Two Articles for the Price of One

I have two things for you this week, so I’m splitting this article into halves. Here you go…

An Impactful Life

I had never heard of Larry Tesler until I read an article about him in the Wall Street Journal this week titled, “Life Lessons to Copy and Paste” by Andy Kessler.

Tesler died earlier this year at the age of 74. Among other things, you can thank him for inventing the ability to cut, copy and paste text when using word-processing software. By the way, I have already copied and pasted while writing this article, and I’m only two paragraphs into it.

In 1970, Tesler and his daughter moved into a commune in rural Oregon, Kessler wrote in the article. It didn’t’ work out, so Tesler moved back to civilization and eventually went to work for Xerox. He was frustrated with Xerox’s supposed lack of vision and innovation, so he jumped at the chance to work for Apple after a chance meeting with Steve Jobs.

After many years, he left Apple and worked at Amazon, Yahoo and 23andMe. Tesler made a career of chasing his passions to each next job.

Kessler says you can learn a great deal from Tesler’s life. I would agree. Here’s a passage from the article you might enjoy:

“And those lessons? Here’s an even dozen: Follow your interests. Counterculture is OK, but change society by inventing the future, not protesting it. Don’t drop out. Communes fail. Find an unbiased person to discover new features. Ask lots of questions. Big companies are stifling and don’t ask lots of questions. Work for the person that does ask lots of questions. Watch out from below as something cheaper will eventually eat you. You can fail and still be part of progress. Job hopping can be a career. Do an oral history.”

Ghost Clients

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article on why prospective clients sometimes go dark on you even after you have a seemingly positive meeting with them. It’s the real estate brokerage version of being ghosted.

This week, I’m sharing some ideas to reengage clients who have gone dark. To get started, here are four pieces of advice from Salesforce.com:

1. Don’t call them out in a guilt-inducing way: Don’t focus on the past. Move forward.
2. Adjust your closing techniques: Ask for different commitments, provide different information, and look for different ways to capture the client’s attention.
3. Try the personal approach: Connect with the client on a personal level then slowly transition back to your sales pitch.
4. Connect with someone else: Look for another person internally with whom to create a dialogue.

Sales expert John Barrows of JB Sales recommends the following email sequence to recapture clients who are ghosting you:

1. If the prospect or client commits to a meeting or to making a decision by a specific date and that date comes and goes with no response, send them your typical “Sorry we missed each other yesterday, let me know when you want to reschedule,” e-mail the following day.
2. If they don’t respond to it, reply all to that e-mail a day or two later and be more direct by saying something like, “When are you free to reschedule our call? I am free at x, y, and z times.”
3. If they don’t respond to that one, again reply all to the same string a few days later and say something like, “Are you still interested in continuing our discussions? Let me know either way so I don’t continue with unnecessary follow-up.”
4. Finally, on the 4th or 5th attempt over the course of 2 to 3 weeks reply all to the same string (you need to make sure they see you’ve tried to reach out multiple times), erase the original subject line, and write “Did I lose you?” in the subject line and don’t write anything in the body of the e-mail. The next thing they see when they open the e-mail should be your signature line and then the 4 to 5 e-mails you have tried to send previously.