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Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! - It’s the key to sales success. I was talking with someone recently who was lamenting the fact that his sales figures had dropped during the past few months. I started asking him about what he did to follow up with prospects after an initial phone call and he gave me a blank stare and mumbled something about meaning to get back with them, but just not knowing quite what how to do it. Now, this was something that took me by surprise because this guy is sharp, successful and really knows his stuff. It’s one thing to know what you should do. It’s quite another to actually do what is going to create sales success. Follow up failure is why so many sales people get frustrated. Remember, most sales happen after a prospect has been contacted (via phone, in person, via email, etc.) between 5 and 7 times, but most sales people give up contacting prospects after only 2 attempts! That adds up to a lot of missed sales opportunities! In order to avoid follow up failure, you must develop a process for staying in touch with prospects after you’ve contacted them once or twice and they did not buy from you either time. Unless they tell you, “No, I will never be interested in buying from you or your company,” they need to stay in your pipeline. If you stay in touch with prospects on a regular basis and provide them with valuable information that will help them do their jobs better, they will see the benefit of doing business with you. When they are ready to buy, they will call you and more than likely ignore your competition (or at least heavily favor giving the business to you!). It’s not difficult. You just need to be committed to getting and staying organized. Create a schedule that helps you track your activity. Make a plan for when you will follow up with prospects and how. There are several customer relationship management tools that can make this a relatively simple task. Then decide HOW you will follow up. Next week I’ll share some ideas for how to follow up so that you get noticed and remembered. Until then, have a successful week!
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