Master Sales Follow-Up: The Key to Closing More Deals
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MJ Cordova:Welcome to the Shark Side. Welcome to Shark Side podcast where quiet discipline meets real results. So we talk a little bit about business. We talk a little bit about sales or whatever we feel like. Today, I was thinking about follow-up.
MJ Cordova:Whether you're a salesperson, whether you are a business owner, follow-up is critical. It is one of the most probably underused sales techniques that can advance your book of business. And so follow-up means something different to everybody. So really realistically, let's talk a little bit of first what that looks like. And there are different stages of follow-up.
MJ Cordova:Right? If I meet a prospect and I want to introduce my company to them or I wanna introduce my product to them, then that follow-up could mean trying to engage conversation through emails, through texts, through calls in order to set an appointment where I can formally present what I do. When I have a proposal out after I've met with someone, then there's a whole another level of follow-up with regard to do I owe them anything else? Do I have questions to answer for them? Or do I just need to follow-up to see, if we're gonna move forward together in the partnership?
MJ Cordova:So when we look at it, we'll kind of start from the beginning of that cycle. But follow-up really is anything that I need to do to take the next step toward having a prospect become a client. When we talk about the sales process in general, what we're really looking at is selling small things at a time. I go into a relationship with the prospect, not thinking about closing the deal, not thinking about signing the contract. What I go into is my first sale is, will you meet with me?
MJ Cordova:Will you give me the opportunity to introduce myself to you? Find out if, this relationship is even a win win for both of us. From there, I need to get a bunch of micro agreements and smaller agreements, small sales, so to speak, in order to move that process forward with the ultimate final sale being having the contract signed or having, having the agreement to move forward. So that being said, really, when we look at follow-up, I usually process it by thinking, okay, what is the message that I'm trying to follow-up with? Just checking in is not necessarily a message.
MJ Cordova:I always want to set expectations on when I follow-up, what does that look like? What is the expectation from you? What's the expectation from me? What are we agreeing that that follow-up looks like? From there, what I want to do is I want to think about the method that I follow-up, text, email, call, carrier pigeon, whatever your whatever your process involves, And then the message.
MJ Cordova:When we're in a world of prospects, and we're looking at moving those people forward in our sales process, even that has multiple stages, because I could have met a complete stranger who I'm introducing to me and my product and or service. And I'm just wanting them to do business with me in the future. There's there's no timeline. There's no expectations. So what does that follow-up look like?
MJ Cordova:I have to vary the method. I don't want to call every time. I don't want to text every time. I don't want to email every time. I want to vary that.
MJ Cordova:And I don't want to use the same message over and over and over again, which would be, you know, hey, I provide this widget or I provide this service. Please think of me in the future. I want to find some way to vary that message every single time that I send it out. It could be a market update one time or a product update one time. It could be a customer testimonial the next time.
MJ Cordova:It could be a industry relevant topic of information the following time. So when I think about that, if I look at there's three methods that I'm going to generally reach out and there's, let's say, four different messages or message themes, I can really take care of a whole year worth of follow-up to a prospect that's in my pipeline at the very highest level, which is not ready to do business, but I need to keep them aware. What's going to happen if I just keep saying checking in, or if I keep sending them generic canned sort of follow-up prospecting emails is they're just gonna tune that out. It just becomes like a commercial on the radio or a commercial on TV, and people are just gonna tune it out. And that's why it's so critical to vary the method and the message.
MJ Cordova:Because when I do that, if I have four different messages over three different methods, what I've done is they really only hear the same thing one time because each message is going to have a different method delivered throughout the year. So I have twelve months of not hearing the same message in the same method of communication, if that makes sense. So that's where I would start at on the prospect level. I'm not on the very high level of entered them into the CRM, and I am just basically, for lack of a better term, drip campaigning them. I am not a huge fan of mass drip campaign emails.
MJ Cordova:I think that for most of us, for most businesses that I work with, for most salespeople that I work with, most real estate agents, most most mortgage loan officers that I work with, the number of people that they have to have in their pipeline actively is usually under 2,000. So if I have 2,000 people in my CRM that I want to try and actively work with, and for argument's sake, let's say all of those are in the high prospect stage, Really, what I'm looking at is if I work fifty weeks, I've got to contact about 40 people a week. If I work five days, that's about eight people a day. If I work eight hours, that's about one person per hour that I have to have a personalized message for and understand what method to send it in. And that's why I say sometimes we get infatuated with big numbers, and we wanna get 2,000 people in our CRM, and we just wanna drip campaign on the same thing over and over and over again.
MJ Cordova:Instead of really looking at how can I personalize this message to the person I'm talking to And how very easily, just by writing notes, how can I vary the method? Do I text them this time? Do I email them this time? Do I call them this time? Now like every other rule, rules are meant to be broken.
MJ Cordova:There's always exceptions to rules. So I'm not saying that a 100% of the time this is the way it works in the real world. I understand. Sometimes you have to make exceptions to that. Sometimes exceptions or sometimes the general rule of mass emailing people works.
