Most small businesses are losing an astounding amount of business, and are sitting there scratching their heads wondering why the sales just aren’t coming in.
It is happening to the majority of small businesses around the globe, that are looking to increase sales and can be fixed simply by adding 1 simple activity to their business.
Sometimes for businesses, the problem is in the marketing or sales contact that they are doing, but more often than not, if the business is providing a product or service that is valuable, it is actually in the follow up process that is seeing businesses lose up to 90% of their sales through a missing piece in their selling process.
So often a sale is looking promising, and then the prospect just disappears, never to be heard from again, and the business is left wondering “What did I do wrong?”
Most likely they did absolutely nothing wrong! The reason the sale dropped into the nothingness and didn’t get completed is because no one followed it up to find out where the prospect was at.
A big key to sales in business is in the follow up of potential customers to find out how they are feeling, where they are at and to close the sale if it is right – unfortunately this is rarely done.
Most of the time your potential clients or customers just get too busy, things pop up and before you know it, whatever they were coming to you for isn’t one of their top priorities anymore, and so the sale disappears.
Businesses need to ensure that they set up a complete sales process to increase sales, and that means following up any potential clients that they haven’t heard a definite “No, thanks” from.
This is not about pushing sales on people or hard selling, that is not necessary at all, it is simply about following up prospects with a friendly phone call or email to see where they are at and if they have any questions or concerns. I have seriously had countless people be really thankful that I have followed up with them because they still wanted to buy but had got so busy with life that they hadn’t got back to me!
Businesses can feel totally daunted by the thought of following up with people, and they even feel that it is being too pushy, but done in the right way prospects really love being followed up. They really appreciate the time you take to follow them up and it makes them feel valued so they are more likely to purchase off you.
If you implement this in your business, you will see that you will not only stand out from your competitors as being proactive and helpful to your potential clients, but you will also increase sales and regain that 85% of sales that you might currently be losing.
On the button Kim – follow up has no “buzz” for many sales people and is often left by the wayside, I’ve found if you can’t find a system to help sales people do follow-ups pass it back to other support staff who are great on the phone – often prospective clients can build trust with more varied contact within an organisation. If you are a ‘one man band’ enlist someone who is happy to advocate you, your work and your approach – it will pay far more than what you may have to pay a friendly phone voice!
Following up can be very difficult for small business, time pressure to concentrate on new enquiries usually takes over. Meaning that the potential customers taken nearly all the way through the process are not given enough effort to close the deal. I’ve found that you can automate a lot of the up front tasks, and then spend more time and effort on the real business end.
Great tips on following up on sales. I never realised that 85% of sales are lost because their is no follow up! Will have to pay more attention to detail from now on. Thanks Kim for sharing your hints and tips on how to increase sales.
Cheers
Lisa
Excellent advise, the money is in the follow up. thank you for your sharing.
helene