Am I bovvered?

25/7/12

I’m sure that we all know Catherine Tate’s character, Lauren, that coined the phrase “Am I bovvered” and almost died laughing at her sketch with Tony Blair for Red Nose Day. But it’s a serious question, “Are you bothered?”

What am I talking about? Well let me explain.

I was with a chapter recently discussing their conversion rate - it was pretty low - and discovered that they didn’t like to be too ‘pushy’. Didn’t want to do what they considered a ‘hard sell’. They suggested that visitors looked around and came back for a second visit. Well I have to say that it just plain crazy! They thought that they were being nice, but were they?

I have a business, I've been running it since I was 21 years old, I'm now a business mentor, and I don’t suggest to my clients, having presented to them, that they go and check out the competition, and, if they feel like it, come back to me later. And I doubt that I’m alone in that. We all fight very hard to find clients; we don’t then give them away.

But, there’s far more to it that that, as I discovered recently. Two chapters were involved: the first didn’t ‘push’, didn’t follow up; the second was keen to get the visitor to apply and did follow up. As it turned out the same visitor went along to both chapters. Both chapters ran good meetings; both were of a similar size. When asked why he had chosen one chapter over the other, he said that the first chapter didn’t seem to be particularly bothered if he joined them or not. So, he joined the second!

So, just a thought. If you are being ‘kind’ to your visitors, could you actually be losing potential members because they think that you are saying “Are we bovvered”?