You already have a successful growing business, but are you frustrated that your sales team doesn’t follow through all the potential prospects they’ve either self-generated or had fed to them by marketing?
While you may have an ongoing email nurture campaign in place to keep leads simmering nicely, perhaps you would really like to elevate some relationships and take them to the next logical step in your sales process.
For every day that warm leads don’t get followed up, they get cooler and cooler, until all your good networking and nurturing efforts go to waste.
Maybe the team is just too busy attending to existing clients, writing a report or actually in a meeting with a potential client…
Or maybe you don’t have a consistent, reliable call-making process? Maybe you and your ‘sales team’ quite simply hate making ‘salesy’ calls?
Their hesitation is understandable. After all, it’s not a five-minute job! Effective follow-up calls rely on:
• Focus
• Catching the warm lead in the office and at a good time to take the call
• Asking curious questions and listening to them talk about their business
• Qualifying their wants and needs
• Positioning your products or service to match their needs
Nevertheless, even with all these obstacles standing in between you and your warmest
leads, I bet you are super confident that if you do get in front of your prospects and have
the opportunity to explain what you can do for them then they’ll be interested enough to
convert.
So if you find that the team are procrastinating and not making follow-up calls what are
your options? You could:
1. Do nothing – carry on as you are, leaving those warm leads to get a nasty chill
2. Block out time and galvanise yourself and the team to making calls
3. Outsource the entire process to a professional
If you choose option 1 – good luck with it.
If you choose option 2, here are 8 key steps to follow:
• Block out time each day to make calls.
• Prepare a clear lead list to call. Start with a small list initially of say 30 contacts each
from a sector that you have successfully worked with before.
• Remember the call is all about them and their business so go for a consultative approach.
• Have a loose script or bullet points of what you ideally would like to mention on a call as this will give confidence.
• Focus – turn off your email alert. Get a glass of water. Go for it! Pick up the phone and keep calling for at least 2 or 3 hours, working through your list. Send any follow-up emails at a less critical time (after office hours) or ideally automate this process.
• Believe the warm lead will want to see you and have dates highlighted when you are
available for your next meeting with them. Say – “Which would be better – Tuesday afternoon or Thursday morning next week?” Keep dates tight and as close as possible to the date of your call to avoid cancellations.
• Remember practice makes perfect! Just keep dialling, talking and moving swiftly on. If
you’re doing it well you’ll feel exhilarated, and will have some appointments booked.
• Have a well-earned break!
If you know this is never going to happen maybe option 3 is for you? This way you can overcome the ‘Team Gap’ and use interim support to ease the pressure on your resources.
By outsourcing this part of your sales process to an expert you can achieve the appointments you need to grow your business.
Outsourced sales agencies convincingly act as your business development manager by
eloquently positioning your products and services, and taking your warm prospects to the
next logical step in their relationship with your business.
This will result in:
• Less stress over prospect call abilities or finding the time to make them
• Better qualified meetings or further conversations
• A more consistent sales pipeline with scheduled meetings in the diary
• More focus and a smarter approach to better-qualified leads
• Prospects will know you care enough to take the time to speak to them
• Prospects with greater awareness and clarity about your service should they or another
need them in the future
• More clients!
Want to know the next step?
Download the BlueSky Revenue Generation free report here: “How to get in front of your Target Audience” or contact Lou Johnson on 07787 895574.