Prospect followup – why even bother?
Based on my experience there are several reasons for wanting to stay in touch with prospects, at least some of which are:
- Shows you care.
- Demonstrates you value them as a prospective customer.
- Allows you to continue building relationship, which leads to increased trust, confidence, and perhaps even obligation.
- Allows you to continue gathering information pertaining to who they are as a person, what their practical and emotional wants and needs are, and what motivates them.
- Keeps you in the loop … allows you to stay informed of changes regarding their situation, wants, needs or budget. You need to be aware of this if you’re going to stay in the game.
- Enables you to continue providing relevant ‘credibility building’ information, additional perspectives, or testimonials pertaining to your product or service.
- Provides an opportunity to introduce other options that may be appropriate.
- Occasionally leads to ‘on the spot’ referrals during the course of the conversation.
- Sets you apart from the majority of your competitors.
About followup.
Perhaps one of the first challenges facing most of us regarding followup is who we should followup with in the first place.
During the very early years of my sales career I thought it was just prospects, they hadn’t bought from me yet so it seemed obvious that staying in touch was important. Later I came to understand that it was also important to follow up with customers after they had bought from me … what a novel concept.
But that was only the beginning. With time, experience and learning from others I gradually came to see the importance and value in staying in touch with almost everyone in my life.
We’re going to discuss this in upcoming posts, beginning with the most seemingly obvious people to followup with and then moving out to those that perhaps we hadn’t considered as being that important. So stay tuned … it’s going to be fun, informative, and beneficial in many practical ways.