely a second best. This can be done by pointing out your long run of providing services, stories about satisfied customers, and your writing experience (include accolades you have received, if any).

5. Offer an alternative product within your line. Speak about the possibilities of either product and let the buyer voice his or her needs. Counsel the client then about the better of the two choices for him/her. This will give the buyer a sense that s/he has a choice. It has been shown that when a buyer has a choice—a small choice—the customer feels more confident in making a purchase.

6. Ask for the sale. A subtle way of asking is to say “What would you like the next step to be?” The prospective client often realizes the rightness of a purchase. Incredibly clients may not realize that you are ready to work with them. The “‘I’ll think about it” option is a guarantee of a lost sale.

Do you follow through with your prospects and clients? What has worked for you? Share your thoughts in the comments below!