- Someone you know calls you on your cell phone at 8 o'clock at night and you are in the middle of dinner with your wife.
- You have 14 e-mail messages waiting to be returned.
- Your site's input form received 4 new leads.
- Your WhatsApp beeped while you were driving in traffic.
- Your co-worker copies you into an e-mail and in it says that you will be in touch.
- Four leads are waiting for a commercial proposal.
- 12 leads are waiting for an introduction email.
On average you have about 20 of these new situations a day. It can get up to 30 or 40.
Your golden rule:
Get back to everyone within a few minutes. Don't keep people waiting.
In sales you ask people for things, and people ask you for things.
The shorter your response time, the more sales you will make.
Let's save the arguments that you don't have time, that it's too much, that this, that.
When you deal with people all the time, there are only three rules regarding feedback:
1. choose very well and have very strict filters for selecting who you will let into your range.
2. Did you let the person in? Answer with care and speed. I'd rather you give feedback full of typos and sent from your iPhone in 5 minutes than an elaborate and perfect text in 3 days.
3. Use the fastest and most immediate means. Amazing how much time is wasted typing while you can pick up the phone and "kill" the issue in 15 seconds.
"Ahh but people don't like me calling." Their problem. You didn't come to this planet to please people and do what they like. You came to solve situations.
So fix it fast.
And in situations of potential conflict or even conflict, get out as quickly as possible. Staying in the war zone for too long will break you. If you have a problem, solve it fast.
Perfect never will be, and your in-box will always have issues to resolve, obviously. Now, the faster you process your issues the more money you will have in your bank balance.
In sales:
Bank balance = [Quality of issues] X [Amount of issues] / [processing time].
Well...
I'm going to save you some time because I want today to be your international day of giving immediate feedback and zeroing out your box of hang-ups with people.
Zeroing.
