The Follow Up Boot Camp: 4 Steps to Revolutionize Your Follow Up Process (Infographic)

How many of us struggle with following up? If you haven’t heard these statistics, you are behind in the game!

Did you know that 44% of sales people give up after 1 follow up?

Did you know that 80% of sales require 5 follow ups?

We have designed a follow up boot camp for you to nurture your customers and leads, grow your business, and set you apart from your competitors. This boot camp is designed to help you understand your audience or client, get you more leads, and teach you about new avenues to follow up.

1. Know Your Audience

If you want to make a difference in your follow up process, you have to understand your client in the sales process. You need to know if you are targeting new customers or old customers, and who they are as a person. You need to understand your target and that it makes a difference. For example, are your customers or leads old, young, male, or female? What is their nationality, industry, or are they family oriented? How about single, married, dog lover, or nature oriented? The more you know and understand, the better it will be to target them and follow up with them.

At times, we become so busy with the hustle and bustle of running our business that we lose sight of who our customer is. This will greatly help you narrow down the best way to follow up with them. Before we get into creating an amazing follow up process, we need to really grasp our amazing customer. Once you understand your customer, you can better fit them into your sales process.

Boot Camp Action Step: Build Your Customer Profile

Instructions: Answer these 20 questions to see if you are on track to understand your future customers and current customers. Create a profile, maybe write it in a notebook, or create a spreadsheet. Sincerely ask yourself these questions, and see if you notice a trend.

1. What would your customers buy from you?

2. What is their problem or need?

3. Are they male or female?

4. Is your customer a millennial or getting ready to retire?

5. Are they single, married, family oriented?

6. What is their level of education?

7. How do you find your customers?

8. Why do your customers matter to you?

9. What do your customers value?

10. Do ethnicity or religion make a difference to your customers?

11. When will your customers need you?

12. What are your customers' hobbies, talents, likes or dislikes?

13. What is your customers' average household income?

14. Do your customers use social media?

15. Are you interacting with them on social media?

16. Have you ever touched base with your customers after a sale or given a service?

17. Are your customers a one-time deal, or a long term relationship?

18. What are your customers likes and dislikes?

19. What sets your customers apart from your competitors' customers?

20. How long is your sales process?

2. Find Your Leads

Now that you understand your customer and the type you are reaching out to, you need new leads to turn into customers. You can do this through following up.

However, where are all your leads? You will be very surprised to find that there are many ways to acquire new leads, but to also follow up on old ones. The old leads that you can follow up on are low hanging fruit. A little work and nurturing and you may just have a new customer.

Boot Camp Action Step: Find your leads.

Instructions: Go through every single one of these steps. You need to pull out all and any leads that have been left on the table.

• Networking meetings from the past 6 months

First off, if you are not networking, then you are very behind, see this blog to learn more about networking. If you have been networking, then this is for you. Look through everyone in your networking groups and anyone you have had meetings with. Is there anyone you have talked to that hasn’t given you a yes? Start a follow up campaign to nurture them asap.

• Dig out all of your business cards from other businesses

Chances are you have some business cards, or a lot. These people gave them to you for a reason. Dig out the cards, look them up, and make a game plan for them.

• Review referrals shows, word of mouth, etc.

If you have been to any trade shows or have any referrals that haven’t been followed up with, make a list. Typically, after a show leads are only followed up with a few times, and more often than not, some get missed.

• Pull up your calendar, review all previous appointments and phone calls

Look at your calendar from the last 6 months. Who did you have in person or call appointments with? Did it generate anything? Did they just need more time to nurture?

• Review social media history, was there anybody who hasn’t been responded to?

You will be surprised about how many people don’t follow up or message people who are liking, commenting, and sharing their social media posts. If you have their attention, they are a lead that must be followed up with.

Check out this video by Jill's Office on why you need to be on social media if you are needing help.

• Review your CRM. There are people that may have been forgotten or who have fallen through the cracks. If you don't have a CRM, you need one for your business ASAP. If you have one, you need to be entering your leads that you just found into it.

