Are you consistently following up with your leads and prospects?

What do you do when you’ve sent through an email or a proposal, or you’re waiting for someone to get back to you… and they just don’t? The most common follow up problem I see in business is that people aren’t following up consistently or they’re not doing it at all. Most people will follow up once or maybe twice and then stop. Whether it’s because they don't want to be seen as ‘badgering’ someone or ‘pestering’ them, or they think that person is going to get annoyed, most people are just not following up enough.

 Just because they aren't messaging you doesn't mean they're just avoiding you.

 A real big thing that people don't get is that just because someone isn’t talking to you, doesn’t mean they must be avoiding you. Think about it from your own perspective. We're all getting sold to all the time, there are probably people whom you know that are in the same shoes. They’ve sent you something and you just haven't messaged them back!

 In your mind, you're probably just not ready to do anything yet. You are keen, maybe somewhere down the line, but at the moment you’re just too busy doing your own stuff... because you’re a business owner, right? You’re trying to run a business, you don't have spare time to then go and do extra stuff…

 See?

 You've always got to remember - just because they haven't replied to you, or said anything, doesn't mean it's a cold lead, it just hasn't gone anywhere. If someone is just trying to avoid you, they might ignore you a couple of times, but after the fourth or fifth follow up they'll get the hint and say something like, “Sorry, we've gone in a different direction.”

 Follow up is your duty, it’s just good service.

 Until that person says, ‘No’, it is your duty to follow up. You're offering that person a good service. They've expressed interest in something you do, and you're following up to make sure that they do or don't want it.

 If I’ve sent a proposal, I would have touched base with you three times after that - within a week. The day after, three days later, seven days later, and then the next one's 14 days later. If it's been more than a week since you contacted them, then you’re doing your prospect a disservice if you're not following up with them.

 For the people who say, I don’t want to be annoying, well, honestly, you can either be what you perceive as annoying or you just don't get the business. Thinking that people will come back to you without you following up is ridiculous. If I put myself in the shoes of a prospect getting those follow up emails, I'm happy to receive them. I think it's good service by the salesperson who's doing it. And if I don't want something, I'm confident enough in myself to say, “Sorry, I'm not interested.”

 Your easy, low hanging fruit is at stake if you don’t follow up.

 You spend massive amounts of money and time acquiring prospects and leads and by not following up properly, you could be letting a huge percentage of those people slip through the cracks. The worst part about it is that the percentage of leads that slip through the cracks will go and buy from someone else who does follow up at the right time.

 If you think about the act of sending a follow-up, it costs $0; it's free to send an email or make a call. Just by doing that one thing a few times, you can close a percentage more deals every year. Your cost of acquisition will drop dramatically so you’ll have more revenue but also be able to put more money back into marketing.

 Touch base to give more value rather than always selling.

 Following up with people isn't just constantly spamming them, “Are you gonna buy? Are you gonna buy it?” You don’t always have to be trying to sell, it can be just checking in or touching base, “Are there any other questions? What else can I do?” You're not pestering them, you’re just giving them that friendly reminder that “Hey, I'm here if you need me.”

 A lot of follow-ups at The Attention Seeker are just giving people more value, giving them more tools, or touching base to see how we can help them or support them. Even just asking them how things are or to say Merry Christmas. Those touchpoints are really crucial and go a long way to building a relationship and trust.

 If you keep it simple, just a few lines so it’s short and brief, you're not wasting a lot of their time and quite often you’ll find that you’ve sent an email just at the right time. It might be seven months down the track but they say, “Hey Stan, let's have a chat. I’ve just been so swamped the last six months, but now it's a good time.”

 Managing your follow up - find a system that works for you.

 If you don't have massive volumes of prospects, or even if you do, you can use a spreadsheet to track when your follow-ups need to be sent. You just have to be quite meticulous about keeping the spreadsheet up to date. For people with high volume sales, high volume leads, you’ve probably got a CRM that will do it for you.

 Not sure where to start? Here are three easy things you can do straight away to drop your cost of acquisition and increase your revenue:

1.  Set up a follow-up schedule based on what you think is appropriate for you and your business.

 Your first step is to ask yourself what does that look like? How many emails are you going to do and when are you going to do them? Your first email might be a 24 hour follow up - that's always a good idea after you send a proposal. Even better is to have a meeting booked at the qualifying call stage where you go through the proposal together. This is something I learned recently from Sales Coach Alex McNaughten and it has made a huge difference to our business.

 For example, my schedule is 24 hours follow up, three day follow up, seven day follow up, 14 day follow up, then 30, 60, 90, and then 30 days from then on.

 2. Write templated emails for each follow up so that you've got somewhere to start from.

For each of the follow-ups in your sequence, write a templated email so you're not having to start from scratch every time you send that follow up email. Doing the pre-work means you’re not having to think of it on the fly and it will save you time as well.

3. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone.

Email follow-ups are great to make sure you're staying on top of things, but picking up the phone and talking to someone is still a really important part of business. Even with the world we are in today, people still appreciate calls.

If you ring someone on a mobile and they don't pick up - just send them a text afterwards and say, “Oh hey, it's just Stan here from The Attention Seeker. Just give me a call if you want otherwise, we'll talk to you later.”

Just a short text so they know who it is. A lot of people won’t answer if they don’t know the number these days, especially Gen Y.

Obviously, there is so much more to sales and following up then what was in this email and there are a plethora of ways to skin the cat. But if you aren’t even doing a proper follow-up process then just get back to the basics and do the work and things will change for you overnight.

If your problem is more qualifying calls, that’s where The Attention Seeker comes in.

Get in touch if you want to chat about driving more qualified leads.

Stanley Henry

Misfit | Dreamer | MD

The Attention Seeker | LinkedIn & B2B Marketing Agency