Why do you resist following up with your prospects? 

Ugh, we've all been there. You finally muster the courage to send the emails or the direct messages, or finally pop-in to an escrow or attorney office, and then...

Nothing. 

Zip.

Zilch. 

You wait for that phone to ring...

Even though you know it's probably going to take more than one touch point for a prospect to get to know, like, and trust you enough to hire your services.

And then... the shame cycle happens:

• I coulda...
• I shoulda...
• Even if you found the courage or discipline again to finally follow-up, six weeks has passed and now you're embarrased, so you don't. 
• Repeat

Sound familiar?

Relax...you're not alone.

Let's stop the shame cycle today. 

Run the Numbers

Most salespeople (that's you! Yep, you're a self-employed solopreneur wearing all the hats) don't follow-up. Me included. I have had to work hard to remind myself of it's importance. 

"The fortune is in the follow-up" is not a myth....

Even the most dedicated notary can't answer the phone every time it rings. At some point, a notary has to:

• Sleep.
• Take appointments.
• Spend quality time with loved ones.
• Take vacations.
• And otherwise enjoy your life and service your clients.

Answering the phone during your chosen business hours is, of course, critically important, but it's just not possible that you can answer every single call. 

That's okay! 

And...

If you can't answer the phone, it's imperative that you have a system in place that let's your customers and prospects know that you're a business that is still interested in serving their needs, even if you can't answer the phone at the time. How do you do that? 

3 Easy Systems For Being Responsive, Even When You Can't Answer the Call

I've written extensively about how to answer the phone promptly and professionally (read "Hello…1876 Called and Wants Its Phone Greeting Back here). 

But if you can't answer the phone, make...

Repeat Customer Success is Guaranteed When You S.M.I.L.E 

If they needed a notary once, they’ll need one again…and again…and again. 

And if they don’t, they’ll know someone who does. 

This exponentially increases the lifetime value of your customers. 

It works for any line of service you offer under the “notary umbrella” too. If they needed: fingerprinting/apostilles/field inspections/trust delivery/medical facility work, they’ll need it again or they’ll know someone who does. 

That means the person you notarize today might be the person you fingerprint next month. And next year, that person might inherit land in Italy from their grandparents and need international document authentication services like an apostille. Then they find the love of their life and decide to get married right there in your town, and need a wedding officiant. 

Maybe that’s an extreme example, but maybe it’s not....

How to Make Memorable Introductions Within Your Professional Network

As you elevate your network, the necessity for more effective introductions will rise in priority. High performers in any industry, including estate planning professionals, hospital administrators, university staff, or essentially anyone you may consider your ideal client as a credentialed professional, will protect their time more than anything. 

So tactics like telling your client referral, "Call Bob and tell him I sent you," or "Here's Bob's number, just give him a call," are ineffective at best, and damaging to your reputation and relationships at worst. 

If your goal is to help more people, which I am sure it is if you're reading this and in my orbit, then take a few extra minutes to refer the right away. And if you don't have time to do it right, wait until you do. A great introduction sets the new relationship upon a solid foundation that can get off to the right start faster & easier, and...

You can listen to this blog on YouTube here

Through 26 business failures, I tried my share of network marketing opportunities. 

Aside from Primerica and Legalshield, I wasn’t good at any of them. And even with those two, I was mediocre at best. I just happened to love the insurance products from those two companies, so they were easier to talk about.

And that ended up being a huge realization for me. 

I’d get so enrolled with the vision, falling in love with the potential of the opportunity (a total reflection of my dating life at the time too), and daydreaming about:

• Having freedom and flexibility to do what I want, when I want;
• Making unlimited income, easily;
• And finally being able to call myself a successful business owner. 

And then reality hit. 

The top three reasons I failed at network marketing:

1. I tried to sell stuff I didn’t really believe in, so I shied away from talking to anyone about them.
2. And, even if I loved the product, I...

You can listen to this blog on YouTube here

I almost didn’t graduate high school because of two subjects:  Keyboarding and algebra.

Keyboarding, by the way, was still done on a typewriter in 1996 Show Low, Arizona (somehow that was 26 years ago).

I wish I could say my failing grade was because I had some clairvoyant vision that computers were the wave of the future, and typing was obsolete, but that wasn’t it. I just didn’t go to class (and I still can’t type). That was the pitfall of being 18 years old for my senior year: I could sign myself out of school. 

And algebra…

Well let’s just say I disagreed with Mr. Butler’ insistence  that letters of the alphabet should be commingled with numbers to create a math problem (emphasis on problem).

Letters and I got along just fine in English class, geeking-out alone on paper, writing essays and book reports. But throw them in with mathematical equations, and suddenly they act like...

You can listen to this blog on YouTube here

A friend and I bought a liquor store we found listed on BizBuySell.com in the early 2,000’s. It was just a small mom-and-pop shop, or more accurately a pop-and-son thing, and the son had lost interest so pop was selling cheap. 

It was located in a pretty busy shopping center with a Home Depot as an anchor, so I was confident I could boost revenues and quickly grow to a second location. 

My strategy? 

Offer a compelling “lead magnet” and capture email addresses of my customers so I could communicate value on my terms. 

Tapping into my experience with another business I was in, we bought a badass poker table and set it up in the store as a display and ran a promotion to win it. 

The rules were simple:

• Register with your email address.
• Earn additional entries for every $10 you spend. 

The strategy was a hit, garnering over 1,200 email addresses of local imbibers of booze. 

Following a...

You can listen to this blog on YouTube here

We work so hard to fill our pipeline with appointments. Think about all the energy, money, and effort we put into:

• Cultivating referral relationships
• Building websites
• Having social media pages
• Adding more directory listings
• Signing up with hiring companies
• Creating a Google Business Profile
• Networking meetings and events
• Creating and distributing content
• Training (so we’re good at what we do)

All this work to get our phone to ring and ding, and then what? 

Most notaries finish an appointment and then just hop right back on the hamster wheel again and start all over, hustling for their next customer-another new customer. 

Now, there’s nothing wrong with new customers, don’t get me wrong. But they're expensive to acquire. The Harvard Business Review suggests that it is 5-25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to sell your services to an existing client. 

Your database of previous notary...