What would you do if a new customer called your business and wanted to buy your product of service? I hope your thinking, "well of course I would call him immediately and make the sale." Maybe you have a couple of pressing items you're in the middle of and then you'll return the call. Naturally, one of your employees has an emergency you must tend to, so now the new customer has to wait a little longer to give you his money. Before you know it the day is almost over and the sale will have to wait until tomorrow morning.

I understand "things" just happen, but there's no excuse for not calling back someone who wants to buy whatever it is you're selling. Now you finally get around to contacting him the next morning and you're too late! Your competitor sealed the deal yesterday.

I was calling around to some local karate schools for my older son the other morning; five schools to be exact. Within a couple of hours I received my first call back and scheduled a trail session for the following day. I was planning on trying two different schools in order to find a good fit for my son, but would you believe not one other karate person called me back? Luckily we really liked the one that did call me and signed with them.

Businesses spend thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars to attract new customers. When an unsolicited caller wants to know more about what you do, forget every excuse that comes up and get yourself a loyal customer. If you're not the first getting back to him, you're losing money. While it seems common sense to do this, apparently it's not so common as I thought.