Follow Up: The Key To Business Success…And Increased Profits
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Are you following-up with your prospects? Do you do enough follow-up?
You may think the sale stops at the end of an event, or the end of a call, or at the end of the first step of however it is you go about making sales in your business.
This is simply not the case.
If you don’t follow-up in every way imaginable you might as well say “I give up, if you don’t want anything I have after this, you’ll never hear from me again.” And if you do that in your business, you’ll probably be shutting your doors before you know it.
Don’t give up…instead, follow-up.
What you may not know is that you can typically expect 50% more sales in the follow-up stage than you got in the initial sales phase. So, if you sell 10 people your product, service or your program on the initial sales meeting, you will typically get another 5 sales in the follow-up process.
Maybe you had an event and 10 people decided they liked you enough to do business with you. When you follow-up, when you send out emails, direct mail, make phone calls or you reach out in whatever way you reach out to those other people, you’re likely to generate another 50% in sales. That’s another 5 sales in this example.
Suppose you’re selling $1,000.00 item. That’s an extra $5,000.00 in your bank account. There are a lot of things you can do with that additional $5,000.00. You could pay overhead or bills, or put it back into your business some other way. The point is, if you settle for 10 people – that’s $10,000.00 on the initial sale – you’re missing out on that extra $5,000.00 if you don’t follow-up. And that’s just with your typical follow-up strategies.
People are skeptical today. People need to be finessed and persuaded to do business with you.
But if you give up too soon, the relationship isn’t going to go very far. If you do more follow-up, spend more time doing follow-up, do it faster, and do it longer (or add more steps to your follow-up process) than you normally would, it will mean a dramatic increase in your profits.
You might have a few people opt-out of your list when you do more marketing and follow-up than you normally would. That’s fine. Maybe they don’t want what you have. Don’t be ultra-sensitive to people opting out of your list.
The people who remain on your list are the people who are going to invest in your products and services, because they’re the people who want to hear from you, even if you’re reaching out to them more than is normal. They stick with you because they believe in what you’re doing, they believe you have something that can benefit them.
So, remember, if you think the sale stops after the first no, or after the event ends, or the phone call ends, you need to rethink your philosophy. You’re giving up way too soon on the sale. Follow-up. Follow-up is the key to expanding your sales, your business and your profits.
Article author
About the Author
Diane Conklin is an author, entrepreneur, coach, consultant, event planner, speaker and copywriter. Diane is a direct response marketing expert who specializes in showing small business owners how to integrate their online and offline marketing strategies, media and methods, to get maximum results from their marketing dollars. Diane also shows entrepreneurs and small business owners how to outperform their competition by measuring their marketing, and strategically use multi-media campaigns to stand alone in their marketplace as the go-to provider for their products and services.
She is the co-founder of Complete Marketing Systems and for more than 15 years has been showing small business owners how to start, build and grow Information Marketing businesses where they take knowledge they already possess and turn it into passive, ongoing, leveraged profits.
Through her company, Complete Marketing Systems, Diane helps event promoters market, plan and manage their live events, workshops and seminars, using cost effective, multi-step marketing strategies that put butts in seats, without the promoters losing theirs. As an Event Marketing & Planning expert, Diane has planned and produced multiple events grossing over $1,000,000.00.
As a business and marketing strategist, Diane has been involved in numerous campaigns grossing over $1,000,000.00 in sales several times in her career.
Diane has proprietary home study systems, coaching programs, and provides done-for-you services in the areas of Social Media, Information Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Direct Mail and Event Marketing, Planning and Management.
As a speaker, Diane has shared the stage with the likes of Joan Rivers, George Foreman, Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, Lee Milteer, Harry Dent, Lee Phillips, Fabienne Fredrickson, James Malinchak, Dov Baron, Peggy McColl, Marshall Sylver, Alex Mandossian, Marie Forleo, Barbara Corcoran and many others.
Diane was voted Information Marketer of the Year for her innovative marketing strategies and campaigns.
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