THE FORTUNE IS IN THE FOLLOW UP!
What is your FOLLOW UP SYSTEM?
I say system because most sales people I know...
Have a meeting.
Get follow up items.
They follow up with those items.
or
They have their internal sales person follow up with those items.
Then they place a friendly call some time there after.
Then what? Is that enough?
Well let me ask you a question...
How many contacts does it take you to close someone?
Over the years I’ve gotten varying answers to this question. But, more recently people are familiar with these statistics and I get answers revolving around them. But, why are these statistics relevant?
48% of Sales People Only Make 1 Call
Why?
I believe most sales people are lazy or just don’t understand sales is a process. In this number is the reality that the sales person is just spewing out everything they know. They expect the prospect to make a decision on the spot. When they don’t the sales person moves on.
15% of Sales People Make 2 Calls
Why?
In addition, to the reasons already stated, here the sales person doesn’t position the second call properly. They either don’t move the sales process along through properly educating the prospect or the call goes something like this…
“I’m calling to just follow up. Do you have any questions?”
You know the prospect is going to say no probably close to 100% of the time.
12% of Sales People Make 3 Calls
Why?
I believe if the sales person makes it to 3 calls they are on the right track. The problem here?
Sales people stop at 3 calls because most people under estimate the amount of effort it takes to sell someone. It is a gentle persistent game. We need to keep educating our prospect until they feel they have enough information. 3 calls may or may not be enough depending on the complexity of your product.
When I do trainings, I walk someone through their car buying process. I find someone who recently bought a car. The process from start to finish takes the person 6 months to a year every time.
80% of Sales Happen Between the 7th and 16th Contact.4% of Sales People Make 64% of the Sales!
What is your process?
We have a clearly defined process at my firm for each one of our different funnels. The last territory I had in the corporate world my sales were up 400% in the first quarter I was there. Now certainly I took over an under performing territory, but I instituted the process to get to the right amount of touches.
Here was our pre-planned touches between myself and my internal sales person (Internal Wholesaler).
Let’s look at 12 week rotation we had through our territory.
During that 12 weeks…
2 Face to Face Meetings
4 Pre-Planned Phone Calls
2 Direct Mail Pieces
1 Memorable Direct Mail Piece
1 Gift
12 Emails (1 Per Week)
2 Thank You Cards for Meetings
24 Personal Pre-Planned Touches
X4 Quarters
96 Pre-Planned Touches Per Year
Look back at your first quarter and did you have 24 Pre-Planned Touches to Your Top 100 Clients?
100 Clients
X24 Pre-Planned Touches
2,400 Quarterly Personal Pre-Planned Touches
Ask yourself…
Do I want to be a part of the 48%?
Or
Do I want to be a part of the top 4%?
The difference is your…
Effort
Process
Persistence
THE FORTUNE IS IN THE FOLLOW UP!