3. Understand Your Goals and Write Down Your Goals.

Having goals is so important. Setting SMART goals will help you with your follow up process.

These types of goals are goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time oriented. It truly helps define your goals and where you need to be.

You need to decide what you want your goals to be: why are you setting them, who is affected by your goals, what are your goals, when to set your goals, where your goals apply, and how you are going to do them.

Check out this great blog on setting SMART Goals.

Boot Camp Action Step: Create your own SMART Goals.

Instructions: Decide what goals you want to work on. Ask yourself the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Make them SMART.

What are my goals?

Who

What

When

Where

Why

How

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time Oriented

4. How to follow up.

So many struggle with follow up. They may be afraid of rejection, may not have the time, or may not know how to do it. There are many avenues out there for following up, and here are some great ideas on how.

Email - Guess what? Constant Contact explains that 72% of consumers prefer email for communication. This is great for you. It is vital you use email in your following up process.

SMS or “text message”- Did you know that text messages have on average a 98% read rate. Most don’t know this and it’s astounding. If you have a cell phone number and are a closer basis with the lead, try using text message to follow up.

Phone Call - The Marketing Donut has a great stat that explains that 80% f sales require 5 follow up phone calls! Since leads are needing on average 7-8 follow ups, phone call is also a must in your follow up process.

Letter - Depending on your sales process, some of your customers may need a letter. The great thing about a letter is that you can make it personable to just one person, or you can create one style to send to thousands.

Post Card - Send Out Cards is a great resource for post cards. Very affordable, and you can use their templates or create your own.

Social Media - Social media is a great route to use for following up. Try sending a personal messages or doing live videos to see how your customer is doing.

Use these resources to assist you, work smarter, not harder

Boot Camp Action Step: Create a follow up funnel

Instructions: Create a step by step follow up funnel. What avenues do you need to follow up better? Your process needs to be incorporating these options. If you need help, Jill’s Office has specialists trained in this specific area. We even write up sales processes based on your industry to incorporate the automation with the human touch. This is a guide of timing of what you can do, and you just create the lingo to send.

Sample Sales Funnel Follow Up:

Follow Up 1) Day 1 Of Meeting Your New Lead - send an email about how you met, thank them, and encourage them to take action

Follow Up 2) Day 1 Of Meeting Your New Lead - send a text message. Yes, that is right, on the same day of meeting them, send them a quick text that says you are sending them an email for them to check out. It doesn’t have to be the same day, but don’t let them forget you.

Follow Up 3) Day 3- Give them a phone call. This is a follow up phone call to see how they are doing. If you can’t, get a Jill to follow up with them as well. This phone call is to continue to build the relationship if they haven’t committed yet. If no sale or commitment, tell them you will follow up again in a few days so they can have a little more time to think about it.

Follow Up 4) Day 7- Do another phone call. This is a another follow up phone call from the one 4 days previous. Touch base, work on negotiating them to commit. If they don’t answer, leave a message, and let them know you are sending them another email. If they aren’t ready to commit, send them email anyway. Give them reviews or testimonials about your company, give them some value to build that trust.

Follow Up 5) Day 7- Send Email. This is a follow up email from the phone call.

Follow Up 6) Day 14- Give another call, send another email, or send them a message on social media. Typically, 80% of sales require at least 5 follow ups, so if they haven’t committed yet, don’t give up, be consistent.

Follow Up 7+) Day 21-Send email or phone call every 1-2 weeks. Your client may just not be ready. So for the next 3 months, send a email or call every 1-2 weeks. It can be light hearted, it could be a newsletter, or some industry FAQ’s. The important thing is to not lose their contact information, and try again in 6-12 months if they aren’t ready.

Just remember at the end of the day, the most important thing you can due in this process is to start doing something. It will take trial and error to gain the experience needed to be better.

It's always a yes until they say no. Just because someone hasn't said yes to you, doesn't mean they said no. Be persistent, be diligent, and keep trying.

Following up is an art, a skill. Chances are your competitors aren't doing it. Get on board and be better than they are.