Sales Techniques: Are You Following-up?

The ugly truth is that most salespeople have poor or non-existent follow-up. And you have all kinds of excuses for why you don't do it. Let’s take a look at them, and you’ll begin to understand that a lot of your sales struggles are the result of your behaviors rather than your skills.

You collect leads at trade shows, networking events, tips groups, etc. and you never contact the people whose card you have in your possession. These are people that you’ve either personally met, or they’ve been referred to you yet you don’t contact them. Why?

Are you just lazy, or do you undervalue these leads? Perhaps a little of both, but mostly you undervalue the leads. And you do that because they haven’t specifically told you they’re ready to buy now.

What a waste! Has it ever occurred to you that you’re actually offending these people? You’re correct in that they may not be ready to buy now, but you certainly want to be first in line when they are, and that’s never going to happen if you can’t even follow-up with them.

One of the biggest reasons you don’t follow-up is because you don’t have a system for following-up. And that’s nothing more than a lame excuse. Developing an automatic follow-up system is one of the easiest no brainer things you can do.

And don’t tell me you don’t have time because that’s another lame excuse. You have plenty of time to run down and chase after all kinds of suspects who’ll probably never buy from you, so you can fit time in your schedule to develop and implement a follow-up system. And that is your job not the companies or anyone else’s.

You’re afraid you might offend someone. So what, get over it. If someone is offended because you connect with them to provide value that’s their problem not yours and it isn’t worth you spending time worrying about it. Plus you have nothing to lose they certainly won’t ever be a sale for you if you can’t even follow-up with them.

You aren’t persistent. Lack of persistence is a real killer. Think of when you really wanted something, like when you were a kid. How many times did your Mom or Dad say “no”, yet you persisted in asking until they said “yes”. The same thing is true in the grown up world. You just have to figure out how to ask.