Are you Trying to increase sales? Make sure you’ve perfected your follow up techniques.
Have you ever come across the 80/20 principle in business? The principle simply states that:
“Only 20% of your leads will become customers”
Yes, it is what it is. Getting 100+ prospects or leads just means about 20 would definitely become customers if you handle with expertise but that does not mean the rest 80 should be on their way.
One thing you need to know is that, once someone tells you “I am Interested”, ” How does it work?”, “Tell me more”, this means that the persons is interested in your business. What ever you do onwards, determines if you will make the person your customer or scare them away.
It is totally on you! So you need to learn how to follow up with prospects.
One of the best feelings as a salesperson is when you advertise your business to your first audience and you did great. You impressed the client; they loved the product, and may have given you the verbal commitment. You’re thinking this client is sold and now you just have to wait till they pay and become customers eventually.
Two weeks later though, the money still hasn’t been sent. A month goes by and you’re freaking out. Soon after, you find out your potential client went with your competition instead. What happened? How can someone have appeared so sold then not go through?
Unfortunately, this happens to salespeople all the time when trying to close deals. While there are many reasons for this, a big cause is the fact that not enough people focus on the follow up. Following up with your client after a great meeting is how you stay in control. You can make sure the deal stays on track, and that your prospect remains bought in. Here are some key points to remember when following up on a sales meeting.
1. Send Follow-Up Information Immediately After
I always make sure I bring a contract with me to every sales meeting. In the rare case the customer immediately wants to sign a deal, I want to be prepared. A nice move that works after is sending a personal message on where you met them or an email with all the information and contract you passed out at the meeting. Another good idea is to send mockups of your product and customer testimonials as well. I like to think that if my potential client wanted to tell someone about my product, all the info they would need would be in my follow up messages.
A key example is an FAQ. In your first meeting, you’ll get a large amount of questions from the prospect. While they may think they’ll remember all your responses, they usually forget and have to ask the same questions later. This drains your time and adds unnecessary barriers to closing the deal. Instead, whenever a client asks you a question, write it down. Add it to a master list FAQ, then send it out in your follow up email. This makes it easier for the customer to review points from your meeting and they can share this with others if need be.
2. Restate The Points That Got The Client Excited
When your prospect leaves your first meeting excited, it’s your job to keep up that excitement. A great way to do that is to highlight the key points in a follow-up messages that triggered your customer to buy. To do this effectively, you need to make sure you are watching your client’s body or conversational language during the sale.
If done properly, you’ll notice that certain words get your customer to smile or nod their head. When you catch those reactions, write down those words during the meeting. Now you know what key phrases need to be in your follow up messages to keep the energy going to get the deal done. If you are unable to do this, you risk the prospect looking at other options. But as long as you keep the buyer engaged and motivated, you’ll be able to stay on schedule to close the sale.
3. State A Point You Agree With In Your Follow Up
One piece of advice that I’ve found helpful in sales is Grant Cardone’s strategy to agree with your client. By doing this, it builds mutual trust and your prospect will have a much easier time liking you.
This is a perfect tactic to use in your follow-up messages or call. Go back through your meeting and find an important statement that you and your customer agreed on. Then in your follow up, restate how aligned you are on that point. This will go a long way in your buyer believing you are the right person to work with, and it gives you an advantage. Why consider other buying options when the seller and I have the same vision in mind? People want to buy from others who share similar viewpoints. By restating the similarities you have in the follow up, you make it much harder for your client to walk away from you.
I hope this has been able to help you learn more about following up with your prospects.
How can i help you today?
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