137: Follow Up Sales Hell

<p>Time is of the essence.  Patience is a virtue.  Worthy aims but sometimes we mix these aspirations up in sales.  We are not moving quickly enough and miss the chance.  At other times , we are impatient and we force the issue when we should be more stoic and considered.  We lose on both counts whenever we confuse what we should actually be doing.</p> <p> </p> <p>Being too slow usually relates to making contact or following up, after making the initial contact.  We meet people at an event, receive a bunch of meishi business cards and then we get sidetracked by something else.  Usually a bright shiny object.  Days float by and when we realize we haven’t followed up with the people we met, the best timing window has been missed. </p> <p> </p> <p>There is an advantage in getting back to people we have had a preliminary conversation with fairly promptly, while the occasion is fresh in their mind.  As the days drift by, the ease of giving us the bum’s rush increases. They can choose to ignore our contact attempt, be it phone or email.  Or they are just genuinely busy, busy, busy and don’t get around to responding.   We don’t know which is the case, but we usually assume the former.</p> <p> </p> <p>Once upon a time, it was considered the height of rudeness to not return a phone call.  In the early days of email everyone would reply.  Not anymore.  In Japan, trying to get through on the phone to people is always difficult, because they are always away from their desk and in a meeting.  We are reduced to leaving a message. What does that look like at their end.  Maybe a nothing, as the person taking the call chooses to do nothing, despite their promises to let them know we called.  Maybe a scrap of paper is plunked down on their desk, scattered amongst a million other papers, soon to disappear from view and relevance. </p> <p> </p> <p>If the contact is by email, then the tsunami of daily messages pushes our little missive down the chronological chain and we get buried in that great archive called “the unread lower reach