I know, I do it too. Email is just so darn easy to use. You can write any time, day or night with no worry of time zones differences.
And it’s easy to start a relationship by email. Someone drops you a line or leaves an interesting comment on your blog and there you go - and chance to start a relationship. So you write an email and wait for the response. Next day, they write back. Great. Now you reply and so begins the ping-pong game of getting to know each other through your inbox.
But where will this lead?
Being that I focus on relationship building as the chief marketing method for my business, I find email to be way to limiting to rely on by itself. So what do I do?
I pick up the phone.
Usually in the second reply I send to someone who contacts me, I’ll suggest we talk by phone. Not always, but most of the time. And usually I get a resounding reply in the affirmative.
So begins the chance to build a relationship. Where the relationship goes, I have no plans about. When Colleen Wainwright of Communicatrix contacted me, I was already a fan. Within a short phone conversation started planning a project together. Now, she’s doing visual design on a website that I’ll code for her. It’s our little experiment of working together and so far it’s been great.
What’s more important than working together is that Colleen is a really interesting person and we share similar interests. Yet with her in L.A. and me in Michigan, it’s unlikely we would have ever met without our blogs. Now, we’re not only working together, we’re both keeping the door open for future projects where we both could benefit.
How did this happen? We picked up the phone. How did I meet Wendy, I picked up the phone - now she trusts me with adding content to her blog. Pretty neat, huh?
As far as I’m concerned the queen of reaching out to bloggers by phone is Liz Strauss. She’s amazing at it. It was back in the winter that I got an email message from her out of the blue that simply said, “I’m going to phone you at 2p.m.”
I thought, “WOW! Liz Strauss was going to call me. Holy moly.” Little did I know that this what Liz does. She talks to blogger all the time. And she connects them. I can’t tell you the opportunities that have come my way because of meeting Liz. Now, like Wendy, I think of her more as a friend.
We never know what can come from reaching out; from picking up the phone and making a call to someone who we’d like to meet. Just don’t have any expectations about where it’ll go. I don’t. Sure, I’m looking for business opportunities and partnerships. I just don’t expect it when I meet someone. I simply share my heart, offer what I can, and genuinely get to know people. Where the relationship goes is up to us, organically.
So don’t just use the comment box, or send emails. Pick up the phone and begin a dialogue - begin a relationship - with another blogger. And let it develop in its own way.
Personally, I have a lot of stories around meeting bloggers. But I really want to hear yours. What has a phone conversation with another blogger led to for you personally and professionally?
Hi, I’m Dawud Miracle. Professionally, I’m a blog and marketing consultant, business coach, educator and web developer who helps people use their websites to grow their business. I’m also a devoted husband and father to two, soon to be three, children. And I’m always interested in a good conversation.
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Dawud,
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I don’t use the phone much, but I have been thinking that it would be a much better way of building relationships then my current method of emailing back and forth with people. I have also started to use Yahoo messenger and Skype and think they can be better for forming relationshps than just plain email as well.
One hour is short!!?
Seriously, I’m so glad I raised the email-only ban to chat. Nothing beats a good conversation, except perhaps subsequent ones.
Here’s to many of those!
I’ve never talked to a fellow blogger as a result of them having met me through my blog or vice versa. One day perhaps, especially now as I’m connecting with more and more Australian bloggers. Although I have VOIP so international calls aren’t so out of the realm either.
Making that phone call is akin to taking the bull by the horns and making things happen. I am learning that relationship building is important to successful blogging and is an area that I need to work on more.
This is a conversation we have with our teenage daughter all of the time. We had to finally take away her phone texting for a month so she could re-learn the subtle art of, well, speaking again. And it worked! She will now pick up the phone first to have a conversation, and text only when she can’t talk (like to me to tell me when her movie is getting out for a ride).
This is good, I don’t often do this and so it made me think. I don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call a customer but there are many other people that I could be calling to expand both of our horizons in a quicker more intention way. Thank you.
Hi
Making a phone call rather than focus on sending email to your prospective partners is way better. Why? because sending emails does not guarantee you that the person you are sending actually receive your email whereas making a phone call gives you the chance to actually talk directly to the person involve.
I have been sending emails to my prospect clients but I only got few replies and some of the mails that I have sent returns to my inbox and says that the email address is invalid.
Calling is definite excellent. It is how I met my business partner over 2 years ago. I was in Savannah, GA, and he in New Jersey. Now we rarely email and typically just use the phone.