Have you ever wondered why you can't get a response back from a prospect, customer, or colleague? Perhaps its the way you communicate. Here's a quick story that explains my point.
I had a prospect a few months ago who wouldn't return my voice messages. For three weeks I kept consistent on the follow up, but no luck. After a few more attempts I threw in the towel and closed the opportunity in my Salesforce.com account. Several days later, I ran into a close friend of the prospect I had been courting. In our conversation, I reiterated that I had left several voice messages and still couldn't get a returned phone call (And for the record, my voice messages are creative, short, and to the point).
His friend mentioned that this particular prospect hated communicating on the phone. They'd rather prefer a text message since they already field twenty or thirty phone calls a day regarding the business operation. So with that said, I sent out a text message to his cell phone and within minutes I got a response back that confirmed meeting the following week. That was an important lesson to learn - - everyone's style of communication is different.
For example, I know an owner of a fast growing tech company who likes to communicate via Twitter. That's how you get ahold of this guy, sure email and the cell work, but you catch his attention best when you tweet. And most Baby Boomers revert to speaking on the phone, because that's what was been the norm for most of their business careers. I also have a few customers (HR Managers) that only prefer email and I make note of using this mode to get a response back.
So the next time you have trouble tracking down a client, prospect, or colleague, figure out how he or she like to communicate. I'm sure you'll improve your touch response.
