What are your follow up statistics?
It is a classic story. We’ve all heard a version of it.
Here’s my story. We recently remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms in our 1954 mid-century modern. It was an expensive floor-to-ceiling overhaul. We called 7 cabinet makers that we trusted do the work, including a friend who had done great work for us before.
Only 5 called us back to set appointments. Only 4 actually showed up for the appointments. Those 4 contractors, including our contractor friend, spent loads of time measuring, sketching and asking us questions about everything. They also provided detailed 3D plans with their bids.
Only 2 called us after sending the drawings and bids to see if we had questions and if we were ready to get started. One bid was way over our clearly communicated budget and the other came in a little under budget. Guess who won the work? You’re right, the one that listened to our needs and followed up. And sadly to say, it wasn’t our friend. He never called. What? Why would you do hours of work and not spend 2 more minutes and follow up?
Did you know that 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up? And, the average sales person only makes 2 attempts to reach a prospect. Here is the kicker, 80% of sales require 5 follow-up phone calls after the meeting. (source Hubspot) That means nearly half of all salespeople have an 80% chance of not making the sale. It’s no wonder so many salespeople get so discouraged.
How many contracts have you lost because you didn’t follow up?
Here are 6 tips to help you become a follow up fanatic and not a follow up failure.
These are just a few ways to improve your follow up. You can Google tips for sales follow up and you will see many more ideas. The key is to apply some of the ideas and improve our follow up skills. The costs to follow up are inexpensive compared to the huge financial losses if you don’t.
Oh, and I finally talked to my cabinet-maker friend a few months after my project was complete. I asked him why he never called us. He said he didn’t want to be pushy and thought maybe we didn’t like his design and that we found someone else. How would he every know if he didn’t call? He was our first choice but lost the job because he never followed up to ask for the work. I hope he never makes that mistake again.
Feel free to share what you do to be the master of follow up.
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