I like you.

Thanks for being here. Pay close attention to whatever reaction you just had to those three words, because they’re at the heart of one of the most powerful business stories you’ve probably never heard.

Most people in our industry have heard the statistic about how 80% of salespeople quit following up after just three attempts. It’s repeated so often it’s become background noise. But what you don’t hear nearly enough are the stories that show you exactly what happens when someone commits to persistent, genuine follow-up over the long haul.

Let me tell you about Joe Girard. He’s officially recognized as the greatest salesperson of all time. From roughly 1963 to 1978, this car salesman sold more vehicles than 95% of all dealerships across the entire United States. Not other salespeople—entire dealerships. As a former car salesman myself, I can tell you that selling six to ten cars a day, every single day, day in and day out for your entire career is absolutely insane. If you sold two in a day, you were doing great. Three was cloud nine. Joe was doubling that many days of the week, and he was doing it at retail.

His secret? He sent personal greeting cards to everyone in his database every single month. For Valentine’s Day, he’d send a card that said “I like you” with his dealership information stamped inside. For other holidays, he’d send appropriate greetings. Month after month, year after year, he stayed connected with his customers, prospects, and community.

Now here’s where I want to challenge you. Would you spend $13,000 to $15,000 per month sending cards and maintaining contact with your community? Would you commit $150,000 to $180,000 over the course of a year to do this?

I know what you’re thinking. “John, that’s corny. That’s lame. Nobody reads mail anymore.” And that last objection is actually your biggest opportunity. If nobody’s in the mail and you’re in the mail, you’re the only one in the mail. What could you do with that kind of presence in people’s lives?

There’s a fundamental principle here that most small business owners don’t think accurately about. They think the businesses that win are the ones that spend the least to acquire a customer. That’s surface-level thinking, and it’s not the full equation. The businesses that win, especially local businesses like funeral homes, are the businesses that can afford to spend the most to acquire a customer.

This only works if you know two critical numbers. First, how much does it actually cost you to acquire a new customer? Most businesses have no idea. They know how much they’re spending on marketing, and they know they have customers, but they’ve never connected those two metrics. Second, and even more important, what’s the lifetime value of your customers? For funeral homes, this is a particularly interesting question because you’re not selling someone their funeral repeatedly. But those families have other family members who can pre-plan, who they’ll refer, who will come see you. This is how a funeral home builds its brand and business over generations.

Imagine combining the amazing work you’re already doing in your communities with a simple, consistent campaign like Joe Girard’s. Most will never do it. There might not be one funeral home reading this who would actually follow through, and I hope I’m wrong because I want to hear your success story ten years from now about how you sold millions in additional pre-need because you started doing this. I guarantee you, if you start something like this, it will impact your business in ways you can’t predict right now.

The exciting part is that in today’s world, you can layer this approach with everything else available to you. Combine consistent physical mail with content creation, content marketing, education-based marketing, and a properly optimized website. Add in text messages, phone calls, events at your funeral home, and maybe even someone on your team becoming an influencer for your business. It should be you as the owner or the agent thinking this way. When you do, you’ll build the kind of success Joe Girard did when he sold 13,001 cars during his career—more than 95% of all other dealerships in the country.

Here’s what I see happening over and over in death care, and it’s been this way for the ten years I’ve been in the industry. You’re being sold great, new, fancy, shiny things—new websites, social media packages, Facebook marketing, Google ads, SEO, lead generation systems, aftercare systems. These vendors create leads and connections that could be the future of your business, but you’ve got nobody to effectively follow up with those people. No one wants to do it. They don’t believe in it. Maybe you don’t believe in it. You definitely don’t have time for it.

When I ask vendors on demo calls what the ROI is on what they’re doing, they don’t have good answers. They don’t have good numbers. And they almost always blame it on you and your team.

“Well, you know, it’s really up to the funeral home and their team as to what they do with the leads we’re creating.”

This creates a fantastic gray area for vendors to sell you a lot of fluff you don’t need.

There are funeral homes all over the country investing in things they absolutely do not need. I encourage you to strip it all away, start from scratch, and build one layer at a time with systems that actually work, whether you have someone to run them or not. That’s the real game-changer.

So start following up with your prospects, your customers, your colleagues, your family. You’ll turn your business around. And if you want to talk about how to make this systematic and sustainable in your funeral home, let’s have a conversation. No pressure, because not everybody’s a good fit for the way I work, and that’s okay.

But whether you work with me or not, take Joe Girard’s lesson to heart. Consistent, genuine follow-up over time will transform your business in ways you can’t imagine sitting here today.

Want to discuss building a sustainable follow-up system for your funeral home? Let’s talk.

Source: The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get new customers, make more money, and stand out from the crowd. by Allan Dib

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theashflash.substack.com/subscribe