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Are you letting your leads get away?
Following up with our leads and our customers is such a business basic and yet so many businesses, especially smaller ones with less employees, struggle with effective ways to keep up to date with their client leads.
According to the National Sales Executive Association:
2% of sales are made on the 1st contact
3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact
5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact
10% of sales are made on the 4th contact
80% of sales are made on the 5th-12th contact
Pretty amazing - are you following up 5-12 times after you meet someone? How many business people go to a networking function, make connections with some people and then exchange business cards? If you're like me, once you've collected a few leads at an event you feel a sense of accomplishment. But if those sales statistics above are true, than if I go back to my office and just wait for them to call me I'm probably not going to hear from them again and all that time I spent networking was basically wasted.
I describe it like a TV commercial. The first time you see a commercial you might physically be viewing it, but as far as engraining the product or message in your head, it probably won't happen after that first viewing. But after you've seen the commercial three or four times, it starts to stick in your head. And finally, after the commercial has been on TV for a few days, weeks, and months I now may actually go to the store to seek out that product. But it takes awhile for that new commercial to bubble up in my consciousness over all the other "noise" and messages I'm bombarded with during my favorite show.
Same thing for networking your business. We are our own TV commercials without the sitcom or reality show to hold our target audience's attention. We need to come up with a cohesive follow up strategy that will "touch" our leads regularly so we can stay in their consciousness. To do this we need to think about what vehicles will grab our potential customers' attention (phone call, email, newsletter, direct mail, radio ad, and so on) and what promotions and messages are meaningful to them. Regardless of what follow up system you decide to use, you must implement a consistent system so your customers don't fall through the cracks.
According to the National Sales Executive Association:
2% of sales are made on the 1st contact
3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact
5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact
10% of sales are made on the 4th contact
80% of sales are made on the 5th-12th contact
Pretty amazing - are you following up 5-12 times after you meet someone? How many business people go to a networking function, make connections with some people and then exchange business cards? If you're like me, once you've collected a few leads at an event you feel a sense of accomplishment. But if those sales statistics above are true, than if I go back to my office and just wait for them to call me I'm probably not going to hear from them again and all that time I spent networking was basically wasted.
I describe it like a TV commercial. The first time you see a commercial you might physically be viewing it, but as far as engraining the product or message in your head, it probably won't happen after that first viewing. But after you've seen the commercial three or four times, it starts to stick in your head. And finally, after the commercial has been on TV for a few days, weeks, and months I now may actually go to the store to seek out that product. But it takes awhile for that new commercial to bubble up in my consciousness over all the other "noise" and messages I'm bombarded with during my favorite show.
Same thing for networking your business. We are our own TV commercials without the sitcom or reality show to hold our target audience's attention. We need to come up with a cohesive follow up strategy that will "touch" our leads regularly so we can stay in their consciousness. To do this we need to think about what vehicles will grab our potential customers' attention (phone call, email, newsletter, direct mail, radio ad, and so on) and what promotions and messages are meaningful to them. Regardless of what follow up system you decide to use, you must implement a consistent system so your customers don't fall through the cracks.
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