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A tale of two contacts ...

Submitted by Duncan Bayne on Wed, 2010-01-27 05:29

Persistence is important when starting a business; that's true of marketing too. Here are two (anonymised) lengthy contact logs for two clients. This one lead no-where:

31 minutes ago Spoke with Jane, asked to speak to Jack. FINALLY got through to Jack; they do no .NET code whatsoever & aren't interested.
about 6 hours ago Jack in meeting; will try again in PM.
2 days ago Jack OOF until Wednesday FFS.
7 days ago Jack OOF.
18 days ago Jack OOF until next week.
about 1 month ago Everyone OOF.
about 1 month ago Created a trial account and emailed login details to Jack Doe.
about 1 month ago Will follow up on Friday to give Jack a chance to evaluate; if he hasn't, will create an account & email details.
about 1 month ago Spoke to Jane; John has passed my details on to Jack Doe.
about 1 month ago Spoke to Jane, asked for John. John OOF.
about 1 month ago John OOF. Left message; will follow up.
3 months ago Called & spoke with Jane, asked for John. Jane reports that John is very busy, & that he will get back in touch when he's reached a decision. Punted follow-up some way into the future.
3 months ago Punted until next week; don't want to piss people off by calling back next day if they've said they'll return my call.
3 months ago Spoke with Jane, who initially said that John was available, but then that he wasn't. Think John may be avoiding me. Will try again tomorrow.
3 months ago Spoke with Jane, who said that John is supposed to be in today but she can't find him. Will try again tomorrow.
3 months ago Called and spoke with Jill (sp?). John was out of the office, & apparently travels interstate a lot. Will try again next week. Punted task.
4 months ago Jane has left a message for John to call me back.
4 months ago Jane forwarded the email to John.

... whereas this one lead to a presentation and a likely sale:

2 months ago Spoke with John; they want us to come and give a presentation - mostly a Q&A type of thing, possible live coding too.

Meeting booked in Calendar.
2 months ago Called and spoke to Jane, left a message for John to call me. She says he will, either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
2 months ago Sent email to John asking for a time & day to call.
2 months ago Called and spoke to Jane; John is OOF for most of the week; she suggested I send him an email to arrange a time to touch base. Hoping to arrange a presentation.
3 months ago Called and asked for John's email address; Jane gave it w/o complaint. I think I am developing Jedi mind powers.
3 months ago Called to speak with John. He says they've moving to the .NET platform. Wants a copy of our .NET architecture paper. Will call in 3 - 4 weeks once they've discussed it internally.
3 months ago Called & spoke to Fred, who couldn't put me through to John as he was unavailable; will try again this afternoon.

Interesting how polite persistence can change "we don't connect cold callers" to having the company director call us back :-)
3 months ago John called & left a message on my mobile, asking me to call.
3 months ago Called and spoke to another staff member called Fred - explained what I was calling about, & he said the Cobalt info has been sent to John Doe (their Director) but he hasn't had a chance to look at it yet. Took details, said they'll call me back.

Will follow up, of course :-)
3 months ago Received auto-reply: I will be out of the office until Monday 5th October and will only be checking my emails occassionally . If the matter is urgent please contact Jane Doe on janedoe@company.com.au or 01 2345 6789.
3 months ago Sent Janet an email with brochure; will follow up.
4 months ago Seems a bit soon to follow up this one ... have punted temporarily.
4 months ago Janet replied:

Good afternoon Duncan,

Thank you for your email, I have forwarded it on to the Technical Director and our Software Architect. Should they have any interest they will get in touch with you.

Kind regards,
Janet Doe.
4 months ago Jane (receptionist) doesn't put through cold calls but has forwarded email to someone senior.

The interesting thing is that you never can tell ... some contacts that seem very promising initially don't pan out, and others that seem quite cold initially turn very promising in short order.

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