10 Follow Up Mistakes that are Costing you Sales
By Stacey Hylen | Category: CRM, Direct Mail, Internet Marketing, Lead Story, Marketing, Mindset, Online Marketing, Sales, Strategic Planning
Sales Follow up
Here are the top 10 mistakes you are probably making with your follow-up. Implementing these will easily increase your sales and profits:
1. Don’t have a highly effective, consistent, multi-step system for follow up, do it haphazardly or when they get a chance. They need to a plan for follow up for each entry point that a prospect comes into their marketing funnel (for example: trade show, call in, internet lead, etc.) and develop the pigheaded discipline to implement.
2. Give up too soon. Statistics show that 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact so you need to stay in front of your prospect and keep following up.
3. Not personalized. Make sure you inject your personality and some personal details that you have learned about your prospect into your follow up pieces. If you are using an auto responder, write it like you are talking to one person so they will feel like you wrote it to them.
4. No strategic objectives. Before creating your follow up strategy and pieces, establish your strategic objectives overall and for each piece. Do you want to develop rapport, establish expertise, build social proof, etc…?
5. Too much about their company or product vs. their prospect’s wants, needs, pain points and desire. Don’t tell me about your product or company, tell me how it can help me, the prospect.
6. No call to action. Give the prospect a next step to take. It doesn’t need to be to purchase something it could be an article for them to read or an online video for them to watch.
7. Doing your follow up the way you see other companies in your industry doing it. Be a resource for your prospect; give them information of value that they can use, even if they don’t buy from you. Be original, have fun and make it interesting so they want to open it and read it. One of my clients just closed a major account and when his staff asked the client why they chose their company, the new client said it was because of the consistent creative follow up that made him see that an alternative was available to his current provider.
8. Using only one type of follow up. Mix it up use phone, email, social media, video, direct mail.
9. Stop after the prospect becomes a client. Just like marriage experts tell you to date your spouse you should continue to “date” your client and deepen your rapport and relationship by sending them fun things and inviting them to events.
10. Not tracking your implementation and results and modifying follow up systems once you see which things are the most successful.
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Great article Stacey. You’ve just gotten a Twitter follower in me. Your points are spot on, and I really like #9, continuing to date your client. How true. I often send prospects follow-ups in video mail. It’s personal. They see and hear me. And they know it isn’t a mass message or auto responder. It’s free to do and since I keep my video messages under 30 seconds it is also faster than typing an email.
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the nice feedback. I love video! It is so important to mix the media so that your prospect or client doesn’t get tired of hearing from you and offer something of value. I think video is great for this, for me it is easier than typing too. Although I think you guys have it easier you don’t have to worry about bad hair days!
If you want to see a fun one check out the mustache one I did recently,
http://businessoptimizercoach.com/leadstory/the-mustache-video-how-can-you-be-bolder-in-your-marketing/
I look forward to getting to know you and your company better on Twitter.
Stacey
Stacey, great post. I totally agree with the “giving up too soon” issue. Sometimes people I’ve connected with over four years ago buy today. Staying “top of mind” so that when they are really ready is the key.
Thanks Melanie,that is fun when that happens. If you don’t give up then you have more in your pipeline that will eventually buy or even refer you business in the future. When it feels like it is taking too long I remind my clients (and sometimes myself) that it took Chet Holmes years to get a joint venture with Jay Abraham and even longer, over 13 years, to work with Tony Robbins but persistence pays off.
Great points Stacey. There is value in the follow up and these are simple yes effective points that are easy to implement that will surely add to any bottom line. I really like #6. You need to let them know that they can take action. You need more than a “how’s it going”