I cant express what a wonderful gift it is to receive an inbound inquiry.

I just got a good one, today, while I was having another 12 hour day, and I couldnt get back to it, until after hours, Central time.

Still, I made a point to call, to leave a voice mail saying thank you for thinking of me, heres my email address if you like, my cell number, and by the way, Ill call you if you dont call me, and THANKS!

Inbound inquiries are precious, and its too easy to become spoiled by them, thinking theyll last forever. For instance during the heyday of certain best-sellers I wrote, Id get, on average two inquiries a day from readers interested in buying my tapes and seminars.

From a selling point of view, these were walk-ins, lay downs, fish in barrels, people who were so thrilled with what they read that they were pre-sold on my other products. And I thought these easy-peasy sales would go on, indefinitely. Of course, they trickled off, bolstered only when I wrote and had published even more books.

What Im saying here is this: Never, ever underestimate the value of people who contact you; in essence, folks that beg to be sold.

Stop everything youre doing, and celebrate them!

If you do outbound cold calling you know that it takes a huge number of nos before you rack up any yeses.

With inbound leads, its the other way around. The great majority should be converted into sales.

If your closing percentages arent high, get some training.

Given how much it costs to just make that phone ring, through conventional advertising, youre missing a huge bet if you dont get super sharp converting these prospects into customers.