PrintEmail

A lot of businesses sell services – the only problem is, most of the time when you are ready to sell your service to a prospect ... your prospect is not ready to buy.

So what do you do?

Switched on businesses have a marketing process where they funnel their prospects through and keep in touch with them until they are ready to buy, right? Yeah right!

95% of businesses don’t follow a process, and most businesses fall down when it comes to “The Follow Up”

The reasons for this vary but you will find the following culprits:

• You get busy
• The newer leads are more alluring offering more instant promise
• You don’t have a system, a process or a structured approach to following up.

This is pretty dismal - however it's going to be great for you because you are going to read this and give your business a competitive advantage. The whole reason you have a marketing funnel, database and a process is so you can control, measure and execute your “Follow Up “activity.

And smart Businesses know that they keep following up until either the prospect is ready to buy, dies or says … "Go away!"

Here are some examples of some basic “Follow Up” tactics:

• When you are at a networking event or business related function don’t be a prolific ‘card grabber’. Relax and gather cards of people who you think you may be able to assist in the future. This may be help as in providing them products or help as in connecting them with a potential customer or snippet of information. Email them the same night or next day and suggest a catch up. Stay in touch with them at least every 90 days and ensure that you are giving (information, referrals, help).
• If someone gives you a lead, ask them to do an email intro for you or introduce you personally. A great way to break the ice and an easy way to start a relationship on a credible trustworthy level and a good way of ensuring your “follow up”.
• If you are still at the stage of sending out letters of introduction as a prelude to a cold call only send a couple a day.
• Follow up in a reasonable timeframe, e.g. 3-6 days. Don’t send out too many as you will get busy and wont follow up. Never forget to follow up, it's bad form.
• Calendar and systemise your follow-up calls. Put time aside in your to do list or calendar along with the names and numbers of those you are calling. Do it every day. Make it a habit. Get a good small business coach to assist you with putting in a good follow up programme and holding you accountable.

So the Golden Rule for businesses selling services is not to let any customer, supplier, prospect or past customer go more than 90 days without hearing from you, whether that be a call, email, postcard, or smoke signal! If you sell services, following up should be an integral part of your business day. If you work for 200 days per year and follow up with 5 people a day that’s 1000 more on your database this time next year.

Start implementing a Follow Up programme today as part of your operations and I promise you will see excellent results if done systematically, regularly and religiously!