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1 She Put Moms On the Map! Interview with Blue Suit Mom Founder Maria Bailey Easy Way to Follow Up with Clients Invest In Mom! Invest In Her Success & Invest In the Future Build Business Credit Getting A Life Requires Getting A Deal!"#$%&$'(#)&*##$ +,+-)&*$.$/01)2$3455.$6/78$5

2 INSIDE May NOTES from the Founder/CEO, Gina Robison-Billups NOW Moms Minutes Important Tips and Briefs Moms Vote Matters Instant Impact Legislative Update Events Featured events, conferences and more FEATURES Invest In Mom! Invest In Her Success - Invest in the Future She Put Moms on the Map Interview with Blue Suit Mom Founder, Maria Bailey In Today s Ecomony, Getting A Life Requires Getting a Deal The Heros and Sheros Supporting Moms In Business Grant Competitors 5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs to Build A Business Credit Asset! How to be Effective with your FollowUp MEMBERS Members News Outstanding Diversity, E3 Leadership, SBA/ATT Export, Congratulations - NWBC, Hybrid Mom About Our Contributors Brenda Prinzavalli Brenda Prinzavalli is a writer, consultant, speaker, seminar developer and business owner. She has a passion for helping others achieve greater balance in their busy lives. Brenda appears as the Dream Team Organization Editor for the FOX show MORE! on KVVU FOX 5 Las Vegas, and she is the co-author of the Accomplishment Series of Journals to help busy women become more effective. Visit Brenda at or www. AccomplishmentJournal.com. Scott Letourneau Scott Letourneau is the CEO of Fast Business Credit, Inc. & Nevada Corporate Planners, Inc. Over the past 14 years NCP has assisted more than 5,500 business owners form LLCs and corporations to get their business off to a fast start owners secure cash and vendor lines of credit and avoiding costly mistakes. On The Cover 14 Angela Maria Bailey Edgeworth Now Accepting Article Submissions for the National Association of Moms In Business Magazine. For guidelines and submission information visit the NAFMIB Writer s Guidelines

3 By Brenda Prinzavalli How to be Effective with your Follow Up With any business, staying in contact and being well connected with your customers is a must; however it can be one of the most overlooked components. There tends to be a sigh of relief and celebration that happens when you get a customer. Yes, go ahead and celebrate, then make sure your customers are doing their own happy dance and celebrating them you are in touch with your customers more frequently than just when they call you for another appointment or want to make another purchase from you. The key is to make your follow up system organized, streamlined and easy to implement.

4 steps in your overall system for contacting and staying in touch with your customers from start to eternity. While that might sound like a never ending system, customer retention basic steps in a customer contact system should at least have the following steps: Initial contact Proposal, negotiation, purchase and/or contract Thank you Contact for additional needs or services Ongoing follow-up and contact While there are many critical actions for you to take during marketing and initial contact with potential customers, there are equally if not more critical actions for you to take once they become a customer or client. They have made a statement of approval by wanting your product or service and now is the time to really embrace them and seal in a relationship with that customer. You are much more likely to carry out the follow up system if you know what you want to do. A major block for taking action is not knowing what action to take. You can prepare pieces of the follow up materials in bulk. Whether it is a standard thank you gift that you can now order in bulk or something more individualized that you can get the main components gathered and compiled and then all you have to do is the individualizing part after seeing a client and send it off. You know what information to gather or to listen for when you have a meeting with them. Nothing will make a customer feel more in relationship with you than if you were a good listener and actually comment in your follow up with Setting Up Your Follow-Up System The system that you select for your follow-up process will vary based on your product or service, the size of your business and the customer base you develop for your business. However, even with that broad scope of possibilities, there are some basics that every business can employ for their follow-up system knowing that it will modify, adjust, expand and individualize to match your needs. Tools You will need a tool to keep track of the various steps in follow-up and what step you are on with each customer. There are four general levels of paper or digital tools and your starting tool will be based on your personal preference, technical aptitude and budget. Keep in mind that you can continue to grow through each level or type of tool as your business grows and your system grows. 2) Paper checklist 3) Digital spreadsheet checklist 4) Digital CRM (Customer Relationship Management Program) System Steps in Follow-up It can actually be quite fun to plan how you will continue to be in touch with your customers and what you can do to continue to show gratitude, educate, inform, highlight special aspects of the service or product, offer additional services, welcome feedback, etc. One possible series of steps: After Customer Contact 1) Send Thank You that might include one of the following: Appreciation Do you have any questions list Inform them of privacy policy Invite and excite them about information and offers you post or send Ask them to invite their contacts to join mailing list 3) Product Enhancing Complimentary Sample More information on product or service 4) Etc, etc Blend the Tool and the System No matter which tool you use to process your customer follow-up system, the goal is for you to know what the next step you need to take for each customer. There s really no magic in anyone of these tools, the magic is when you are committed to the one you selected and when you process the actions and your actions work your process. Pros and cons come into play for each tool and here are the most important ones for you to consider.. This data sheet in the location of the next step for follow-up. Pros This tool works best in a business that has fewer clients and more data on each client. When you go to take action on the next step for a client, all the previous information clients who are at the same step in your follow-up process at one time. Continued on page 25

5 Continued from page 23 How to be Effective with your Follow Up Cons alphabetically, it is within the follow-up system This is a good reason to only employ this system with a smaller base of clients. 2) Paper A master checklist of the steps to place one sheet with the system checklist inside of each individual client folder then documenting or checking off where that client is in your follow up process. The second is to have one master system checklist that lists the names of all clients in the left column and all of the steps in your system across the top row. Then checking off which follow-up steps have been completed for each client. Pros alphabetically and you don t have to search Cons When a checklist is inside of a client folder, you have to open each client folder to identify the next step for that client. This also can become cumbersome if you have a large client database. 3) Digital Creating a spreadsheet that holds all steps in the process and the names of all clients. This looks a lot like the paper checklist mentioned above, however it is now digital which provides some additional options. Pro You can easily sort the data to group clients together Step 3 or the length of time they have been a client. The information also remains neat and is easily edited. Cons status. There are more mobile options that continue become available to support this idea of being able to access your 4) Digital CRM A Customer Relationship Management Program is a software program that will allow you to track everyone and every single step you have in your client contact process. Pros a CRM is high powered and full of options! Most CRM s can be customized to correspond to each one of the steps in your system. The sorting and searching options are endless and you have the ability to manipulate the data for not only tracking your follow-up system, but all other data you might like to gather about clients and your interaction with them. If you have a large client base, it is a great way to keep on top of your interaction and communication with all customers. Cons learning time to establish most CRM systems and therefore you must be committed to using the tool. There is also the same issue of being able to access the tool virtually so you can process information when you are with a client or away Wrapping It Up And Getting Started The key to an effective follow-up system is that it matches your business, your style and your needs. You don t want tool that it takes away from successful implementation. Talk to other professionals in a similar industry to see what they have had success with for tracking their client follow-up system. The multitude of tasks any business owner must complete are vast, so create the follow-up system and fuel it with the right tool so you can complete this one task with ease and success! ####