Why sales professionals need to follow up consistently and frequently
A friend of mine recently mentioned that if a prospect doesn’t call him back, he assumes they are not interested or decided to go with someone else. He feels uncomfortable following up because he doesn’t want to bother them.
Another colleague is in the medical field and expressed how much he hates having to sell a client on another visit or series of visits.
It’s a common challenge. “Sell” is a dirty four-letter word to so many solopreneurs — especially to those who consider themselves “heart-centered” entrepreneurs.
I can understand that.
No one likes the feeling of being manipulated, hounded, chased or hunted down by a too-enthusiastic (to put it nicely) salesperson.
However, provided you have done the research and are connecting with someone who needs and wants your services, clients and prospective clients WANT you to offer them your services.
In fact, if you know your service or product is the best thing for them and you genuinely are interested in their well-being, you are doing them a disservice if you do not market to them and make appropriate offers.
That said, selling the person is really the very last thing you want to be thinking about anyway. When you go out on a first date with someone, do you immediately ask them to marry you?
(I hope not!)
What is needed is a specific marketing plan, where your prospect sees your message over and over again until they are ready to buy, ready to refer someone to you who is ready to buy, or they tell you to stop marketing to them.
Another possible purpose behind a marketing plan might be to establish and maintain relationships with colleagues, persons with specific industry influence, and referral partners.
In most cases, sales professionals give up too soon. They don’t have a follow-up system in place that they follow regularly and consistently.
This may be why my friend wondered whether he was bothering people. Without a system, all efforts to market or follow-up are random, at best, and you really don’t know when and how often you are following up with someone.
Besides that, if you don’t follow up regularly with people who have shown interest, they may forget who you are or that you provide the service they are looking for when the time comes that they need it.
People have so many choices about where to spend their money, positioning yourself so that you occupy a prominent place in their minds requires actively and frequently reminding folks in your target market about how you can solve their challenges.
Gary Keller in his The Millionaire Real Estate Agent
With most consumers pre-shopping for homes (or anything else, for that matter) on the Internet, I’d wager that this is even more important today.
In almost every industry (not just real estate), there are tens or hundreds or thousands of people who do what you do. How are you standing out and differentiating yourself?
How often are you reminding qualified folks of that difference?
People want you to educate them and make life easier for them. They are so busy with family, work, and other obligations that if you give up out of fear of looking like the proverbial “used car salesman”, they will have already forgotten about you.
This personal example I’m about to relate is a little embarrassing because it illustrates how disorganized I can be (and I bet I’m not alone in the disorganization department!), but I’ll share it anyway.
Just last week, I met with Portland, Oregon-based Corporate Shaman, Jacke Schroeder. For the last several weeks prior to that, Jacke left me several messages via email, social media and phone before I finally got back to her weeks later.
(I told you it would be embarrassing.)
Was I uninterested in connecting with her? Did I feel she was bothering me?
On the contrary, I let myself become so consumed with who-knows-what-all that I didn’t respond to her efforts to communicate with me. Still she (thankfully) persisted.
After meeting with her last week, I now know that she and I will be working together in some capacity in the near future. I’m kicking myself for letting so much time elapse.
What an incredible loss for both of us had Jacke decided she’d had enough of my silly antics! I may never have called her back!
I imagine all those prospects you let slip through the cracks may have a similar story. With SPAM filters, multiple inboxes, and having to check multiple voicemail messages, who’s to say your potential client even got your last message?
Of course, no professional wants to feel like they are wasting their time. Certainly, if a prospect tells you they are not interested (like unsubscribes from your newsletter, for example), I don’t recommend stalking them!
Craig Klein of Sell, Sell, Sell! suggests that sales professionals get to fire their prospects after following up with them a certain number of times without a response. He even offers a way to do this via a voicemail script (complete with a downloadable pdf tip sheet you can print out and place right at your phone when you’re doing the “firing”!) you can drop right at the end of your follow-up system.
This, of course, assumes you have a follow-up system in place in the first place.
It also assumes that the person you are spending time following up with is really a qualified candidate for your services and likely needs and wants what you have to offer.
If that’s the case, if you do change nothing else, follow up! Show your prospects you care and are thinking about them.
Your perfect clients WANT to hear from you!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by tshombe, Christopher Ryan. Christopher Ryan said: RT @craigklein: Why sales people need to follow up consistently – http://bit.ly/csUFWM – good advice. [...]