How can you follow up without annoying your prospect?

One helpful thing for cold calling, is a system, set goals, and be accountable. For example, shortly after starting my insurance career, I bought a box of 1000 D&B leads and worked my way from the front of the box, to the end. I called daily as many businesses as needed until I reached 20. A goal of 3 appointments and six into my card file to follow up in 3 months if not reached or if the owner is willing to accept another callback if they requested four months, I would call in 2 months or two months, in 1 month, etc. I also had a goal of having 3 kept face-to-face appointments daily, which became the 3 + 3 daily goal (3 scheduled and 3 kept appointments). All my data was logged into a daily activity sheet and reviewed by my manager.

No such thing as a “cold call”. You shouldn’t just smile and dial. Instead do some research on your client and their desired business outcomes. Map and match your product and/or service offerings that will help them achieve their desired business outcomes. Collaborate with your team on your messaging via email and/or phone (have to have both) to your prospect. Be personable. Smile when you speak. Let them know if you don’t hear back in “X” amount of time, you will follow up then. Put in your calendar to follow up. No reply? Next time send a relative article or news update that would be of interest. Use your network for warm introductions if/when you can. Make sure you do the same. Just be persistently polite. Let your personality shine!

I am a cold caller and the follow up is very important. The follow up really depends on the conversations. There are tones of voice to listen for when speaking with decision makers. Make sure you are talking to the decision makers. You are wasting time on gatekeeps. Make sure you have all your leadership information and ready with your pitch. You only get one chance. Pay attention to background noise. If you like research, you will be good at cold calling. NO is never the final answer. Leadership chances and people move on. Never give up on a prospect. I have closed some accounts after 3 years of calling every 6 months. Made great relationships with these leaders.

Have fun with cold calling. This can be the foundation of your success in your sales career. Having a goal will help keep you accountable and focused when pushing through it. I've also found that grouping similar calls will allow you get into a good rhythm and potentially learn from calls as you go. I found that changing one single word in my cold call pitch elicited a more better response. I would go back and forth in using pitch 1 and then pitch 2. By seeking to understand and learn, I was able to teach myself and improve my process. Your mindset will have a huge impact.

Any time a prospect asks me to check back in later, I get a timeframe. Sounds like: "sure, I'll send you an email. If I don't hear back from you by Tuesday, mind if I give you a call to hear what you think?" When I do follow up, I'm always trying to add some value. Sounds like: "You know, I was thinking about what you said last time we talked. [New relevant thought about THEM, not ME.]"

One way to not annoy your prospect is to set the expectation for the follow-up call on the first cold call! If you connect on the first call, let them know when you will be following up and through what avenue. Ask them for their preferred interval. If you do not speak with them during the initial call - let them know when you plan reaching back out. This way they expect the call and you show integrity and follow-through when you actually do what you say you're going to do!

The truth, nothing beats a call (A Follow-Up Call). Knowing that, you can build a multithreading approach All depends on the touches you applied to your cadence. Bottom, line, it needs to be short, concise, and direct.

Four rules: 1) 'Be Brief, Be Polite & be Gone' - time is money for you and your prospect. 2) Never schedule calls for the day/time each week - be random or call as you have new value to add. It's a terrible feeling as a prospect to know you're being stalked on someone's calendar, or worse, to think you're on an automated email campaign. 3) You have 30 seconds to say why you're calling and capture the prospect's attention. 4) NEVER open with 'Hey, just following up' or 'just checking in'. Following Up is the F word in sales.

Very important on the first call with your "pitch" to ask 1. Are you the decision maker or do you have to take this up the ladder. If they not the DM 2. When do they expect to have that conversation and is there anything you can do to help with the presentation? 3. When would you like to set a time to chat again. Most important do not miss or change the time they give you.

If you are offering a quality product and you have done your work to know the prospect has a need, approach each call with the mindset of wanting to genuinely support the prospect. We are all trying to get through our day and if you can make their day easier, is that worth doing the work for?

With adding value you want to make sure you do not shoot all your bullets on your first call. Give them the information they need to make an educated decision but save something for the follow up in case they get push back from the check writer. ROI info, success story or even a current client they can call to get the 411.

