Every salesperson craves fresh leads, new prospects, and invigorating conversations. These are the lifeblood of any robust sales pipeline, offering endless opportunities for new business. However, one critical aspect often gets neglected: effective follow-up.
If you examine your overall contact strategy, consider these points:
- Are Your Messages Customer-Centric? Count the instances of “I” versus “you” in your communications. Your outreach should focus on the prospect, not on you.
- Avoid the “Just Checking In” Trap: How often do you send these non-productive messages?
- Provide Value at Every Stage: Are you genuinely helping the prospect at each step, or just going through the motions?
- Clear Next Steps: Do all your leads, prospects, or even active customers have a clearly defined next step?
Most sales strategies falter at these points, particularly the last one. However, these are common pitfalls and understanding them is the first step to improvement.
What Constitutes Effective Follow-Up?
Effective follow-up involves a strategic sequence of actions and messages, refined over time, tailored to each stage of the customer journey. It’s about deploying the right message at the ideal time for your prospect.
Re-evaluate Your Follow-Up Approach
I challenge you to scrutinize your follow-up process or that of your team. Is it meaningful, or just a series of tasks to boost activity reports? This isn’t a critique of salespeople’s intentions but an observation of how overwhelming and disappointing sales can be without a solid follow-up strategy. Poor follow-up often leads to blaming the leads or perpetually seeking fresh ones. Yet, the real potential often lies in your existing database—if only the follow-up were executed well.
Think of Sales as a Continuous Loop
Sales processes are often visualized as linear, moving chronologically forward. In reality, customers may not follow this linear path. For instance, if a promising prospect stops responding, the typical reaction is to chase them with follow-up messages like:
“Hey Mike, it’s Julie from ABC Company. Just checking in on the proposal I sent. Do you have any questions?”
However, a more effective approach might consider changes in the prospect’s situation:
“Hey Mike, it’s Julie from ABC. We were moving forward on a proposal last month. Since we haven’t taken action, I assume something has changed on your end. I’d love to revisit our discussion and share new insights if your priorities have shifted. Let’s reconnect and explore some ideas.”
This message shows empathy and readiness to adapt, aligning with the customer’s agenda rather than pushing your own. By allowing customers to move forward, backward, or out of the pipeline as needed, you gain a more accurate forecast of customer success.
Sales Follow-Up Goals
When following up, aim to:
- Move Prospects Forward: If they are ready, advance them in the sales process.
- Disqualify When Necessary: If they are not a good fit, move them out.
- Re-engage Stalling Prospects: Sometimes, moving them backward to re-engage is necessary.
Translating Follow-Up into Action
Effective follow-up is about “doing your future self a favor.” Every sales organization needs a well-defined pipeline with clear customer stages and a constantly tested contact strategy. Your goal is to know where your prospect is at any moment and have a clear plan to advance them.
Follow these steps for efficient follow-up:
- Predefined Game Plan: Have a specific message and strategy for each prospect segment and stage.
- Personalize Your Follow-Up: Use your pre-call planning and notes to tailor your approach.
- Execute Your Follow-Up: Follow through with the planned actions.
- Document Everything: Take detailed notes after each interaction.
- Set Up Next Steps: Based on your plan, schedule the next follow-up.
- Move On: Once done, proceed to the next prospect on your list.
This approach ensures that each active lead has a follow-up strategy set for success. Instead of sitting in your sales “buckets,” waiting for attention, your leads will have a clear path forward. When you revisit them, your notes and plans will be ready, making your job easier and more efficient. This method keeps you in a productive “sales flow,” minimizing time spent on preparation and maximizing time spent on productive activities.