Ahmed, a fox who owned a small import business, searched the Web for accounting software and came up with our company’s name. He e-mailed me for information and I replied back. The drip marketing began! Over the next six months or so, Ahmed and I exchanged e-mails and phone calls. He also received a few mailings too and we added him to our newsletter list. The problem was Ahmed wasn’t sure what he needed. There are many accounting programs available today, all at different price points and with unique features. The good news for us was that we sold four of them. So as we worked with Ahmed, we figured out what his true problems were. If we were only a one- product company, our choices would have been limited, and he may have slipped away.

Your prospective foxes are busy creatures. It’s hard to pin them down. But when you finally do, you need to be ready with quick answers to their problems. When you figure out what ails your fox, it’s best to have a remedy for them ready to go. Ahmed became our client because we gained his trust through our consistent messaging and seemingly tireless efforts. But no matter how much he liked us, if we didn’t have the goods to sell him then we would be out of luck. So maintain a good list of products. Try to have a product or service that meets different price points. Always be ready to offer an alternative solution to the indecisive fox.

Remember how Julie was constantly hearing from us over a five-year period of time? Well, she wasn’t the only one. Of the thousands of small companies in our database, many were getting the same treatment. We used contact management and CRM software (the same programs we sell) in-house to help automate all of these follow-ups; otherwise, we would never be able to nudge so many prospects so frequently.

Such software is extremely affordable (less than $500 per user). There are many contact relationship management applications on the market today that can automatically handle this type of behind-the-scenes work while you’re asleep.
Small business marketing is volume marketing, designed for volume sales. You won’t be able to keep track of all of it manually. If you’re not using a good contact manager/customer relationship management application to track and automate your marketing, then you should. There are many excellent applications out there, so do your research.