Follow Up – Follow Up – Follow Up

Selling is more often a process than an event.

Over the years I have seen many sales people become super successful.  Unfortunately I have also seen many sales people not achieve their dreams and goals only to turn back to a non-sales career that left them wishing for more out of their jobs… and more financial success for their families.

One of the key components that I have seen consistently in those who are successful in sales is their understanding and discipline to follow up with prospects.

In the employee benefit arena – I always taught that it took an average of 3-5 attempts to get your appointment scheduled with a decision maker.  Thus, I encouraged my sales team to function like a machine.  “If you go into a business once – continue to go into that business until you get a “yes”, a “no”, or you make 3-5 attempts before you even consider moving on and leaving them behind.”[lightbox link=”http://jeffcwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/follow-up.jpg” thumb=”http://jeffcwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/follow-up.jpg” width=”300″ align=”right” title=”follow up” frame=”true” icon=”image” caption=””]

The sad truth about sales people is that roughly half (50%) make only one attempt to schedule an appointment with a decision maker.  If that attempt fails, they move on.

That results in two equally problematic issues.

1. Those sales people burn up the marketplace for their product or service because of so many customer contacts that result in nothing more than a cold call
2. Those sales people usually don’t last – creating tremendous turnover in the industry

The importance of mechanized and disciplined follow up cannot be over emphasized.

Michael Boyette had a great article on this recently that I thought you would enjoy!