Follow-up Phone Calls

Posted on January 10th, 2008, by Meggin McIntosh

Question:

Okay, I’m organizing my planner months in advance in order to carry out all the necessary things I need to do so I can accomplish my goals. Follow up calls to principals that I sent tips booklet letters and order forms to is a task that needs to be accomplished. I want to spend time every day doing this. As I was writing down this task in my planner I started thinking that maybe this would be a good time to start delegating more.

Delegating is a “secondary” goal that I’m keeping in the back of my mind. I think I remember you making a comment that you have Lisa do follow up calls for you. For this type of task, would it be best if I made the calls or should I find a virtual assistant to do this for me? I can see advantages of doing it either way.

Can you give me some examples of what type of language I should use when I make these calls? We’ve talked about this before but can you refresh my memory? What are some “phrases” I can practice before I make the calls?

Posted by Billy Simms (to the Help Desk and excerpted for the blog) | 1/10/08

Answer:

Good for you!!! For right now, I think if you can make the calls, that would be great…and then when you can find someone who is excellent and you can train that person to do the follow up calls…then start to have him/her do some, too. It’s got to be someone who has excellent communication skills and “gets” what it is that you do, too.

Try just making a few calls each day and see how that goes.

Here are some suggestions on the phrasing & language: “Hi, this is Billy Simms and I was just calling to check to make sure you had received the booklet on bullying that I sent last week. It’s called _____________ and would have come in a regular business sized envelope. I wanted you to have this with my compliments and I know how the holiday mail goes sometimes…so I just wanted to make sure you’d gotten it.”

Then, depending on the response, go from there. If no, you could ask, “would you like me to send you another one?”–but only if you see bullying as an issue at your school, that is. Or, “would you like me to fax over a couple of the pages so you can see the kinds of tips I offer…they are great for teachers and other people in your school who are helping to address any bullying problems that might crop up.” If yes, then you can ask if s/he has had time to read it and then let him/her know that you have quantity discounts if they’d like to order enough for their teachers and that you do workshops on these topics, etc. Find out if s/he has any questions, etc…. Keep it short unless the person keeps it going. It’s key to get past the secretary if you can.

Meggin’s note: Billy came up with the idea to offer to send the e-version of his booklet and this has made a huge difference in getting through to the principals. Hooray! Having digital versions of your writing is so wonderful because it doesn’t “cost” you anything to send it. I’ve got lots of my digital items listed on one of my new websites www.FromtheDeskofMegginMcIntosh.com. And, BTW (by the way), I’d encourage you to get a domain name that is something like this….but with your name of course.