Follow up until you just can’t follow up anymore
If you’re feeling like, “Okay, I don’t want to follow up on this prospect too hard because I’m going to seem too keen or I’m going to lose it.” Let me tell you that you will lose nine deals out of 10 as a result of not following up as opposed to the one that you will lose from following up too hard. You want those people complimenting you and saying, “Wow, you’re incredible. I wish my sales guys were like you.” “You just never ever stop following up. You keep calling me and it’s not something that I want to leave to chance.” The other thing that you guys need to do is when somebody says that they’re shopping around, you need to pretend like you are the only player on the field and forget that they even told you that they’re shopping around and you still follow up this same follow up program.
Most deals are WON between the 5th and the 12th touch.
You’re the only player on the field. So when you call them, you don’t ask them how they’ve gone with other competitors or other options. You just pretend like you’re the only one out there following them up to get this done because that just means that you’re just so confident in what you’re going that it doesn’t even matter. Or like, “I need to shop around, Chris. You’re going to need to leave it with me.” “Yep. No problems. Completely understand that you need to shop around.” And then two days later you call them back. “How’d you go? Have you looked at the proposal?” You don’t even mention, how did you go with getting the other…? No, no, no, no. None of that stuff. “Oh, yeah. I’ve gotten one proposal, but I’m still waiting to get another guy in.” “Cool. The price was the same. Who would you go with? Why do you like us?”
You have to have CONVICTION in your voice and attitude.
Just pretend like they’re not even in the game, these other guys, unless they specifically bring them up and they’re asking questions about that. You just want to just basically follow them up like crazy and cover them up like crazy. The way that I’ve always approached it is when I get that opportunity, once I pitch that person, like I’ve always told you guys, you will never, ever, ever get that prospect as hot as at the end of that first strategy session. It’s moving backwards and it’s getting colder and colder after that meeting. The more time that you put in that sales cycle, the lower your chances are of ever converting that prospect into a customer. So I follow up incredibly hard. I cover them up in a blanket in those first two weeks where I’m just literally hitting them with so much that they can’t even move.
Always provide VALUE when following up, leave them with something.
There’s value bombs. There’s text messages. There’s videos. There’s loom videos. It’s getting people involved in the deal. There’s so many things that I will do on that person initially. “Yeah, thanks Jamie. Leave it with me mate. I’m really under the palm. I need to do all this shit. Call me back in two weeks.” That is a lie. He doesn’t need you to call him back in two weeks. That’s why we never ask people, when would you like me to call you back? ” Cool. I’m going to send you out the proposal… I’m going to give you a call tomorrow. When suits, 10:00 AM or 4:00 PM?” We’re giving the directive. We are in control. “Oh, mate. I’m really under the pump. Basically you’re going to have to give me a call back in two weeks.” “Sure. Well, look, if I’m going to need to give you a call back in two weeks, then there’s no point in me really sending the proposal to you because you’re going to forget most of the stuff that we discussed.”
Control the outcome, CONTROL the next steps, don’t give an out.
So if that’s the case, I would rather just leave it for two weeks. “All right, mate. I’ll try to make some time tomorrow.” “Awesome. I’ll kick it out to you,” and call them back. Regardless of what they say to you, you just need to be following them up and you need to be imagining that every time somebody tells you something, it’s a lie. And, “I need to speak with my business partner.” “No problem. Most people do need to speak to their business partner. What do you think that they’re going to say?” “Oh, I think they’ll probably have a problem with the contract.” Awesome, then you just start to handle that objection. Now, he already knows what his business partner is going to say. He doesn’t need to speak with his business partner. He knows that person well enough to know what their objections are. So you want to handle those objections with the prospect and then arm them so when they go away and speak with their business partner, you’ve handled that objection and then he goes and handles it for you.
Uncover the OBJECTIONS, and handle them straight away.
But if you just leave that to them, it’s done. You’ll never ever get it. “Oh, yeah. These guys want to go with us, but it’s a 12 month contract.” “Yeah, mate, we don’t do contracts.” Cool. Leave it, and then you call that guy and he feels like the door is already closed and you can never reinvigorate them. Don’t go away from just following these guys up like crazy. Everybody’s going to say to me, “Yeah, two to three weeks,” and then I’m going to ask them what is going to take two to three weeks? What is it that you’re going to be needing to handle over the next two to three weeks? And I’ll get a realistic picture of what’s going to happen rather than them telling me, “Nah, two to three days,” when I know to lie. How many deals do we do, guys send them back the paperwork in two to three days?
Following up is a game, do you have a playbook and PROCESS in place?
It’s probably 10% to 20% of the time. 80% of the time they’re not ready and the follow up game begins. That’s when the sale really begins after they’ve got the proposal. That’s when we start following up. That’s when we start getting after them. And we know that 60% to 70% of people are going to ghost us, whether it’s a $5 decision or a $500,000 decision, people don’t want to make decisions. So that’s where the follow up game begins. That is the number one thing I can’t harp on enough, it needs to be a strategic process. It can’t be whatever you feel like or what you think is right for that particular prospect or that particular lead. It needs to be like, this is the format and I just do it every single time because it’s just like, if you look at, for instance, what happens at the top of the sales funnel.
They will always APPRECIATE your follow up.
Yeah, I get people saying, “Hey man, you’re emailing me too much.” Or all of the little things that they say, but more often than not, what does that result in? It results in us winning even though I know it’s not going to be perfect for everybody. It’s a winning formula. And that’s what this thing is. So you will get some people who say, “Hey, hey, hey. You’re coming in a bit heavy. Don’t call me every day. Don’t call me every two days. Don’t call me every three days.” “Cool, man. I’ll just follow up just to check that everything’s all good. I’ll give you a call back next week.” That’s the worst thing that’s going to happen. But what usually happens is, if you follow somebody up, this is like … if you think about a normal sales environment, this is what happens.
