“Just Send Me Some Information” Is a Brush-Off — Here’s What to Do Instead

Rule number one, and I want you to tattoo this on the inside of your eyelids: never leave a face-to-face meeting, a Zoom meeting, or a phone call without a scheduled follow-up appointment.

Not “I’ll email you something.” Not “call me next week.” A specific appointment, on a specific day, at a specific time, that both of you have agreed to.

The Test That Makes It Obvious

Think about it in the context you already understand. Imagine a family walks into your school for a first intro, and instead of scheduling their next lesson, your instructor says, “Great meeting you — I’ll send you a packet of information, take a look and decide what you want to do.”

You’d fire him on the spot. You know exactly what that is: it’s the prospect politely pushing you off, and your instructor helping them do it.

So why do we accept the same brush-off from a school principal, a theater manager, a daycare director, or a corporate HR contact? “Send us a proposal” and “email me some details” are — nine times out of ten — the professional version of “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Sometimes it’s genuine. Usually it’s a deflection. Either way, the response is the same.

The Response

You don’t refuse to send the material. You send it — and you nail down the next conversation before you walk away:

“Happy to get all of that over to you. Looks like you’re in the middle of a few things — what’s a good time for me to follow up? Is the weekend crazy for you? Probably is. How about early next week — when are your slower times?”

Then you schedule it. If they say they don’t have their calendar, you say, “No problem — I can pencil you in. I’ll come back tomorrow at four.” Be pleasantly persistent. When you’re a little persistent, most people agree to a time — and once there’s an agreed time, you’re in a completely different position than the guy whose proposal is sitting in a stack of unread email.

One of our members put it perfectly, borrowing a line from his old network marketing days: “Book a meeting from a meeting.” Every meeting. Every time. Intros, renewals, school visits, theater managers, festival contacts — there is never a broken link in the chain. Email and mail are fine as support tools, but they are not even close to as effective as the next appointment.

The Packet Still Matters — Just Not the Way You Think

Now, when they do ask for information, what you send should be impressive. When I was building school relationships for Mile High Karate, I built what I called the big, beautiful packet — forty pages, clear plastic cover, wire binding, done up at the FedEx office so it looked like it came from a Fortune 500 company.

Here’s the secret about that packet: in all those years, I don’t think a single principal ever sat down and read all forty pages.

That was never the point. The point was the reaction: “This is an impressive package — let’s talk to this person.” The packet sparks the conversation and answers objections before they’re asked. The conversation — the scheduled, face-to-face conversation — is where everything actually happens.

So build the packet. Make it gorgeous. And then remember that it’s a door-opener, not a decision-maker. The decision gets made in the appointment you scheduled before you left.

Because the person who follows up on a calendar beats the person who follows up “when they get back to me” — every single time, in every single market, forever.

This is one small piece of the enrollment and community-marketing system we coach every week. Get the free book at FillYourSchool.com, or call/text 1-720-256-0208 and ask Bob Dunne for a free school evaluation.