The most important step in the selling process

It’s the least trained selling skill in all of sales training:  The Follow-up! 

• Getting the next appointment
• Understanding and using the Sequence of the Sale

During workshops on prospecting and cold calling, I like to ask,

 “How many of you sold one of your last five prospects on the first sales call?”  No hands go up. 

“How about on your second call? Third call? Fourth call?”  As I continue, hands start to go up in the room.

There are two reasons for these questions.  The first is to emphasize how important following up is in selling.  I want salespeople to understand that the purpose of the phone call or cold call is to get the first appointment.  The purpose of the first appointment is to get the second appointment.  And so on, until you have built up trust through the customer’s buying process.  If you think along these lines, you will structure your sales call toward getting that next appointment.  To do that, you have to implement all the other selling skills:  asking good questions, finding a need, presenting a solution to that need, closing -asking for the next step, and then following up.

My other point in asking these questions is to remove the stress that salespeople put on themselves when prospecting.  None of us, as consumers, will switch from a five, ten, or twenty-year buying pattern, just because someone stops by our home and hands us a business card.  So, Relax.  No one gets married on the first date.  So, relax and think of the cold call as the start of a relationship.  It’s the first date, not the marriage proposal.

The sequence of a buy-sell relationship is:

• Become aware of each other
• Introductory meeting
• Salesperson – discover the customer’s business structure
• Customer – discover the salesperson’s product line
• Test, trial, and demo the products
• Buy for a portion of their business
• Buy for most of their business
• Buy for all of their business

The process doesn’t have to follow every step with every customer.  Once in a while, your timing might just be perfect and your prospective customer is needing your products that very day.  Maybe, their current supplier is out of the product or failed to deliver it.  Maybe they just had a complaint about their current supplier’s delivery driver, the billing process, or paperwork.  You show up by chance at the right time and the buying process goes much faster than expected.  If this happens, great!  However, most of the time, prospecting is a long-term process.  It’s playing the long game.  The difficult part is to figure out how to stay in the game.  How soon do I go back?  What is the reason for going back? 

Knowing this as a salesperson, we need to make the focus of our sales calls on how we are going to get back on the farm or in that buyer’s office.  This should start in the pre-call planning phase.  Too often, I see the follow-up as an afterthought by a salesperson, after they left the farm.  An example of this happened just a couple of weeks ago.  I was doing a ride-along coaching day with a salesperson.  He wanted to learn how to ask better questions and of course, close more sales.  Fair enough, but we found out his weakest link in his selling process was his follow-up.

As we drove off the farm, I asked Kevin, “Well, how do you think that went?”

Kevin’s reply was fairly standard in my line of work.  “Well, you’re the sales coach, how do you think it went?”

“Fair enough.  However, before I go into my evaluation of the sales call, what happens next with this customer?”, I asked.

“What do you mean?”

 “I mean, when will you return, what will you do upon returning, and why will this prospect give you an appointment to come back to the farm?”

Kevin pondered my question for a few minutes before replying, “I don’t want to be that pushy salesperson that just hounds a customer until they get irritated with me.” 

“Right, me neither”, I agreed, “Nobody wants to be a Herb Tarlek”

I had to explain who Herb was.  I really need to get a newer reference character. (Google or YouTube – WKRP in Cincinnati-Herb Tarlek)

“So, when and how will you follow up with this producer?” I asked again.

The conversation went on as Kevin and I discussed that there was no plan to follow up.  Kevin likes to present his information and then let the prospect decide if they want to move forward or not.  If he hasn’t heard from the prospect in several months, he might follow up by “Checking in”.  This is a common strategy for many salespeople.  It’s also one of the reasons many salespeople dislike prospecting. 

To help with this situation, many salespeople simply need to think about it earlier in the selling process.  As mentioned, think about it in the pre-call planning phase.  Where will this sales call most likely end up?  How will I get back on the farm after I finish this sales call?  What information do I need to know to get back on the farm?  What questions can I ask to get that information?  What are the calls to action for this producer?

By focusing on the follow-up, you will reduce the time it takes to move a prospect from a cold call to an engaged customer.  You will appear more professional in your selling skills and process.  Most importantly, you will reduce that feeling that prospecting and cold calling are pushy, painful and fruitless.   You might even come to enjoy it!   

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