What if I told you it takes 15-16 touchpoints just to book your first meeting?
What if you realized that 80% of deals are closed after the 5th sales follow up?
It’s easy to forget that other people are often busy and consumed with their work and daily tasks that they simply forget about us.
No response doesn’t mean no; it could simply mean that the other person got sidetracked with other priorities. That doesn’t mean you should give up. It means you must be more proactive, it means you must follow up.
A passive salesperson that waits for a response when they have only sent 1-2 messages won’t be successful. Read along to learn four practical ways you can implement and refine your post-meeting follow-up process.
4 Ways to Maximize the Effectiveness of Your Sales Follow-Up Process
Tip #1: Ask For The Follow Up
At the end of your initial meeting, ask your prospect what the next steps are and what the expected timeline will look like.
For example, if they mentioned they will meet with their team on Tuesday to discuss your product, you can ask if you can follow-up with them Wednesday. This way, the next steps are laid out and you have their permission to check in again. Even if they don’t respond, you now have the right to try again.
Tip #2: Use A CRM
Organize your follow-up tasks in a CRM system. There are plenty to choose from, but we use Hubspot.
After you complete a follow-up task, we suggest creating a new task 2-3 days after your last follow-up. Organizing these tasks in a CRM system is a great way to not fall behind on this process, track how many follow-ups you’ve made, and the dates you made them on.
Tip #3: Multi-Channel Follow Ups
A good rule of thumb is to follow up for a minimum of 7 times before you send them your final message to call it quits.
Ideally, you should try following up on multiple different channels, such as LinkedIn, email and by phone.
Once you have done this about 7 times and you still don’t receive your desired response, you can then consider setting up a new follow-up task to check in with them again in a few months.
Tip #4: Personalize Your Sales Follow Up
It is so crucial to take good detailed notes during your presentation so you have the right information to personalize your follow-ups with later.
The two main pieces you should focus on are your prospects’ pain points, and the part in your presentation that stood out the most to them.
With this information noted, you can mention them in your follow-ups so your prospect is reminded of why they need to touch base with you again.
We want to emphasize that regardless of how successful your first meeting with your prospect was, the post-meeting sales follow up process is just as important in the journey towards their purchasing decision.
Make sure you nurture each touchpoint with your prospect, maximizing the effectiveness of your follow-up system as part of your sales process.
Apply these four tips today and see how they impact your success.
If you are a founder or CEO, you may already be consumed with other tasks and responsibilities on your plate. Organizing a series of follow-ups is the last thing you have time for.
Luckily, there are specialized professionals who can handle your follow-ups for you. Contact us if this is something we can help take off your plate.
