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The Business Igniter: Following Up

How is your Follow Up?  Are you consistent? Are you persistent?  In what ways do you follow up?  Do you call, send cards, email, call again?

In her book, Get Clients Now, author C.J. Hayden says, “Following Up is at the center of the Universal Marketing Cycle for a reason: consistent and persistent follow up is central to successfully moving a prospect forward to making a sale.”

I have a card that I like to send to my coaching clients, especially those who are trying to improve their marketing and sales.  On the front of the card it reads:

Sales Statistics:

• 48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
• 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
• 12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop
• Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts
• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
• 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

Fear is one of several reasons people don’t follow up with their contacts.  On page 181 of Hayden’s book she writes:

“If I follow up that lead, I might be rejected,” reasons the voice in your head.  “So I’ll avoid the pain by not making the call in the first place.”  Or conversely, you may be thinking, “If I place the call, I might get the business, and then I’ll have to do the work, and people will have all these expectations of me.”  But the reality is that if you don’t place the calls, you’re going to fail even more dramatically than in these two imaginary scenarios.

I encourage my clients to remember that ‘fear’ is really an acronym; ‘F.E.A.R’ for ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’.  When you take action in the face of your fear, by following up with prospects for example, you can then expose that false evidence for what it is and move past it, and your fear.

In summary: Following up is king.  Take the time, get organized, and follow up with your prospects, again and again, and again.

To Your Success!
-Kip Kint, Success Coach & President, Mission Ignition

Illustration titled The Universal Marketing Cycle from page 32 of the book Get Clients Now, by author C.J. Hayden

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