“Most people who are excelled at something have also initially failed at it.” – Meshell Baker in today’s Tip 1463
How do you follow up?
Join the conversation below and check out the links!
1429: The ABC’s of Sales – ACTION
1436: The ABC’s of Sales – BOLD
1443: The ABC’s of Sales – CONFIDENCE
1450: The ABC’s of Sales – DECLARE
1456: The ABC’s of Sales – Extra Ordinary
Meshell Baker 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 Meshell Baker, the Sales Confidence Igniter, is back with the next installment of her multi-part series. Here she is:
Meshell Baker: Hello and welcome to the ABCs of Sales. And we are on the letter F. And F stands for Follow-up. So what is Dollow-up in sales? Well, it’s basically that contact that you make after the initial pitch to encourage the prospective client to take action. And that’s important to know that we are in an era where we have technology and you have social media and your email and digital marketing, all the different ways that you can contact and communicate with people. And you will be using all of these or a varied amount of these to initiate that sale.
I want to give you a couple of facts before I tell you some other tips on this as well. Only 2% of sales happen after the first contact. However, 44% of sales reps give up after the initial contact when they are ignored and don’t receive follow-through by the prospect. Only 8% of sales professionals follow up after 6 or more times and know that 80% of sales are generally made after the fifth follow-up.
So that tells you your ability to have a mindset, that you’re valuable, you have an opportunity, it is worth them speaking with you is how you were able to keep picking up the phone, reaching out to engage them in the opportunity to work with you.
Use a variety of methods. So the follow-up, when I talk about the number of times it’s that contact. So it can be an email, it can be a phone call, it can be a reach out on LinkedIn, you can send them a bomb bomb video. So think about having variety to the way that you follow up.
Space it out. Contacting someone day after day after day. Well, you become a nuisance, that’s very stalkerish. And nobody wants to do business with someone they find to be very stalkerish.
Provide value after every follow-up. Now, this is interesting because value can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, especially those people you are prospecting. So understand what value means to them, what would help them move the needle in their business. So if you’re helping people to move the needle in their business, well, they can see why it’s worth their time to invest with you. So they’re like, man, if I can do this, then it’s just something he sent me for free. Guess what happens if I actually invest in working with this person? Then I’ll cross the finish line. So make it worthy and valuable to their time and really understand for your target audience what that means to them.
Always define the next step. So be clear on what that next step is. So once you do make that contact or in your email or in those contacts. Make certain yourself. Well, the next step is scheduling. The next step is this, the next step is us doing a proposal. Make it clear so that they are feeling comfortable with working with you.
And the final thing I’ll say is the subject line matters. There are so many tools out there where you can look at your subject line and find out whether or what the rating or ranking of the subject line is. And it will help you know if somebody has the propensity to open it, by testing the subject line. You can Google subject line testers so you can look at what you’re saying.
And again, if you have a marketing team, if you’re part of a community, reach out, be willing to ask someone for feedback on what you’re doing. Look for people who are succeeding in this area and have conversations. Go to your colleagues, go in your organization. What are the successful sellers doing? Your ability to be vulnerable at this juncture. If you’re struggling with follow-up, if you’re struggling and not feeling like it’s worth your time or no one wants to listen to you, then that’s a mindset situation that can easily be repaired by your ability and your willingness to reach out and have conversations with other people who are succeeding within your organization or within your industry because most people who are excelled at something have also initially failed at it. So they know what you’re experiencing and can be very helpful to move you across that. So you’ll be in that circle of excellence as well. Have a great day selling and remember, follow up.
Scott Ingram: For more from Meshell, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1463. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!