4 Critical Moments to Follow Up with (and Convert) Leads

If you’re like me reaching out to people for sales is the bane of your existence. Following up is just as difficult. However, outreach and follow up are crucial to all businesses. Martial arts schools are no exception. 

If you’re not familiar with the sales process you may not even know when to follow up with a potential student. Here’s a guide with the 4 Critical Moments for following up with a potential student.

Follow Up with a New Lead (ASAP)

In all of the following cases your goal is to get them through the door for a first class or a first lesson. To do that you MUST follow up when you get a new lead.

In the telemarketing industry there are hot leads, warm leads, and cold leads. A hot lead is someone who comes to you actively seeking information about your school. A warm lead is someone who has visited your school and interacted with you. A cold lead would be when you just pop open the phone book and start calling people. If you do not contact a lead immediately hot leads become warm and warm leads become cold.

You have to act immediately. People are most excited about your school when they they first sign up for more information. To keep them engaged after that you have to get that information to them as soon as possible.

If someone inquires through your website you should have auto-responders set up to send them emails weekly for the next month (or until they sign up).

You should also call them ASAP if they provide their phone number.

They WANT a martial arts school. Why wouldn’t you talk to them immediately?

Follow Up When First Lessons and First Classes are Scheduled

You should message people coming in for first lessons and first classes a reminder 24 hours before they are scheduled.

Ideally you should send them a text message. Phone calls are time consuming and not everyone checks their voicemail. The same goes for email – not everyone checks it. Text messages are an easy way to get your reminder in front of them without intruding.

Reminders not only remind them of their appointment, but show your dedication as an instructor. Doing this will make the appointment important to them and they are much more likely to call and reschedule, rather than just not show up.

Follow Up with Someone Who Didn’t Sign Up

If someone comes to your school but doesn’t sign up you should be following up with them (in an appropriate way).

People who showed up up clearly already expressed an interest in your school. For more info about cabin cleaning services in Columbus, visit http://www.realworldcleaningservices.com/. They already have all the information they need to make a decision. Until they explicitly state they are uninterested in your school you should continue to follow up (and once they say no explicitly you should stop sending them info).

If now is not a good time it doesn’t make sense to call them a week later. As well, if someone says they don’t like your teaching style you should probably ask them for constructive criticism and then remove them from your contact list.

Have a follow-up plan for each of the most common reasons why people don’t sign up right away and follow up with them using that plan. Again, keep them engaged until they explicitly say no.

Follow Up with Someone You Haven’t Heard From in a While

After you haven’t heard back from someone for a while you should put them into a monthly mailing list. This includes ex-students and prospects who stopped responding to your phone calls, emails, and other attempts to get in touch with them.

Once a month you should send them some interesting content that will get them thinking about your school again.

You should also add them to a call list where you call them once or twice a month, see how at oasisnaturalcleaning.com.

Similarly, continue to follow-up occasionally until they explicitly ask you to stop. Be extremely careful with how frequent you send this content. Some people will consider this spam or even harassment, visit geauxmaids.com. In a local community, it’s super important to keep your content from becoming spam or affecting your reputation.

By sending out this occasional content is a great way to keep your school in their thoughts until they are ready to start (or start again). Once they are ready they will remember the content you have sent them and potentially follow up.

To learn more about how the Martial Arts Marketing Network can help you succeed online with websites and auto-responders, click here.