Do you lie in bed at night dreading the awful thought of following up with customers that you met with but didn’t buy? I mean, let’s be honest, who likes to follow up with someone and say, “Are you ready now? How about now? What about now?”
I know I don’t.
Recently, I realized that many of our students struggle with following up. It’s not that they don’t want to follow up, it’s that they…
- Don’t know what to say
- Don’t want to feel pushy
- Think to themselves “they will call me when they are ready” right?
Or have you ever had this conversation with yourself? “It’s too early to call,” then the afternoon comes around, and you say, “I don’t want to bother them while they are at work or feeding lunch to their kids,” then evening comes, and you tell yourself, “I don’t want to bother them while they are eating dinner or getting ready for bed.” Then the day goes by and you never make the call.
If you dread following up, you are not alone.
So today we are going to talk about why following up is so important and how we can make this an easier process for you.
Have you ever completed a sales conversation with someone and thought they were going to buy but didn’t. They threw up the objection of…….
- I can’t afford it right now
- Money is tight because of x reason
- I need more time to think about it
- I need to talk this over with my husband
- I need to do more research
And you say, no worries when the timing is right please let me know and I would be happy to help you. And then you never hear back from them again……….
And so you follow up,
- I just wanted to follow up and see if you have any questions
- Or I wanted to reach out again since I have not heard from you
- Or I was just touching base from our meeting last week
How does that feel?
Does that feel weird, awkward, and/or pushy?
What if you created buy-in and scheduled their next step for the follow up before you ended your scheduled meeting with them?
The easiest way to follow-up effectively without it being weird is to create buy-in and value for follow-up BEFORE the meeting ends.
Here is how we can help make following up an easier process for you:
Step 1:
- Schedule a follow up appointment before your appointment ends
- Okay Sally, I know you said you would prefer _________product, but you _________insert objection__________, when would you like me to follow up with you?
Step 2:
- State your agenda and the time frame for the follow up
- Our call won’t take long, maybe 5-10 minutes, I will call to see what you decided is the next best step to move forward with
Step 3:
- Remove Pressure
- and if I can help you get registered at that time great, if not no big deal.
Step 4:
- Call to Action
- How does that sound?
If you follow this steps then following up won’t be so dreadful and instead you can call with confidence and say, “Hey Sally, I am calling you today for our scheduled meeting to go over xyz, our call won’t take long, maybe 5-10 minutes, and if I can help you get registered great, if not no big deal”.
Or “Hey Sally the last time we spoke you asked me to call you now to help you get registered for ___________.”
You will be more confident and your customer will feel more at ease.
I hope this helps! Thanks for reading and have a great day!