Follow Up

So why do some salespeople thrive in the follow up process, while many struggle?  Certainly it takes the right combination of persistence, timing, creativity, and luck.  Here are some of the best practices that make top performing sales and service people successful in follow up:

• Always add to your pipeline.  The magnitude of each opportunity is based on its size relative to all the other opportunities in your pipeline.  In other words, a $100,000 deal won or lost is not the end of the world if you have $2 MM in your pipeline. If you have $150,000 in your pipeline, it’s a different story.  Clients and prospects buy from salespeople who are passionate and persistent, not desperate. Take the tone that you are genuinely interested in helping your prospect and his company; not a tone that conveys you are relying on his business so that you can eat your next meal.  Your tone comes across in every call, meeting, voicemail and email, and it’s much easier to express the proper level of confidence (and not desperation) when your pipeline is full.
• Build momentum with “yeses.”  Prospects and clients are more likely to continue to say yes and give you positive feedback if you have built a pattern of positive responses.  This is easy to do if you are able to reference your record from previous correspondence. E.g. “Last time we spoke you mentioned you were planning to launch your fall line in mid-August, correct? (YES)  And your primary target is still women in their 20s and 30s? (YES)  Great.  I’d recommend we get together over the next two weeks to map out your campaign…(more likely to receive another YES, since we already have two.)
• The ball is always in your court.  Many salespeople leave a message with a gatekeeper or on a voicemail and assume the ball is now in the prospect’s court to return the call.  They move on to the next opportunity and may or may not ever call that prospect back. Depending on the relationship, the quality of the message and the prospect’s priorities, you may receive a call back, but you never know whether you will or not when you leave the message.  Chances are, the prospect is higher on your priority list than you are on hers (or she would have already called you); so you need to create a proactive reminder for yourself to call/email/visit again. Set this reminder in whatever lead management system you use.
• Fish or get off the pot.  There are times when you have had several contacts with a prospect over a long period of time and he or she still has not bought.  You need to figure out if the prospect is serious or curious. One of the best ways to determine how to proceed is to ask the prospect:  “if you were me and you wanted to earn your business in the near future, what would you do next?” This question typically yields helpful information.  Remember, you are lying to yourself about the size and quality of your pipeline if you have too many “tire kickers” in your pipeline.
• Send them something of value that’s not directly related to the sale.  This can be an industry article or news from a relevant industry event, or even something related to the prospect’s interests outside of work like a sports team or a vacation site.  Convey that you are interested in the prospect’s success not only in ways that directly benefit you.

Implement these ideas into your follow up process and ACCELERATE your sales performance to new heights.