How Good Is Your Sales Follow Up?

Quite a while back now, my wife went to open the dishwasher door and much to her surprise, the...

How Good Is Your Sales Follow Up

Quite a while back now, my wife went to open the dishwasher door and much to her surprise, the usually featherweight door, slipped through her hands and fell to the floor like a sack of spuds, thankfully, narrowly avoiding a nasty injury.

After a quick, but clearly thorough assessment, I confidently deduced that something was possibly broken, and there’s no way we could carry on opening and closing what was now such a heavy door.

It was quite late in the evening, about 10pm perhaps, but I quickly jumped on the case to find someone who could come and repair it. I Googled ‘dishwasher repair Nottingham’ and subsequently found 5 suppliers who looked like they could help us. Two didn’t have a contact form for out of hours enquiries, so i messaged the remaining 3.

Just four days later, I got a call from someone quoting £100 to fix the door. I had no idea if this is good or bad, but seeing as I hadn’t received anything from anyone else (I’m still waiting now by the way), I said ok and arranged a date for them to pop over.

In the morning, I received a call explaining the engineer was ill and that he’d call back to rearrange. I’ve never heard from them since.

Quite worryingly, I’ve been telling this story for over a year now and I’m genuinely ashamed to say that, we’ve just become accustomed to the door’s new heavier weight.

But it illustrates the sad reality that far too many business owners are shockingly poor at following up with unconverted leads, and we could probably all benefit from reflecting on what we’re currently doing in our businesses.

Why Do People Hate Sales?

What is it about follow up and being ‘salesy’ that creeps so many of us out? Whether you’ve realised or not, each and everyone of us are in the game of sales. Yes, you do have to sell your customers on the benefits of your products and services if your business is to survive, but sales is actually all around us. You may have to sell your staff on why they should do things your way, you may have to sell your children on why it’s not wise to just eat sweets for dinner.

In actual fact, if your business and what you sell make a positive difference to people’s lives (which I’m hoping it does), then you don’t just have an opportunity to help someone in need, you almost have an obligation to make a difference in the world.

For many people, the pain comes in the ‘follow-up’, merely because they don’t know what to say and end up feeling awkward. They make a two or three calls that go something like this. “Hi, just calling to see how you are getting on and if you need any more information’. Whilst this is better than nothing, this repeated message soon gets tiring for both parties. It’s no wonder people give up.

But in-keeping with this month’s theme of the ‘real money’ being in the long-term, what are you doing to follow up, long after your competitors have quit?

9 ‘Non-Salesy’ Follow Up Ideas

1. Handle common objections

One reason people don’t make a decision is because there’s a niggling doubt which is on their mind. Chances are other people have thought this too. Why not reach out and share a story about someone else in their situation who had the same doubts, but ended up deciding to purchase and was grateful for the end result.

2. “I saw this and thought of you”

This could be an article, a blog, a video, an event. This is a genuinely useful reason to make contact with your prospect.

3. Share some of your wisdom

Like most of us, you probably under value your own knowledge. Why not empart a small nugget of your experience to help them solve a problem.

4. Make them an offer

Seems simple, but a fresh time-sensitive can be just what it takes to help get someone over the line.

5. Share a customer success story

Providing examples of other customers that were once in their position, and have since benefited from your services, can be a great way to build trust.

6.Send a newsletter

Why not package your ideas into a regularly monthly publication, it could be posted out, or even emailed. It’s a great way to keep your customers up to date with what’s happening.

7. Send a recent before and after photo

The power of photographic evidence goes without saying. Nothing demonstrates your ability to get results like actually ‘showing’ them what you can do.

8. Do something random and unexpected?

Get your creative thinking cap on, do something completely unrelated or random. Half of the struggle with follow-up is getting the attention of your prospect.

9. Automate ideas via email

The best part about modern marketing technology is that, the vast majority of this stuff can be automated, so you don’t have to lift a finder. Use this to your advantage.

Why not claim your FREE 45-minute Discovery Call and discuss the ways that you can use follow-up to get more customers into your business, along with many more useful concepts. Call us to find out more.

About Michael Angrave

Michael Angrave is the co-founder of Go Websites, author of The Ultimate Local Marketing System and host of The 'Get More Customers' Podcast. Having worked with hundreds of business of all shapes and sizes, Michael is one of the UK's leading authorities on local marketing.