You are listening to the art of sales.
Everyone sells every day, and this is your source for conversational, real-world sales
and prospecting methods that you are comfortable using and that get results.
You'll help people buy instead of pushing them into being sold.
Here's your host, Art Subject.
I was talking to a friend on the golf course the other day, and the guy's owner of a company,
and he was telling me about a sales rep for a software company who had spent a significant amount of time
with the prospect doing some discovery, finally putting together a fairly detailed proposal
and said it to my buddy, again the president of the company, who had some genuine interest,
and he was a buyer for this type of software, and then my friend said that crickets,
the guy never followed up, and of course my friend wasn't going to reach out to him
because he said that, well I figured that if the guy wasn't going to follow up with me,
what in the world would happen if there were some problems with the software in the future?
Now the only thing worse than no follow up is a bad follow up, and that's what today's episode is about
and what we should be doing on our follow up call.
So let's look at where most follow up calls die, and that's right at the beginning.
That's with our opening statement.
Our follow up opening should serve to smoothly bring the prospect state of mind back to the point
where it was when we ended the previous conversation.
The opening should not ask for a decision, such as calling to see if you're ready to buy now,
should not be simply reactive, and I was just checking to see if you had any questions,
it should not be a quality control test of their email or whatever delivery system they use,
such as, hey, why don't you see if you received the proposal I sent.
So your follow up call needs to be based upon an objective for this call.
When you think about it logically, there must have been some reason why you've agreed to follow up, right?
If not, this might be a sign you're getting a brush off from a lot of people,
causing you to waste time chasing shadows.
For example, if somebody says, well, just give me a call back in about six weeks.
So good reasons for follow up include they were to do something between the last call
and the scheduled follow up that would make this call worthwhile, or some future event would take place
that would make the follow up more appropriate, such as a new budget year beginning.
Your opening needs to bring them into a conversation that readresses the hot points
that was driving their interest on the last call, and also serves to move the process closer
to the action that you want them to take, which ultimately should be the sale, right?
All right, so what is the great follow up opening format?
Well, here we go.
Step number one is your identification.
Now, the less the familiarity, the more formality, say that 10 times fast, with the beginning, your identification.
If you've only spoken once, first and last names and your company should be included.
If you're well acquainted, you be the judge as to what sounds appropriate.
Second step is the bridge.
Now, again, you want to bring them back to a point that they were in emotionally when you ended the previous call.
You often need to remind them of their interest and the previous call, because they probably didn't do as much pre-call planning for this call as you did.
So we can use words like, I'm calling to continue our conversation from two weeks ago, or I'd like to pick up where we left off.
I'm calling to resume our discussion.
Then mention what their main interest was, where we went through the savings you'd show with internal management of your...
And then step number three is the agenda for this call.
This part needs to be proactive, for example.
I'd like to go through the material that I sent you to point out the specific cost-cutting features that apply to your situation.
Other proactive words and phrases here would include discuss, analyze, cover, review, go through.
Remember, you're not calling to just check in or hit them with a goofy question like, well, what do you think?
Are you ready now?
Oh, and you should also bring something new to the table.
Something value added, another reason for this call beyond what was covered last time.
This way, if their interest has waned a little bit since the last contact, and or they didn't follow through with what they said they do, which happens, right?
You still have a basis for continuing this tact, for example.
Oh, and I also did some research, and I came up with a few other examples of something that you showed interest in the last time we spoke about how other engineering firms have used this process.
All right, so the opening is a small, but very important part of your follow-up call.
When it's well prepared and executed, it takes them to the next phase of the call, which is your questioning.
Now, I've covered follow-up before in this podcast, and I will have links to those listed on our show site, which is TheArtOfSales.com.
TheArtOfSales.com, and this episode is 258.
So if you're listening to this at some point in the future, way in the future, you can just go to the search bar over there to the right, and then put in episode 258, and then you get the links.
And also, I'm going to put there a link to some very specific training just on follow-up calls.
And that is a premium training, meaning there is a price for it, and if you're interested in taking that to the next level, there'll be a link to that there as well.
All right, hey, you know what time it is?
♪ You ran into the B.I.N. ♪ ♪ Never will you never feel what they say ♪
♪ It's the art of the sales ♪
♪ The quote of the day ♪
That's right, it's time for the quote of the day. Today's quote comes from Albert Hubbard, and it is related to follow-up, and Albert's quote is a little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless.
Failure may turn to glorious success.
Thank you so much for investing your valuable sales time with me today. Until next time, go out and make it your best sales day ever.
I'm Art Subcheck.
♪♪♪♪