Having an overall process you follow for your contacts is important. Break things up in a way that give you a good reason to connect with each call/email. Using a CRM and tasking things as you go will serve you well, especially if you can have the system populate your next contact and the information you are looking to convey.

This right here is the key. If you are adding value with every outreach attempt they won't find you annoying! This isn't the time to be talking about your company- this is about the prospect and what is important to them. If you find too many I or we's in your follow up you need to remove that content.

Michael Clark is right on the money. Never spill all your candy at once. 3 reasons: 1) New insight/study/third party article = a reason to call back that's actually appreciated by the prospect and 2) You're demonstrating that you are a SME by delivering specific information back to your prospect every time you talk with them = showing you're listening and you care, and 3) Too much information at once = buyers' journey confusion.

You can find out what is the most appropriate channel to each prospective client by asking them " What is your preferred way for me to follow up with you?" or "What is the best method to communicate new information to you?" or " Do you prefer to receive additional information via email, text or phone call?

Lately, I have use videos, nothing fancy - just your normal cellphone approach. The natural vibe and direct quick follow-up. Also, this is new, I am using WhatsApp - this works only upon both parties agree on using this method. This is a suggestion - some industries do not use it at all. Follow-up is king, only if it is done correctly.

If you are prospecting and haven't had a conversation with them yet to ask what their preferred method is you need to try different channels. In today's world emails for most buyer persona's have fallen through the cracks only about a 1% response rate. If you are using the phone- and your prospects haven't returned to the office yet, calling a general office line or even a direct phone line is a waste of time. You should be calling cell phone numbers. Since Covid it is a fairly acceptable method to reach people.

Follow and engage with your customers/prospects social media accounts - add value and don't pitch. Post short videos on social covering the problems that most of your customers face on a day to day basis.

The point of multiple channels is capturing mindshare through slightly different content that still has consistent messaging. You're also usually able to see what your prospect follows = insights on interests = you refine your approach.

Try to bring value to your follow-up! A new update about your company or the market trend, anything relevant to their interest, or to remind them of your existence and interest in working with them. And when it's time, it's time!

On that note, you do not have an expensive tool (CRM) to start your developing follow-up strategy. My approach was with ZOHO Bigin, easy fast and friendly user experience with an APP for a cellphone. Further, all your touches can be organized under the contact profile with task for meetings, dates follow-ups or calls.

putting detailed notes in your CRM is vital to your success and to the next associate that may get this lead. If you leave incomplete notes you run the risk of repeating something or God forbid quoting them a different amount than you did on last call. You can never put too much info about your call in the CRM. I also keep a spreadsheet of Hot, Medium and warm leads along with next steps, just to double down on following up.

This is a must! You must track and measure all your activity, the conversation and key information you found out- maybe even create a field for certain types of info/data points., for example if the prospect is using your competitor and on a contract you should have field for current solution and the expiration date of the contract so you know when to reach back out to them and start the process of getting them off your competitor and using you. You want to know how to build a repeatable model so the more details on what processes and messaging worked or didn't work the more you can learn and replicate what worked.

You're seriously overestimating yourself. Prospects will rarely remember who called and when. If you did speak to them ensure you repeat exactly what they said to increase the chances they'll have a conversation.

There are many ways you can connect prior to connecting. Follow people on LinkedIn while also liking and commenting on their content. This is an easy way to build your visibility. You should also aim to strategically network. Join networking events put on by associations; great place to meet people before you reach out. You can also potentially get referrals from consistent networking efforts. Calls where you can share "Jerome shared that reaching out to you could xyz" will make life easier.

If your campaign goes cold, before you declare it dead, try this: "Hi______, it's _____ calling. Hey, I apologize we've been unable to connect so I'm guessing that you've gone in a different direction. I'm going to close the file for now, and if I can be of service in the future, I hope you'll consider me." If you're good at qualifying your prospects, then 70% of the time you'll get a call back within a day and they'll apologize with an explanation. No call back? Work your pipeline.

Prior to your first cold call, consider sending a personalized video email. Don't pitch. Instead, just put a face to the name and introduce yourself to your prospect. When you follow up, ask your prospect what they thought of the video, its a great ice breaker.