← The Sales Hunter Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
How good is your follow up? Hey, my name is Mark Hunter, the sales center. You're listening to the Sales Hunter podcast. It's Monday morning. Hey, if there's one area that salespeople tend to fall down in, it's in the follow up. Why is it. It's the easiest part, right? Hey, it comes down to one of two reasons. One, they just simply don't do it. They don't have a disciplined approach to do it. And two, oh no, I'm bugging them. Hey, let's unpack both of those on this episode of the podcast. You're listening to the Sales Hunter podcast with Mark Hunter, where the focus is to help you as a salesman sell with confidence and integrity. And now here's your host. We're talking about the lack of follow up, the failure of salespeople. And you know, I, I'm not pointing the finger at you, but oh, it probably because I remember on my early days of selling and I saw and I see now a complete lack of follow up and I wonder how much money it cost me in commissions. And bonus, I was very quick to say I'm spending all my time developing a lead, but then somehow it would just go dry and I would give up and just move on to the next one. Why is that? Hey, does that. This is why I so believe that the challenge, the problem with sales, the problem with prospecting is we spend so much time trying to go after leads that we don't realize what we have. Now there's a whole litany of episodes I could do regarding qualifying a lead. Okay, I've got some other podcasts out there and I'll be doing more on that. But it comes down to here that it's about your follow up. And this is where I say, and I say this loudly and I say this often. Don't think for a moment that it's one because you have 200 leads, potential leads. No, it's one because you have 25 highly qualified prospects that you're following up on. Now don't sit there and say, Mark, they just don't respond to me. They don't, they don't do. They're not willing to have a conversation with me, so they must not be interested. False. I can't argue that more. Here's the whole situation. I want you to spend some time today. I want you to go into your CRM system and I want you to really start bucketizing. That's a technical term. That's a sales term. How's that? Bucket ties. I want you to bucketize your leads and in your prospects. And I want you to find just those 10. We'll say, or 5 or 2. 25. I don't know what it is. Don't go more than 25 of highly qualified leads that have just gone dark on you. They're ghosting you. They are not responding. You see, here's the whole situation. Have you given them a reason to respond to you? Probably not. Because here's the deal. Just because you're thinking about them does not mean for a moment that they're thinking about you. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I'm working with sales teams and I'll be talking with salespeople and they'll be talking about various leads and they're talking about, talking about, talking about. And then when it comes time to actually engage, let's make some phone calls. Oh, you know what? I, I got to go to a meeting. I got to take care of this. I got to do this. And they never get around to it. You see, I'm all in favor of being prepared and being planned and, and, and knowing what I'm going to do. But then you got to do it. You see, what I find is this. Too many salespeople, they use planning as an excuse not to take action. Yeah, yeah, they use planning as an excuse not to take action. Action without planning is a waste of planning. It's just that simple. So what I'm going to ask you to do is you go into your CRM system. And this is where I failed early on in my sales career. I lost, I would have to say over the years, hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost commissions and bonuses because I did not follow up. Here's the thing. I want you to go in and I want you to identify those and, and you've got to have a frequency in your follow up. And you've got. Hey, with your CRM system. Oh, you're not using a CRM system. Oh, because you're not using a CRM system because you think it's a gotcha tool. No, your CRM system is a get you tool. Okay, I'm on a rant. I'm rolling here because I'm passionate about this. I'm passionate about you and every salesperson and me being deliberate in our followers because there's got to be a frequency in our follow up. There has to be a frequency. Now, I can't sit there and tell you exactly what your frequency is. For me, it's about every five or six Days I am following them. For some of you it might be two or three weeks. For others it might be every day. Again, it depends on the frequency of, of the purchase cycle, the level of person you're dealing with and whether or not there's a time constraint in terms of making a decision, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a host of factors there. But, but you've got to have a plan in terms of how you're following and the plan and the follow up is not just sending them another email. You don't just send them another, oh, let me just send them another email, send them in. That is lazy man way to prospect. Pick up the phone, make the call. I don't have a phone number. Research it, go out on the Internet. There are plenty of tools out there. Zoom info at the top, at the top of the heap. Excellent, excellent database that you can get access to with phone numbers. There is plenty of others out there from Seamless and Apollo and others. But get a system because again, your time is your most valuable asset. And I want to be calling and don't sit there and say well I'll call the switchboard. No, if you got their cell number, call their cell number. Hey, here's the who. If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out to them. Stop and think about that. If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out to them. This is why you follow up. And this, this is going to blast out of the water this whole second, this whole second bleed. Well, well, I don't want to be bugging them, I'm just bugging them. Hey, you're bugging them. If you're sending them emails that say I'm just checking in are on a bounce is the top. Or, or are you ready to make a decision? Your follow up emails have to bring value. They've got to bring, they've got to bring information insight. And the more current you can make that information, the more relevant you can make that information. There's plenty of things, look at the industry that you're selling into. And again, this is why you stay focused in a particular industry or a couple of industries. But what's going on in their industry? What's the information that you can share the insight. Because again, what I want to do is I want to serve the customer. Here's the whole thing. Your customer might not be responding to you, but they're seeing you. They are seeing you. Unless your emails are getting spam blocked they're seeing you and they're drawing a conclusion as to how credible you are. They're drawing a conclusion as to whether or not you care about you or you care about them. And unless you care about them, they're going to feel 100 that you're just focused on you and all you want to do is close the sale. Now, I know, I, I, I, I know it's about helping them. I know it's about serving them. I get that. You know, but you got to demonstrate to them, so you got to be bringing value. What's the insight that you can, what's the information you can share about how your products help people? Now this isn't, this isn't going on a, a hey look at me feature standpoint. Hey, look at me benefit standpoint. No, it's sharing with them short, quick outcomes that other customers have been able to achieve. You're sharing with them. Maybe, Maybe they're on LinkedIn and they're, and they don't just have profile, but they're actually active on LinkedIn. So you're connecting them with other people, you're responding to them, you're engaging with them. Okay, maybe they're not on social media, fine. