marketing+sales: Remissed Connections

In an ever-expanding digital business landscape, many working professionals are exchanging established means of follow-up, such as phone calls and face-to-face meetings, for quick messages over social media or email, and it is impacting their business relationships and bottom-lines. They sacrifice professional courtesy in an attempt to appear casual, and regardless of the many ways we can now communicate, when it comes to follow-up, the best practices are the traditional practices.

Use social media to build business connections, not to 
maintain them

Have you encountered a friend or relative who limits all contact with you to digital convenience? That one person who never fails to have a comment reserved for your timeline or feed, but you cannot recall the last time you actually spoke?

These individuals also exist in the business realm, and they've attempted to streamline their communication with an overkill-level reliance on their social-media accounts. It's not just a bad business practice-it's bad overall form. Social media can prove invaluable when creating connections, but maintaining them-as is the objective when conducting follow-up on a potential deal-should always be reserved for traditional modes of correspondence. Anything less borders on lazy and unprofessional.

Avoid the 'are we there yet?'

Once you've curbed your inclination for social media-centric follow-up, there are parameters that should be adhered to when following up with leads. The first, and most important, is to establish an agenda when touching base with your prospects, and ensuring that each subsequent call or meeting occurs under the umbrella of providing new information.

There should be a concrete reason for picking up the phone, and a distinct benefit to the individual on the other end of it.

Any parent can describe road-trip trials and tribulations, and many of them will describe the maddening, constant cries of "are we there yet?" from the backseat. That same irritated feeling occurs with continuous follow-up calls. There is a distinct difference between being attentive and being annoying-learn it, because your potential client is already well-aware.