Lately we’ve been discussing the importance of small talk, follow-up, and connecting with people. If you are in any industry that is considered a “people business” (psst, most of us are), mastering your communication skills and follow-up strategies is a MUST.

You likely know that getting leads is just half the battle. The other half is following up on those leads effectively so that they can be converted from a lead into a paying customer. But not all leads are created equal, and they require different follow-up strategies. Cold leads, warm leads, and hot leads require varying amounts and types of follow-up.

In this article, we will discuss some of the strategies you can implement for each degree of leads you get for maximum likelihood of converting them into paid clients!

Typically, we classify our leads into 3 categories. Sticking with that model, we will start with cold leads and work our way to hot ones!

Cold Leads

Cold leads are potential customers who,...

The response from my last article about the value of small talk has been amazing! It got a lot of you asking questions and wondering HOW to effectively engage in small talk. I love the conversations around this topic because for some reason, even the most confident experts and leaders can struggle to make small talk when in new environments or networking situations.

Humans are social creatures by nature, so why do we get awkward and uncomfortable in social situations? I can’t answer that question, but today I am giving you 6 ways to engage in small talk or ease into a new social situation that can help you feel less nervous and more confident. 

1. Bring a friend: The easiest way to feel more comfortable at a networking event or in an unfamiliar social situation, is to bring a friend. By bringing a friend you ensure that you know at least one person in the room and will have someone to talk to if you aren’t able to break into a conversation with others. Having a...

I have never been a fan of small talk. I’m kind of impatient and I like to get into the good parts of conversations quickly. However, when your business depends on networking and building connections to grow, small talk is a valuable tool in your arsenal! I have learned over the years to slow down and enjoy the mundane parts of conversation, the parts where you get to learn about people and get to know them, with no pressure, and no expectation!

Building connections with people, especially potential clients and referral partners, is a process. It takes time to build the know, like, and trust factor and you can’t just jump right into business with people…at least not usually (we all hope for that one client that instantly wants to work with us…it happens, but not very often! ).

Back to small talk. Does anyone really care what the weather is doing or who won last week’s basketball game? Probably not, but general topics like weather or sports are...

For the better part of my life, I have been a musician. For all its complexities, music has always come easily and felt so natural to me. So much so that at the ripe old age of 29, I enlisted in the military as a musician! I could talk all day about how amazing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is, or how Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is one of the greatest works ever written, or how Barber’s Adagio for Strings can make even the strongest of us tear up with its intensity…but I won’t. I will save those conversations for my fellow music friends!

Being a musician has taught me many things over the years. Not the least of which is that music is a form of communication. Like music, communication (more specifically, conversation) is made up of many moving parts. These include phrases, ideas, themes, emotions, and silence. All of these components are parts of any musical piece and any conversation.

Phrasing and emotion are inherent in our ability to communicate. The...