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna be doing this by, by way of, of email. I may do it by actually way of mail. You know, one of the techniques that I love to do to get customers engaged, I send them a book. Not my book. Yeah, I've written a number of books. I got a new book out, Integrity first selling. But, but I, I will send them somebody else's book. Hey, this is a great book. I read it and I think you would find a lot of benefit in reading this book. I send them a gift of that because here's, here's what I found. It's amazing at how they begin to change their perspective of you when they truly see that you are serving them. You see, here's the whole thing. I can't sit there and say that this is no longer a prospect that is valid to me because they haven't responded until I've had a meaningful conversation with them. And that meaningful conversation has got to help you. Identifying the following things. The following things are what's the need that you can help them with? Two, what is the timeline or the, the importance of them making a decision in three, what's the decision making process? Until I know those three things, I'm going to stay engaged with you and I'm going to stay engaged with you for one very simple reason, because I know I can help you. You see many, many times in a prospecting and I've had this happen time and time again where I have been engaged with somebody for 20, 30 times. Seriously, 20. I'll go into my CRM system. I can show you time and time again over not just months, but over years and they finally come around to buy. Now here's the whole thing. I preach about follow up and I want you to be adamant about follow up. But not every customer deserves follow up. Whoa, what did he just say? Did he just flip this around and, and, and say everything up to this point is false? No, what I'm saying is this, you're doing this routine, repetitive follow up process and you're keeping engaged. If it's a meaningful opportunity to you, if it's a small transaction, then no, I'm not. I'm going to give them a few kicks at the cat. Okay, I hate to say that, but I'm going to reach out to you half a dozen times and if the dog don't hunt, I move on. Somewhere else I go, I leave. But if this is a big opportunity and you see that there is real potential, why are you sitting there allowing it to come to an end just because you've reached out to them four or five times? You see. So again, your follow up process is not going to be uniform based on every lead that you have, every, every qualified prospect that you have. It's going to vary based on the potential that you see. Yeah, it's a little bit greed centered. But remember, your most valuable asset is your time. And this is why I find it so disheartening. If time is your most valuable asset, why are not, why are you not using it in the most efficient manner? That most efficient manner is very simply following up with what you already have. And again, final piece that I'll share here, this is that if I have five or six qualified prospects in one industry, guess what? This message of value that I'm sending out, I can probably send it out to all five as an efficient use of my time. It's incredible. I do this all the time and it allows me to be far more efficient at how I'm doing. Now when I'm doing follow up today, what I'm doing is I'm sending an email and a phone call. Email and a phone call, that's my preferred go to means. And the phone call is cell phone. In other words. Now that goes even further. Cell phone and then email. And now I know, I know that the Cell phone, chances are it's going to roll over to voicemail. If it rolls over voicemail, I'm going to leave a very short voicemail, very short. Because I also know that chances are my voicemail message is going to be translated into a text message that they're going to receive. So I can't go rambling on and on. I got to be short and tight. Now again, we'll do more podcasts, breaking this down, sharing this, but I'm ab focused on wanting to see you be absolutely committed to following up on your best prospects. And you stay in the game with them until you uncover those three pieces of information. Again, what is the critical need that they have? Two, what is the time frame? What's the urgency? What's the reason why they need to solve it? And three, what's their process for making a decision? You notice I didn't have budget in there. I didn't have budget because I'll tell you what, if I cross those other three, they'll have budget because if it's of critical importance, they'll find a way. Hey, if their house is on fire, they may not have the money, but if their house is on fire and you can help put it out, they'll find the money for you. You bet they will. That's what it's all about. Hey, my name is Mark Hunter, the sales center. You've been listening to the sales center podcast. My new book, Integrity First Selling. I want you to pick it up. Oh, it's already getting some incredible reviews out there. I love it. But here's the whole thing. Two podcasts a week, one like this every Monday morning to kind of get you jazzed for the week, get you pumped. I'm pumped for the week. I'm excited. And the second one comes out on Thursdays where we do a deep dive with a subject matter expert. Hey, whole purpose. Just as you want your prospects, you reach out to them because you want to help them see and achieve what they didn't think was possible. That's what I want for you. I want you because I know I can help you. That's why you're listening to the podcast. Do me a favor, leave me a comment on whatever app you're listening to, whether it be Spotify, whether it be Apple, whatever. Love to hear those comments. I always try to respond to them. And reach out to me. If you've got a sales kickoff meeting, reach out to me because I want to be part of your sales kickoff meeting, especially right now, talking about integrity first selling hey, thanks for listening. My name is Mark Hunter, the sales hunter. And I'll see you on the next episode.