How often do you contact a prospect before giving up? Once, twice, three times? And by not persisting are you missing out on closing deals?
Years ago I had a conversation with a client which went like this. He’d received a letter in the mail quite obviously spruiking something. He threw it away without even opening it.
Did the same the second time around. The third one he opened, scanned and then threw away. The fourth time he opened it, he read it fully and put it on his shelf thinking he’d get around to following up the seller when and if he got the fifth one as a reminder.
But he never get that letter so the seller missed out on a sale.
I know from personal experience just how important it is to keep following up prospects. Calling every so often to keep in touch. Knowing what’s happening in their lives and being genuinely interested in them. Which eventually leads to business. Now obviously not every time, but nothing would happen without the regular contact.
So how often do you reach out before giving up?
You may have seen this graphic from Microsoft which shows 89% of salespeople give up after the fourth attempt. But it takes 5 to 12 more touches before your prospect is ready to go further.
Now obviously that’s not always the case. Some people will become clients right off the bat. But that’s pretty rare. More often than not they’ve seen stuff from you, articles you’ve written, videos, interviews, all which falls into the purview of marketing material.
Material which educates and warms them up. Explains details of your solution. They read case studies and testimonials. So when you do reach out to them, it’s a warm call where you foster a discussion that uncovers their needs so you can propose a solution that best fits their requirements.
All of which is why we’re such advocates of aligning prospecting, marketing and selling as per our PMS model.
Integrating the 3 activities gives you leverage because it takes less time, money and effort on your part to warm up a prospect, follow them up regularly and close more business, faster.
If you’d like to implement this system into your organisation, give me a hoy at RevealedResources.com.
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