My wife, realtor Rona Fischman, was listening to a webinar when her phone began to ring. She didn’t recognize the number, but it might have been another realtor calling about a transaction in progress. She decided to answer.
“Hello, this is [fill-in-the-blank] Media calling about your website.”
Not the reaction you want.
Rona groaned. This company had been leaving messages on her voicemail for days. “I’m listening to a webinar right now. If my website is on fire, tell me so. Otherwise, call me back after the webinar.”
“Do you know that half the links on your home page are broken and that people who click on them will see 404 errors?”
“No, I didn’t know that. After the webinar, I will check on it.”
In fact, Rona checked her website–on Chrome, IE, and Firefox, just to make sure–and there were no broken links. Later, she received an email from the company that had called her. They apologized for “startling” her and listed several other “problems” with her website. Some of them did not exist. Others are not problems for Rona because her business model does not require a huge volume of clients.
In short, they lied to her and never took the time to find out what she really might need.
This is the internet age. Wouldn’t it be easy to spend a little time looking at Rona’s website and finding comments about her on Angie’s List, etc., and figure out where you could really add value to her communications?
Whether you are out to make a profit or looking to recruit support for your good cause, you owe it to yourself to treat the client with respect and personalize your message.
Have you ever encountered a sales pitch like the one Rona heard? How did you react when you heard or read it?