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SEPTEMBER 2008
Effective Follow Up
Last week, I was the guest speaker for two audiences comprised of business owners, CIOs, some executive level IT people, and participants I will call “asset owners”. At the heart of both my presentations was the concept of securing sensitive data. I took them through the trends of today’s cybercrime issues and showed them numerous companies that thought they were safe, but proved to be vulnerable. One of those companies was TJ Max. Everything looked great until last year when someone made a foolish purchase using stolen credit card numbers. Investigations later revealed that for three years, a team of organized crime hackers had been operating as employees with accounts and email addresses, siphoning away over 200 million credit card numbers. Had the purchasers of the data not blown the operation, the thieves might still be undetected today. When I told this story, I was subtly posing the question of their corporate safety. What I did not reveal was the measure of their risk. Instead, I pointed to the solution provider who brought me in; directing them to have a professional take a look before doing anything else. This kicked off the follow up program.
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Your Demand Generation Program
Okay, so you are doing demand generation programs. That’s good. With all of the laws and bad press on spam and unsolicited calling programs, you need people coming to you; new people that represent new selling opportunities. However, are you getting measurable results?
Most events, as I said in last month’s letter on “Effective Demand Generation”, start out with executives in mind, but end up attracting technologists who have no spending authority. As a result, you are left with unqualified meetings which you probably could have accomplished without the expense and time spent on your event. Following last month’s guidelines, you should attract higher level attendees, or are already doing so. So what’s next? How does one turn this into measureable business? It is accomplished through effective follow up.
Follow up is not an after-thought
Stating, “We will follow up,” is not a follow up plan. Remember, follow up plans are preplanned activities. Everything from the initial email, to the calling and selling process, should be preplanned. In fact, the event itself should not be just an information communication, but rather part of the strategy; a sequence of events that starts with a marketing message designed to disrupt their subconscious thinking, grab their attention, and then shake them into action. This should be a formula that was implemented from the beginning. Now, hopefully you have everyone’s attention and have created a “knowledge gap” of some kind that must be satisfied. This is what good marketing will do. It leaves you hanging, which ultimately demands an answer to the dilemma. Your event ends with the solution that says we have the answer and can give it to you.
Satisfying the Knowledge Gap
Your follow up email and phone calls are now designed to simply set up a time to fill in the knowledge they wanted when they left the event. In order for this to happen, you must have raised a predictably needed issue, and ended by convincing the attendees that you have the answer. In this last event, by showing the audience how thieves are getting in undetected, we gave them the simple message that no one is safe and the average company would not be able to detect a professionally done breach. This justifies meeting with asset owners to help them measure how much risk they really have. But what is the meeting really for? The follow up meeting must deliver an opportunity to sell a program that ultimately satisfies the need that you raised in your event.
Making this Practical
So next time you plan an event – start with the desired results; perhaps selling some level of risk assessment. Then, plan your presentations around the follow up program, and finally have the next three or four steps already lined up before the speaker ever engages the audience. You should have the recipe for success! .
Please pass this on to anyone you know who is working to build a profitable solutions business today. Consider having David Stelzl speak at your next quarterly meeting or customer event. Create a value proposition that positions you as the expert and attracts new clients. Consider hiring a professional coach to accelerate the process.
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