Follow Up This is one in a series of articles on approaches to enhancing sales performance. The articles include presentation skills, cold calling, closing, questioning skills, territory management, progressing the sales and many others.
Follow Up after your presentation One of the hardest things to feel good about is the prospect who ignores your calls after you have sent you quote or presented your proposal.
There are a multitude of reasons but here are a few:
There is a genuine reason like company is merging, large loss is about to be announced, the Prime Decision Maker is waiting for one more quote etc
OR
You failed to do your job well leading up to and including the proposal: - You failed to understand the Prime Buying Motive
- You didn’t eliminate, overcome or uncover an objection.
- You allowed price to become the only issue.
- You didn’t understand the character type you presented to and therefore failed to develop rapport.
- You didn’t identify your competition and therefore didn’t highlight your Unique Selling Propositions that would have reduced the competitions chance of winning the business.
- You have tried to follow up too much or too little since the presentation.
- You failed to eliminate of residual problems at the end of your presentation.
- You failed to organise the roadmap for the follow up after the proposal
Here is an example of a dialogue that will reduce some of the uncertainty by helping to eliminate residual problems and organising a roadmap
Salesperson: "Is there anything else at all you can think of that needs to be discussed before I prepare the proposal?"
Prospect: "No. We've covered everything."
Salesperson: "I can have the proposal with you in two days. When you read it, if it contains everything we discussed today, what will you do?" Prospect: "I'm ready to roll. If you write it up as we've agreed, I'll get John to sign it, and we'll get going." Salesperson: "How long will it take for you and John to get it back to me?" Prospect: "You'll have the proposal by the end of next week." Salesperson: "Okay. If I don't hear from you by the middle of the following week, is it okay if I give you a call?" Prospect: "Don't worry. You'll hear from us." Salesperson: "I don't doubt that. However, I never leave any situation on the table without establishing my next step, because that way I never drop the ball. So, if I don't hear from you by the middle of the following week, I'll call. Okay?" Prospect: "Sure! No problem." Follow up Tips To eliminate one of the most stressful aspects of selling, always establish your next step, so if your prospect does drop the ball, you're covered. This will not only eliminate stress, it will establish you as a consummate professional and create relationships based on mutual respect.
A Holistic Solution to the problem
Usual Approach Most salespeople undertake little or no qualification process via the phone. They go to visit the prospect, open up their literature, and go into an automatic canned presentation. Afterwards, they ask the prospect what he or she thinks about the products and then ask if it’s okay to send a quote on the products in which he or she just expressed interest. Suggested Approach Visit the prospect after you have pre-qualified him or her on the fact that he or she has a need, has provided a time frame, has the authority and how much money he or she has allocated for it.
Selling is all about relationships with Trust. When you visit, introduce yourself using greetings and language appropriate to their character style and then ask about needs. When you listen to the prospect's needs and show them you are listening by rephrasing the needs and problems for confirmation then you will build trust. Remember to not dwell on what you offer while you listen to the needs.
Now customize your solution to his or her needs. Now that the prospect will be listening to you because you understood their needs and built trust and rapport. Make sure you organise a roadmap for the follow up if the client isn't ready to sign on the day or you must complete your proposal later. Follow up after the meeting with a quick phone call thanking the prospect and let them know you are putting together a preliminary proposal and would like him or her to review it before you complete the final version. The preliminary proposal should include key words that were discussed during the meeting, such as the timeline and specific quantities and dates. Have the prospect review it and make comments. Integrate those comments into the final proposal. Get the final proposal to your prospect quickly and set up a meeting to verbally review the proposal together. Then close the sale at the end of reviewing the proposal.
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