Seattle Business Networking Blog

The Sales & Marketing Minute sponsored by the Associate Group

How long does it take for a hot lead to get cold?

In a recent study, at the Kellogg School of Management over a million telephone cold calling actions from 50 companies were examined. What they found!!!! Leads get cold in one hour.

So if your goal is to increase sales and hot leads turn into cold leads in a heartbeat,

What are the top 5 things you can do?

1. Make sure voice mail is checked every hour.
   
2. If possible, make sure email is also checked every hour.
   
3. Have a system to process new contacts by making sure someone in your company takes ownership for each new lead.
   
4. Be committed to follow-up. It’s true, 50% of all leads are left untouched
   
5. And the big one. Don’t ever give up.
   

80% of all sales are made between the eighth and twelfth contacts.

So think about it. When you want information, how fast do you want it?
Right now. Right? So evaluate YOUR responsiveness. If you’re too busy, delegate. Figure something out to make sure that your prospects are handled in less than an hour.

Charmel Bowden
Business Development
Turk's Head
Design ? Photography ? Marketing
13545 Erickson Pl. NE ? Seattle, WA 98125
tel. 206.782.4164 ext. 112
www.turkshead.com

This was the video used by Dan Dolson for his speech at today's meeting.

http://www.sdiving.com/

The Five Most Important Elements to Selling Real Estate

Hitting the correct list price
Scarcity of homes for sale when you list your home
Staging of the property, think “Pottery Barn”
Maximizing Street Appeal
Get great presence on-line with professional pictures and good verbiage

In addition to that, professional brochures, postcards, and marketing pieces all help. Flyers on the sign make it easy for potential buyers to get additional information. Brokers open and office tours help bring agent showings up. Looking your best when you hit the market is the secret tool that sets our listings apart from the others.

Liz Talley
Windermere Real Estate Northwest, Inc
Email Liz Talley
206-235-6271

Starting from the next meeting, photos will be taken by Bruce Johnson of ROWLAND STUDIO. He is the official portrait photographer of the association.

Here is the member profile for Bruce Johnson of ROWLAND STUDIO.

Thank you, Bruce, for your contribution.

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You can search all the members of Seattle Executives Association from its web site at http://www.seattleexecs.org/business.htm.

Ken Uchikura of Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. addressed the membership as incoming president at yesterday’s meeting. If you missed the meeting his message had some tough-guy kick, as well as humor . . . Don’t Quit . . . Come to Meetings . . .Bring Guests!

In all seriousness, though, Ken stated, “I want to make sure that when I complete this presidency and hand over the association to the next president it will be a little better organization than when I started. This will be very difficult, though, because the association is very sound and well established.”

Welcome, Ken!

Mark Sparks, Associate Group President for 2010
"Building on the basics to generate business in 2010"

We want the Associates Group to stand out as the sales and business generating arm of Seattle Executives. To that end, we are going to become more involved with the main body of Execs. To do this, we are holding our once a month meeting as usual, but ask each Associate to attend at least one Wednesday luncheon meeting a month. This is our opportunity to network with the main members, see who they are and learn what sort of leads they need. And also let them know what sort of leads we need.

Associates Group Vice President, Susan Traub of Bonney Watson, is devising a system to monitor our lead generation plus she has additional ideas to help us generate more leads through a partnering system we’ll begin next month.

As far as new directions - we have a few. We will rotate the monthly Associate meetings to various members’ businesses. Throughout the year, each Associate member will be assigned a meeting to give their classification talk and end it with their 2 minute business stimulus list of people to be introduced to.

Another new direction is designed specifically to keep our names (Associate members) in front of the main members, so that we can generate interest and increase membership in the Associates Group. This is called ‘The Marketing Minute, Brought to You by the Associates Group’. An idea brought to us by Charmel Bowden of Turks Head. This minute will become a regular part of the Wednesday luncheons and feature a marketing or sales suggestion for the entire group. All Associate members will be taking turns in presenting these minutes, so we all get a little more exposure in the general membership. The words ‘witty and memorable’ will be the guide lines.

We have an extraordinary group of people in our Associates Group who are capable of great things with their enthusiasm and team attitude. Be sure to watch what happens as they work together to build business for each other.

Thanks! Here’s to a great year!