“You capitalized on the investment you made in the initial task by creating a follow-up task.” – Anthony Coundouris in today’s Tip 800
Do you schedule follow-up tasks?
Join the conversation below and check out the links!
4Qs Framework
run_frictionless Website
run_frictionless Youtube Channel
run_frictionless: How to free a founder from a sales
Anthony Coundouris on LinkedIn
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Anthony Coundouris, and is a continuation of his Sales Time Management series. Anthony has a decade of experience consulting to technology and software-as-a-service startups. He specializes in designing automated sales and marketing systems, and is the author of the book run_frictionless. Here he is:
Anthony Coundouris: Thanks Scott, for having me on the show. In today’s Daily Sales Tip, I’d like to teach you sales time management. I’m going to show you how you can save hours of time by scheduling follow-up tasks. If you guessed I’m an Australian, you guessed right. A fun fact about Australians. One of our former prime ministers set a world record drinking a third of a gallon of beer in 11 seconds. While on the subject to be that favorite breakfast we call Vegemite was created from leftover yeast, used to make beer. Indeed, Australians love beer, and here’s the definition of a follow-up task.
In the previous Daily Sales Tip, we discussed how scheduling an email to arrive at a particular time increases the chance it’s red. However, there is a chance a customer will not open my email. So as a safety measure, I schedule a follow-up action to contact the customer should I not hear from them. Here’s why you want to begin scheduling follow-up tasks.
If we fail to follow up, we lose the investment or time made contacting the customer in the first place. Follow up tasks, have a second benefit. They organize us. The biggest question salespeople face each morning is what do I do next? Well, if you practice what I’m suggesting, you’ll fill the next few days, weeks with follow-up tasks that close sales. Instead of guessing, or at worst procrastinating, you simply open your calendar, CRM app, or strategic plan, and you know what to do next.
In our previous Daily Sales Tip, I gave an example where I wrote to a customer asking them to post a review on a service we delivered. The customer did not respond but did reply to the follow-up email sent three days later, they explained they are on holiday until the beginning of November. I booked a second follow-up task to remind the customer in mid-November to post a review. And by the end of November, the customer posted a five-star.
To make this Daily Sales Tip work. You have to teach yourself to book follow-up tasks now, not later when you get back to the office and forget. Right now, there are probably half a dozen tasks that you’ve completed that need a follow-up task schedule. Get onto them as soon as you get to the end of this podcast.
Let’s sum up. If you did what we did and decided to create follow-up tasks, you made a good call. Here’s why firstly, you capitalized on the investment you made in the initial task by creating a follow-up task. Only 10% of our customers provide a review on first contact. However, 80% provide a review on the second follow-up contact. Secondly, when the sales manager asks you, what have you got on your plate this week? You had an answer. By reading your follow-up tasks. You have an idea how close you are to making your quota this month. And lastly, you blew away a customer by doing what you said you’d do. You remember to contact them when they returned from holiday. You left a positive impression. Thanks, Scott. Back to you.
Scott Ingram: Thanks Anthony. I love the little bits of Australian trivia at the beginning of these, and I’ve got a follow-up task that you can act on right now. Click over to DailySales.Tips/800 There you’ll find links to connect with Anthony and to get access to his 4Qs online sales training where you can try one course for free.
Once you’ve completed your follow-up task. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!