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How Do You Manage Your Customer Follow-up?

Why do you want to follow-up with customers? During your day-to-day activities you make commitments and promises to customers and prospects about sending information, preparing proposals, arranging the next meeting and next steps in the sales cycle. How do you manage these details and the information is what will set you apart from average performers. If you say to a customer that you will send them some follow-up information tomorrow, you send it to them tomorrow. Not the next day or sometime later. If there is a problem fulfilling this commitment, call your customer and let them know there is a problem and reset their expectation. By doing this you keep your commitment and your customer knows you mean what you say. This is an important part of building trust with your customers and prospects. As part of the follow-up, make sure you set a time by which you will complete a task. If you say you will send information and there is no assigned time to it; that means you can se

Are Your Follow-ups Accomplishments, Or Just Activities

Do you really know where you stand with the prospects in your follow-up files right now? Come on, really now? Im not trying to make you feel bad, but my experience is that many sales reps have no clue where they are in the sales process with a majority of the people they are following up with. Yet, they continue to call, continue to leave voice mail messages ("Hey, Im just checking in with you, wondering how its going..."), send an endless stream of emails,and HOPE that something will happen. Its like running on a treadmill. Theres lots of activity, but you dont go anywhere. And it can exhaust you. (Actually, the treadmill is better since at least you are accomplishing something physically-more people should do it. I digress.) Although some reps argue that at least they are making contact and "touching" their prospects through their messages, I say, bull. Heres why: 1. Repeated messages with no value puts youin a position where youre viewed as a vendor...a

Follow Up On Leads And Increase Sales

Having a good lead generation system in your sales organization today is critical. Prospects can be found in a multitude of ways, however how your organization chooses to plan with those leads is another. Your pipeline and targets require that you keep a close eye on how those leads are managed. Below are some helpful suggestions to improve the quality and quantity of leads: 1)Ensure that all your staff understand what a good lead is. Studies indicate that 90 percent of leads sent to salespeople are never followed up on. This often occurs because the lead is sent to the wrong person or the prospect is not ready to meet with a salesperson yet. The company should have a well defined definition of what a good lead is before the leads are sent to the sales area of an organization. 2)Use a CRM tool. This will help an organizations salespeoples conversations, and will help with better follow up. 3)Find out the source. Where did the organization calling/contacting you hear a

Anatomy Of A Sale

Lets call the client Sandy. She was first referred to me by an instructor in the professional training program she was taking. (Hint #1: Develop referral partnerships with people who serve your clients.) Sandy called me in March to inquire about becoming a coaching client. (Hint #2: Referred clients are more ready to buy.) I asked Sandy about her situation and what she needed, then told her how coaching would help. (Hint #3: Listen more than you talk.) We discussed the cost. (Hint #4: Communicate benefits before quoting prices.) Sandy thought she would be ready to get started in June, so I asked to follow up with her then. (Hint #5: Get permission to follow up.) I sent Sandy a copy of my print newsletter with a note summarizing our conversation. (Hint #6: Maximize every contact by following up.) I called her at the beginning of June to see if she was ready to become a client. (Hint #7: Follow up when you say you will.) Sandy returned my call with a voice mail message. It was

Seven Easy Steps To Follow Up By Phone

You know how critical it is to follow up initial contacts or mailings with a personal phone call, but somehow your list of calls to make always seems to get longer instead of shorter. Days or even weeks go by before you place important calls, and there always seems to be something more important to do. Why not make this the month you get off the dime and get on the phone? Here are seven steps to make it easy for you: 1. Know why you are calling. Sounds obvious, but we have all been guilty of making a call just because it was on the list, having long since forgotten why we were calling. Or worse, never calling at all because you arent sure of your reason. Make it a habit to keep a note with each persons contact information about where you left off in your last contact and what is the appropriate next step. The most productive calls are about something you know or suppose the other person wants from you, rather than something you want from them. In preparing to make a call, visua