Don’t have a normal process, have a process that makes you STAND OUT.
Somebody gets a proposal, the sales guy calls him the next day and says to him, “Oh, did you get the proposal yet?” And then like, what do you think? “Oh, yeah, I still haven’t had a look at it,” or “I need to think about it.” Right. They get hit with that objection. And then what happens next is, “Okay, cool. When should I call you back?” “Call me back in two weeks.” The guy, if he’s got half a brain, will call the guy back in two weeks. He won’t answer his phone call. And then the sales person stops calling. That’s literally what happens. Nine out of 10 times that’s the environment. So these prospects are trained that if they ghost you, this monkey on their back will disappear. So that’s why I say that once you’ve voicemailed a guy three or four times is when you start to have fun with it.
“It’s Chris here from BluePages. I’m building an incredible relationship with your voicemail. Really feel like I’m getting to know it right now. Just want to let you know, Brian, I am not going to stop giving you a call as this is something that’s obviously really important to you. So please give me a call back. Otherwise I will keep calling you. Thank you. Bye.” This guy’s not going away. This guy is a different beast. He is not going to leave me alone. So once that happens they start listening to the voicemail. They start laughing. They start showing their friends. They’re in the car. They’re like, “Fuck. This guy’s a maniac. Man, have you seen this guy? He is going to voicemail fucking six times in the last two weeks, this guy.” Then they start to build admiration for you. Whenever you hit me up, you’ve got something fresh to say. You are the only player on the field when that happens. There is nobody else out there. It is the Andy show. It is the Brian show. It is the Dave show. But when you let them know that you’re not going to give up, that’s when things change. Because they are trained by every single company out there that if you ignore a salesperson two to three times, they disappear. How much easier is it to just make somebody disappear than having to have a confronting conversation and tell somebody that you’re not going to go ahead with something? It’s so much easier. So what do people do? They go to the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is to ignore you. Until you tell them that you are somebody that is impossible to ignore because you’d never ever stop following up.
If you are not FOLLOWING up, you are being left behind.
You just follow up with people forever. When I was on the telephones, I was following people up for three years because you just stay in the fucking deal forever. Forever. You see that’s a part about building out that pipeline. If you’ve got someone that you sent out a proposal to and they’re qualified and they own a legitimate business and they’re turning over 500,000 or a million or 2 million or 5 million, why would you ever give up on that prospect if they agreed to getting a proposal, just because they’ve stopped picking up your telephone calls? That pipeline is building, but more often than not, you guys are saying die on those leads and they’re saying die on you because you’ve called the guy three or four times and you think he’s not interested anymore. He is still interested. He still owns a business. He still needs to get more customers.
They NEED you, you need them, so you may as well not give up.
You just got to stay in those deals because nobody is following that guy up for three to six months, let alone a year. Nobody. Every single salesperson loses steam and they try to go for the lowest lying fruit. No one will ever say, “Chris, this has been fantastic. I’m looking to make a decision in the next two days. Please call me back.” No one will ever say that to me. Everyone will always say, “Yeah, it’s going to be two to three weeks,” or “Not this quarter,” or “Not this financial year, ” or “I need to speak to Father Christmas or whoever it is.” So I want the opportunity to handle that objection.
Handle the objection now, so the hidden objection doesn’t steal the DEAL.
Then I’ll send out the proposal. 70% of the time they’re going to ghost me and they haven’t told me the truth, that this isn’t something that they’re looking to get handled right now. I want the opportunity to handle that objection at the end of that first call because I’m never, ever going to get the guy as hot as that ever again. And if he tells me two to three weeks, when he is at the peak of heat, then I know that in all reality, I’m going to get on the call with him and not find that out, on that second call he’s cooled off and he is just going to say, “Leave it with me, leave it with me, leave it with me.” I just pretend like it’s one call close. So it’s whatever works for different people in different industries, but all the same game!
Let me THINK about it.
But what I’m trying to do is get that person to a situation where I’m finding the honest truth. If someone tells you that they need to think about it, what they’re really saying is that there’s an objection in my head that I’m not telling you. And I don’t trust you enough to tell you this objection right now, because they already know whether or not they’re going to go ahead with it. So whether you do it at the start of the call or you do it at the end of the call, it doesn’t change a lot because still where the majority of the deals are being done is on that follow up. You are in the biggest position of power before you send that person a proposal. The pinnacle of your power is in that time. Soon as you send out the proposal, the dynamic changes. You have given me what I need to make a decision now and I’ll just do as I please. I’ve got this proposal in my back pocket. I’ll pick up your calls if I want to pick them up.
Take advantage of your POWER position.
I’ll say I’m going to go ahead when I want to … I will do what I want to do now. But all the things, all the objections that I’ve got in here, you need to use all of these tools. You need to have all of this weaponry in the holster ready to roll and ask people at all levels. So when you expect it and you know it, when it happens, it’s just like the judo roll. You know it’s coming. You just roll into it. “This is an objection. I’m not going to freak out here and think I’m losing the deal. I’m just going to go through the process.” Good job.
In concussion. Follow up until they tell you to absolutely stop following up. You know your competition is NOT doing this. They are not competing with you on this level. They do not have a system and process in place to follow up. So, now imagine you putting this all into work. Go now, build your follow up process, then do the work.
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