Your playing small does not serve the world
April 23, 2010If Your Marketing is Not Working Then Be Careful You Don’t Blame the Messenger
April 27, 2010When thinking about your customer acquisition strategies, do you have a specific strategy for following up with potential, new customers if they have said ‘No’ or ‘Not right now’ or ‘I’d like to think about it’? It always surprises me how few businesses have systems or approaches to following up with potential customers who were not quite ready to buy when you met them.
When you take into account the number of different personality types and buying styles that exist among individuals and the number of decision-making systems that exist within organisations, I am always surprised how little attention is paid to this area, particularly when a business has spent a considerable amount of time and effort opening up the relationship.
So, I was thinking…..why isn’t follow up used by everyone? Here are a number of possible reasons:
- There’s a fine line between being seen as pushy and nurturing a relationship. If you follow up too aggressively or too frequently then there is a danger that you will be regarded as being pushy. However, as mentioned above, different people make decisions in different ways so following up at an agreed time or to an agreed frequency is one way of proving that you do care about the potential customer and are willing to put the effort in.
- Your business is too focused on finding new leads and instant sales. If you’re just focused on finding new leads and instant sales then there is a huge opportunity to expend less effort and get much better results by following up on old leads.
- You forget. Forgetting to follow up if you have agreed to or not is inexcusable. It’s a bit like going on a date and then not calling afterwords even if only to say ‘thank you’. If forgetfulness is your challenge then you need to get organised and get a system (CRM, diary note or spreadsheet etc) to help you remember.
- They assume they know the mind of the potential client. Sometimes things happen that prevent you from following up when we are supposed to like illness or computer problems. This can mean that a follow up call is missed and there is a great danger that if missed then we can assume that we have missed our chance. However, that assumes that the potential client will not forgive the slight error if you call, explain and apologise. Assumptions about someone else’s mind can be dangerous.
- They didn’t call back so they don’t want to buy from us. Just because someone doesn’t call you back doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Usually our customers are busy people getting tens of calls and hundreds of emails per day so don’t assume that they don’t want to buy if they don’t call you back.
- That’s an old lead, they’re bound to have bought from someone else. Going through your old sales leads or customer enquiries can be a great way of building up a set of new client accounts. Remember, many things happen in business every day and there is no guarantee that that potential client has actually bought, may be ready to buy now or if they have bought may not have been happy the first time and are looking for a different supplier. In this sense, we make our own luck.
You can see from the above that there are many reasons why firms don’t follow up with potential customers but there is only one reason why your business should be following up and that is: Most firms don’t follow up and that’s why you should. It’s an easy to differentiate yourself from your competition by making the effort to follow-up with your prospects and customers. Don’t take it for granted that they will call you. Be proactive and contact them. Persistence pays.
One final point on follow up. In order to mange your list of follow ups that you need to make, always have a set of rules about how many times and you will follow up without hearing back from a potential client so that you do not spend a large amount of time chasing ghosts.
Do you have an example of a time when you followed up and secured a new piece of business when you thought it was initially lost?
Thanks to thadz for the photo
10 Comments
When acquiring customers create your own luck by always following up @ http://bit.ly/9URPGc
Adrian, a great post here. Too often business fail to capture the gold that’s in “them there hills”, it just needs unearthing. A very useful reminder.
Personally I capture all my leads and follow up with general information tailored to their needs.
.-= Matthew Needham´s last blog ..How to grow your business (part 2) =-.
When acquiring customers create your own luck by always following up http://bit.ly/bhwmg7
Food for thought from @adrianswinscoe RT @6aliens: When acquiring customers create your own luck by always following up http://bit.ly/bhwmg7
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for the comment. Apologies for the late reply as I have been away on holiday.
I agree that following up with relevant info is always better than following up with a general hello.
Adrian
Adrian, you put forth one of the key differentiators between a good and a great salesperson. Follow up, nit only in Sales, can be the key differentiator between services/products.
I recently followed up with a Lead that was almost a year old. They didn’t buy from us at the time because our data coverage was not enough for them. I had promised that we’d get to the level in about a years time. I had a note to revert back to my prospect at a specified date, and I did. It turned out to be a fruitful conversation, and led to another round of evaluation.
Sadly, they still didn’t go ahead, but he sure was pleased that I remembered and got back in touch. If nothing else, I’m sure to get a good word of mouth for the company. 🙂
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Hi Gaurav,
Thanks for your comment and story about the value of following up. You clearly show the benefit of following up.
Adrian
Hi Adrian, I think you raise some very valid points. It’s so important for businesses to follow up with clients. One of the reasons new business owners don’t actually do this is because they are so busy with the tactical elements of the business that they lose track of their time and organizational skills. Tara Dalrymple recently wrote a great article for us on the O2 Ideas Room blog about managing your clients and keeping a track of the ones you have. I think it’s something you and your readers would be interested in.
Thanks for the post,
Elaine
Hi Elaine,
Thanks for stopping by and your comment. I agree that many people get caught up with the ‘noise’ of the day and forget about following up.
I’ll certainly head over to check out Tara’s post. Thanks for pointing this out.
Adrian