MJ Cordova:Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But I'm in general, if I'm trying to nurture these people down to the next stage of the sale, I am much better off having a very customizable message sent in a different method every time. Now, we will find that as we move forward with this, we're going to see that a certain person always responds to email. A certain person always responds to texts. Can see that this person never opens my emails.
MJ Cordova:In which case, again, I will just vary that and I'll take into account. So for certain clients, I may only have two methods because I know they never answer emails. Or I may notice that every single time I send them a text message, they at least give me a thumbs up or they respond in some manner. So I have the opportunity at that point to even further customize that follow-up process. So that's, that's the beginning top end of the funnel.
MJ Cordova:When I get closer to the bottom end of the funnel, what I really find is that all of a sudden, again, I want to make sure that throughout this relationship with client, I understand how they prefer to be communicated with call, text, email. On the bottom end of the funnel, the communication should always be very specific to what our goal was. When I meet with a client and I take them through the sales process, when I get to the point where they're at a decision making time, If they say, I want to think about it, or, you know, I'm going check budget, whatever the case may be, and I've tried to counsel them through any concerns they have, and they truly want me to follow-up, a couple of things that I do in that scenario are number one, I always set a timeframe for the follow-up. Generally, would like that to be within forty eight hours. And sometimes again, the rules are meant to be broken.
MJ Cordova:There's always exceptions. But in general, I shoot for forty eight hours or less. I try to ask the client. Say, hey, understand your situation. You need to think about it.
MJ Cordova:You need to check budget. You need to prepare whatever the case may be. When would you like me to check-in with you? And if they say this afternoon, great, I do it. If they say in the morning, great, I do it.
MJ Cordova:If they say, I'm not sure or, you know, call me in a week, I will try to bring it back to forty eight hours or less and say, hey. Week's a long time. Not sure what my schedule's gonna look like. Not what sure what your schedule's gonna look like. Here's what I will do.
MJ Cordova:I'm going to call you. Today is Wednesday. I'm gonna call you Friday afternoon. If it makes sense, we'll go ahead and set a time to talk again, a week out from today to make sure that you've had time to do whatever you need to do. But I at least wanna check-in with you on Friday to make sure everything's moving forward, see if you have any additional questions or anything I need to prepare for when we talk again next week.
MJ Cordova:That way, I never let that communication go outside of forty eight hours. Again, rules are meant to be broken. I don't have control over whether they say no to that or not, but I'm gonna at least attempt to make a contact and follow-up within that forty eight hours. The other thing I wanna do when I follow-up at the bottom end of the funnel is I want to make sure that I always have a very specific thing that I'm going to follow-up on. So when I call you on Friday, we will discuss x x y z, or you will provide me with x y z, or you will let me know what the budget range is for this project service, whatever a baby widget.
MJ Cordova:So I want to stay in control of the follow-up. The one thing I don't want to do, which is not follow-up is allow the client to say, will call you later this week. I will call you next week. I'll call you when I make a decision. Because we lose all control of it at that point.
MJ Cordova:And so, you know, again, these are the types of things that if somebody says, I'll call you next week. Hey, I know you're busy. I'm busy. I want to make sure that I'm available and have the ability to give you all the attention that you deserve in this situation. How about I pencil you in for Friday afternoon?
MJ Cordova:Let's just touch base. If we need to set a more specific time frame or meeting at that time, we can. If not, you can let me know if you have any other additional questions. Or hey, maybe we'll just wrap it up if everything goes well. Does two or three work better for you?
MJ Cordova:In general, in my process, I like to give people AB options. So when I'm in charge of making that appointment, like I should be, I will say, why don't we follow-up in a couple of days? Does Thursday or Friday work better for you? If they say Friday, I say great. Morning or afternoon?
MJ Cordova:Morning? Great. Looks like I have a ten or eleven available, which works better for you? If they say 10:30, I'll say, yep. I should be able to make that work.
MJ Cordova:If they say, oh, yeah. Neither of those times work. We'll probably have to do Friday afternoon. Awesome. I have one and three, which works better for you.
MJ Cordova:But but try to give them a couple of options, less decisions to make. It's easier for them to do it that way. So we just say Tuesday or Friday Tuesday or Thursday, Friday or Saturday, whatever the two days are, morning or afternoon, couple of times, and that helps you stay in control of that process. You know, we have to understand that while we're trying to build a relationship here, and I want this to be a win win for both of us, Someone has to be in control or it drifts. We are more likely to achieve the outcome that both of us are looking for if it doesn't drift.
MJ Cordova:And then and the only way to prevent that is if somebody's sort of in control, somebody's steering that ship, so to speak. So we really want to be in control. It portrays much more confidence and competence on our part when we're in control. The client will make decisions much easier. And as part of this relationship, all we're really trying to do is help them to make decisions, help them to get to the place that the outcome that they're looking for, whether it's a happiness place or, you know, preventing some sort of tragedy or fear on their part.
