Don't Hesitate to Pick Up the Phone and Talk to Prospects!

E-mail has many communication advantages. You can send one off whether or not the person at the other end is ready to receive it. You can send it at any time of the day or night. Plus, you have a written record of what you sent and how the recipient responded.

But it has it limitations, especially when it comes to marketing.

I was reminded of this the other day. I received an e-mail from a prospect asking, "What do you charge for doing a presentation at a law firm?" The simple thing to do would have been to respond with a specific price. But I resisted, knowing that without connecting with my prospect and finding out what her firm's objectives and needs were, she was likely to cross me off the list as too expensive.

So instead, I picked up the phone and after several rounds of phone tag (the drawback of using the telephone), I reached the prospect. By the end of our 45-minute conversation, I understood the firm's needs much better and was able to develop a customized solution to the problem, and the prospect and I had developed a program that was more lucrative for me than would have been the case had I just zipped off a response to the initial e-mail.

In the last few weeks, two of my clients have had similarly good results from picking up the phone and actually engaging their prospective clients in a conversation. Here are their stories:

In one instance, my client had been invited to participate in an RFP by e-mail. Rather than responding to the e-mailed RFP in like fashion, I urged her to pick up the phone and ask the questions from my article "Do You Respond to RFPs Without All the Information You Need?" [http://clientfocus.net/ezines/120-rfps.htm]. She learned several important things in the process: who her competition was (which allowed her to focus on her distinguishing strengths -- in this case, cost advantage; and the likely concerns that the client might have -- in this case, not a deep enough bench). She was able to focus her response on these key issues. Without picking up the phone and having a conversation, important parts of her RFP submission would have been omitted.

In another situation, my client discovered that a former client had been sued in a local court in an employment matter. My client's initial inclination was to dash off an e-mail to her client highlighting her firm's extensive employment expertise. But when, at my urging, she picked up the phone and connected with her client, she learned that what her former client was really concerned about was what could she expect from the local judge, as well as the reputation of the plaintiff's counsel. My client got hired for the matter because she was able to provide guidance on her client's concerns -- something she wouldn't have focused on if she had not spoken to her over the phone.

In both of these cases, engaging the prospective client in conversation paid off with great benefits in terms of fashioning a winning marketing message. Remember these stories the next time you are tempted to e-mail rather than phone.

Picking up the phone instead of hitting the "reply" button may yield substantial rewards!