I’m up in Manchester as I write this attending a franchise show to promote our VISION magazine opportunity.
The past month has seen us welcome two franchisees with more enquiries steadily coming in.
One of the things that I like best about attending these shows is that it gives me a chance to get personal with people.
What better way to showcase the benefits of a business than to meet people face to face.
I think this is the most important thing we can do in a world where we are increasingly becoming slaves to emails, texts and messaging apps.
We seem to be doing pretty much anything which avoids us using the most powerful tool many businesses have at their disposal.
The good old fashioned, worth its weight in gold, telephone.
Yep. That’s right folks. Calling someone to have a chat about their requirements is becoming a lost art.
I donned by white coat and dusted off my Bunsen burner recently to carry out an experiment.
I called people over the past month who enquired about advertising versus emailing them a reply – I converted 100 per cent of them.
This is opposed to the 60 per cent who took out a campaign following an email conversation.
A friend of mine did the same thing recently – choosing to call people up rather than email them.
His success rate was similar to mine. And when he took that contact a step further by offering to visit them at their homes the average spend went up by 50 per cent.
Emails and texts are useful but limited to what you can say, how you can say it, and most importantly how you can get across your enthusiasm and expertise about what you do.
We’re way too reliant on non personal forms of communication. And in danger of a generation of people coming through who have very poor or limited face to face or over the phone skills.
When was the last time you picked up the phone to simply say hello to a client?
I’m hoping to be saying hi to dozens of potential VISION franchisees over the next couple of days.
And you know what? Even if they don’t join us I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy 99 per cent of the conversations I’ve had. It’s good to talk.
Thanks for reading.
Nik
0 Comments