The magic sales ingredient you’ve likely forgotten all about
It’s so tempting isn’t it? To download yet another ‘freebie with’ some magic sales scripts offering to increase your pipeline overnight. Side note: we are working an amazing set of sales support tools that we find helpful no matter your sales experience. You can come and get first dibs on them over here, no strings, promise. It’s super easy to think there must be an easier way to get more clients in the door. Maybe the google ad words need tweaking? Do we need another special this month? My Facebook reach needs to lift!
But here’s what we’ve seen to be true, time and time again in (mostly service) industries. Tenacity and a bit of discipline will get you more than google ad words or social media posts ever will.
Following up and follow through. Oh, I know, this isn’t sexy sales stuff at all. In fact, it’s a bit boring and requires just a little bit of work.
But you and I, we’re not strangers to work, are we?
When was the last time you heard back from someone when they said they’d get back to you? Rare as bloody hen’s teeth that is. And yet, it’s the easiest thing, as a salesperson you can do (and yes, if you’re in business, you’re in sales, sorry, sunshine).
We’ve coached people in sales for decades. And this is, without fail, the low hanging fruit that is the easiest (and hardest) thing to change. So don’t beat yourself up, remember that to err is to be human.
Below are our top tips for making follow up and follow through part of your weekly rhythm – see which ones will suit you best and have fun with them!
- Sort your paperwork out. Stop having 100 slips of paper with to do lists scattered all over the floor. If you’re in business, start taking your customers seriously, no matter where they’re at in their lifecycle. Customers come first (well, after your people, but that’s a whole other story we will talk about another time). Let’s think of it this way. If you don’t have customers, you don’t have revenue. No revenue = no business. So, however your customers come to you, have ONE system to capture that information, and where they’re at in their sales journey with you.
- Return calls!!! This one is so simple it makes the mind boggle. But seriously, we can’t tell you how many businesses over the years have missed out on working with us because they couldn’t even be bothered to return a call. By not returning a call, you signal to your customer right from the start how much you’re going to value them. In a trade? Use a diary, book or an app like Trello, One Note, Google Keep or even just a running notes doc of all the customers you need to call back who’ve left messages while you’ve been on the go. Then, to book mark your day, make sure you call those customers back (or, if after hours, book it in for first thing in the morning to return those calls).
- In case I’m not being clear: Voice mails are revenue. They are NOT a nuisance!
- Stop making it harder than it needs to be. We have spoken with so many clients who are trying to work multiple systems and tools to keep track of clients. Many times, the easiest thing of all is to use excel and just keep it simple.
- If it’s not your job, delegate it. If you suck at returning calls, delegate it. If you have a shabby phone voice and sound as exciting as Great Aunt Mildred with her teeth out, delegate it. Picking up on the theme? Either get someone in your team who ROCKS on the phone to take the lead on follow up and customer pipeline OR work to find an awesome VA who can help you with that. You’d be amazed how cost effective this can be and having someone with a great phone manner can make ALL the difference in your sales conversion rates.
- Diarise follow ups and be consistent. Over the years, we’ve won many a client over because we kept following up when everyone else had stopped trying. You have to remember where you sit in the priority of your client’s life and follow up accordingly. *So, if you’re a plumber, and they were ringing about a blocked drain, odds are they want that sorted within a few days– so following up within an hour or two, and then again, the next day is solid. Ringing two weeks later makes you look like a twit. If however, you’re a web developer and someone is thinking about a new website, well that decision is for longer and is less of a priority. Here, following up weekly and then monthly makes more sense, and then after a couple of months you might drop it to bi-monthly. Book it in your diary and DON’T shirk the call when the reminder comes up.
- Post Sales follow up. This one is so big it’s got it’s own set of resources to help you which we are working on, so check back soon for more ideas another day and remember, the sale doesn’t not stop with the sale!!!! Clients are more likely to come back or recommend you if you treat them well after the bill has been paid.
Let us know how you got on!
– Cheering for your success & sending great sale vibes your way, Alana