MJ Cordova:But we do that much better when we are in control. And that's why this whole follow-up part of it becomes so critical because too many times sales are lost, not during the sales when we're demonstrating capability, but during the follow-up process because we just don't keep it tight enough. We don't have the customer dialed in on specific timeframes to follow-up, but also specific topics. What are we going to do when we follow-up? You know, just telling a customer, I'll follow-up with you on Friday.
MJ Cordova:What are we gonna follow-up on about? I will follow-up with you on with you on Friday. I'll answer any additional questions you might have. If everything looks good, we'll go ahead and take care of you and get you on the schedule, or we'll go ahead and take care of you and get you set up for delivery. We'll go ahead and take care of you and, you know, schedule your first training meeting.
MJ Cordova:What whatever your deal may be, whether it's a, you know, product you sell, whether it's a service you sell. And and this is generally for longer sales cycle stuff because I know that I work with a lot of service industry companies. And in that scenario, there's less follow-up because if your air conditioning needs repair, technician goes out, gives you the price to do the repair. Not a lot of follow-up involved with that. Most people in that scenario, if the price is reasonable, are probably not gonna get three or four other bids because it's just too hot.
MJ Cordova:Same thing if if the water heater is leaking everywhere. But even in those scenarios, if that client does ask you, hey. I'm getting another bid. I'll let you know tomorrow. Same scenario.
MJ Cordova:Hey. No problem at all. Go ahead and check out the other bid. If you'd like me to review it, if there's any differences between the two bids, I'll tell you why mine was different or why I did suggest some something or didn't suggest something that might have been on the other bid. When are you having the other bid done tomorrow?
MJ Cordova:Tomorrow morning? Great. So why don't I follow-up with you tomorrow afternoon? I'll answer any additional questions that you have. If it makes sense, I'll go ahead and get you on schedule at that time.
MJ Cordova:So those are those are the sort of critical components when we look at doing follow-up. As we know through industry statistics, it takes far more follow ups to close the deal than we expect. And in most cases, we have patience for, or discipline for, or even the desire to do. You know, you see studies that say most sales are made between the sixth and the eighth contact. So when you look at that, you really have to be conscious of, as I'm moving people through my funnel, how many times have I contacted them?
MJ Cordova:And the thing that I can't stress enough is that contact is not enough. Hey, checking in is not enough. We have to have a valid reason each and every time that we reach out. So I'll give you a real estate example. If I were a real estate agent, and I were contacting somebody that was in my pipeline, and they said they were, let's say, nine months out, they had, for whatever reason, maybe they're gonna get married.
MJ Cordova:Maybe they're having an additional child. They wanna wait, and then they're gonna look at buying a home at that time. That follow-up sequence should follow their scenario. So it could be, thank you for meeting. That's one touch.
MJ Cordova:The next month, it could be talking about the market itself. Real estate is doing this. Mortgage rates are doing that. The following month, it could be giving them an update on new things that are going on in the city that they're looking to move to, events that are happening in that city. The fourth month, it could go back to how is everything looking on our timeline?
MJ Cordova:Is there anything I need to prepare for? Is there any additional information that you would like about this community or about this city that you're looking to move to? The fifth month, we look at something else. It could be new companies moving into, or new shopping areas being built, things that are relevant to them. So when we think about that, the key to all of this is, we have to leverage a CRM, or we have to leverage some kind of tool that reminds us who we should be calling, who we should be texting, who we should be emailing, what the topic should be.
MJ Cordova:Once you get in the the the groove, once you get the hang of doing this, it becomes very second nature. And, again, remember what I talked about, the 2,000 people, the eight people a day, the one person an hour. You should be able to time block out whether you do all eight in the beginning of the day or you spread them out throughout the day or you do it a couple times a day, four in the morning, four in the afternoon. It is not overwhelming. But you have to be disciplined.
MJ Cordova:You have to be in control, and you have to have a plan for follow-up in the same way that every business owner should have a plan for all components of their business. And I think too many sales tie excuse me. Too many times salespeople don't look at their business like a business. They just look at the daily function of doing sales, and they don't think to themselves, and they're not intentional enough about everything they do, how they prospect, how they plan their prospecting, how they follow-up on those prospects, how they do their presentations, how they follow-up with the customers who they presented to. Small businesses should be doing this.
MJ Cordova:As the business owner, or if you have a sales staff, they should be that process oriented. But salespeople, even if you work for a company, you should take ownership of your process. You should take ownership of all of the things you do on a daily basis and think to yourself, as a business owner, I'm a small business owner as a salesperson. How do I run my business? How do I allocate my time?
MJ Cordova:How do I follow-up? What's the most effective, efficient way to do things so that I can move everyone through my pipeline in an orderly manner? So I hope this helped you guys out a little bit about follow-up, clarified a few things on the way I see it, the way I execute it. As always, out if you have any questions, if you have any topics you would like to see covered on the Shark Side. But for now, it was great being here with you.
MJ Cordova:This is the Shark Side, where quiet discipline meets real results.
Narrator:Thanks for watching. Visit our website and follow us on social for more. Until next time, stay sharp.
