Why This Blog?
During the course of my many years as a prospect, customer, salesperson, manager, business owner and trainer, I’ve observed that even though the importance of effective followup seems to be clearly understood it remains a major weakness for most sales people and businesses.
In many industries followup of prospects is either virtually non-existent or they are hounded mercilessly. Customers are frequently neglected between purchases, resulting in little loyalty to either the salesperson or the business. Referrals may be rewarded in some way but seldom is the person who did the referring kept informed during the process. The truth is that lack of consistent and effective followup is a rampant disease.
Why? Good question, and I suspect there is no simple answer.
I believe most salespeople and businesses have good intentions, but things like fear, ‘busyness’, inefficient systems, or even a complete lack of understanding of the importance of followup, get in the way.
In the early years of my sales career I confess I was like most of my peers. Due to a lack of training and maturity I mostly did what I observed others doing in regards to followup, which wasn’t much at all. But then a couple of things happened that changed my life and career.
- I began a journey of conscious lifetime learning and became a practicing student of personal & professional development and the sales process.
- I was accepted for a sales position with a company owned by a couple of bright and successful guys. In different ways both became mentors to me, for which I am very grateful.
For the past several years I’ve worked with individuals and businesses helping them achieve their goals and it’s been extremely rewarding. Yet during this time I’ve continued to observe this ‘lack of followup’ disease … and even caught it myself on occasion for some of those very same reasons listed above. Fortunately however I now recover pretty quickly.
The truth is that over the years I’ve learned a great deal about followup and how to do it effectively, which makes me ever more committed to doing it well and to passing along this information to others.
The purpose of this blog is to provide followup related knowledge and tips, including step-by-step processes that have been proven to work in the real world. It is also to give all of us an opportunity to learn from each other through the sharing of experience, comments, suggestions and ideas.
I’ve also picked up some cool tools along the way that make the job much easier and far less intimidating. In fact I’ve been using one such tool in my training business very, very effectively for the past 5 years and it has impressed me so much that I’ve taken on a distributorship and now actively market the product (if you’d like to learn more about this tool email me at reg@followupguy.com or call me at 604 868 1232).
As you can imagine I’ll be referring to this product on occasion and you may want to pay attention. If you were to properly and consistently incorporate its use into your daily activities (as I have), in a relatively short time the results would surprise you. To learn more please contact me directly at reg@followupguy.com.
In addition … from time to time, or as requested, you’ll also have an opportunity to benefit from material in my Growing Into Success Training programs as I share relative information on related subjects like sales, goal setting & achievement, effective networking, self-motivation and so on. So visit often, participate, and share this site with others. We are creating a community in which all will benefit.