Thirty percent of all the drinkable water that runs between the plant and your faucet is lost to leaky pipes. In marketing, thirty percent of our business is lost to leaky follow up. Even professional sales people have leaky follow up when they stop after one or two contact points.

How much business are you letting get lost to your leaky pipes. Here are some ways to tape them up or you may have to replace some fittings:

1. Do a check up of your follow-up system from the time of precontact to six months later. Since only 2% of sales occur after a first contact and does not go up until the fifth contact -- it goes to 80% then -- what is your follow- up plan of action between the first contact point and the fifth?

This means that if you e-mail them once or twice there is less than 2% they will read it. People are very busy and even if you put the same message out week after week, there is less than 13% chance that they will even notice it