I'm a professional salesman. One of the tenets of great salesmanship is communication. I'm always amazed at the ladies who take the time and expense to create a profile, a website, run ads... then don't reply to appointment requests. I understand you might be busy, unable to accept the request or simply not interested in seeing that client, but, you are running a business. You owe it to yourself to kindly reply to request in a timely manner. I mean how long does it take to send a reply via email, text or pm?
Last year I replied to an email inquiry. I told the person that I couldn't help them at that time because Ididn't specialize in that area. I thanked them for contacting me and gave them some informatiion to help them. Last month they sent me a referral that netted me $10K. I sent them a very nice thank you gift.
Some of my most valuable sales assets are other sales people who don't follow up with prospective clients generated by their own efforts.
Here's to your 2014 being successful!