General Consultant Discussion

Maybe it's just my meeting prep skills - but I love the customers who over the past week or so play 20 questions about all manner of proposed projects. Then they want to have a conference call (with no agenda) and start grilling you on proposals they received 6 months ago that they're thinking of accepting. Yes, if only the ""that proposal expired"" was an acceptable answer to them.... I just hate trying to talk pricing, scope, proposals, technical solutions -- all on one unscripted conference call.

One of the things I'm trying to do is start a new Basecamp project for each inquiry that involves more than a 2 second reply. I find a high percentage of my customers do eventually come back and want to continue the conversation about whatever project they were considering. There's NOTHING more annoying than picking up, putting down and picking up a project again when you don't have good notes about everything you've done.

100% agree. It's not something that I'm comfortable with. But - just like with most things in life - the more you do it, the easier it gets. I had a call the other day with a partner who put me on the spot to do a complex data conversion with the client on the line. They wanted pricing immediately. I try not to play the game because I always get in hot water. So I said I had to check with my team and get back to them with any unanswered questions before we could determine pricing. I did make sure to find out the sense of urgency, what other options they are looking at and what happens if they don't proceed. That will help me set pricing.

@WayneSchulz - Have you considered trying out Sage CRM Cloud? I think you can get a free subscription to it and it's a great way to track call notes, project notes, emails, documents, etc. You can access it from iPhone or Droid or any computer that is connected to the web - either 3G or WiFi or hard line.

The problem with CRM, is that, and maybe I'm lazy, but You really want to enter afair amount of info, but you get alot of tire kickers who aren't even worth the time to enter this crap

I'm using 37 Signals Highrise to track notes. And that works well. The main issue I have is around projects which now tend to be a lot of start and stop and needing to keep info in one common place for upgrades, report creation, etc. I also have found Basecamp to be a pretty cheap way to allow other people - including customers - to participate. Most customers won't participate beyond the initial login - but at least they have the option.

@MarkChinsky - Agreed. I keep leads in Outlook until the initial qualification call then I put them and my call notes into CRM if they move to the next stage. If they don't, I delete the email and never look back.

The key is all contacts should be added to your mailchimp push blog so they remember you when they get serious

+1 -- don't overlook the value of a good informational email newsletter. I'll even throw the tire kickers and knuckle draggers in there since my effort to reach them is about the same (nothing) --- although the email works so well that sometimes the low end folks wind up coming back when you don't want them to.

Is it legal to add people to your newsletter without permission? Doesn't that violate CAN-SPAM?

It's gray. Easiest bet is to simply asking them as you are coming to the conclusion there is no business short term to be done if you can add them to your weekly tips & tricks newsletter. Almost everyone will say yes when asked face to face (or voice to voice)