To understand this phenomenon we have to examine the process required to ensure a business survives the first three years. Part of this process is converting generated leads into profitable sales. The understanding will come from analysing how the successful business owner turns a lead into a sale.

TIP: Contact” And “Follow-Up

To follow-up we must have made contact first. So, what is meant by contact? Contact does not mean the person but rather the method in which you communicate with a lead. My definition of contact is:
“The verbal, physical or printed means made to connect to a lead. The lead can be generated from outbound calls or self generated inbound”.

The Contact

There are three sources of contacts:
1. A cold prospect outbound.
2. A prospect from your incoming lead generation program.
3. Your existing customer base.

1. A cold prospect.
The contact name and number is secured either from:
· A purchased list
· Business directory pages
· Referrals secured or supplied

2. A prospect from your lead generation program. This contact may have:
· Responded to a direct mail letter
· Responded to an advertisement
· Responded to a publicised brochure or report or some other form of promotion.

3. Your existing customer base can be contacted with:
· Survey results
· Email responses
· Incentives offers

The “follow-up”.
So what is “Follow-Up” after the contact has been made? Follow-up is simply the method of:

How and how often you contact the leads that have shown the slightest interest in your product or service.

TIP: Your success in sales is in direct proportion to how well you “follow-up”.

Note, this is not an article about selling techniques. However, I will touch briefly on the subject of sales to demonstrate “How often” and “How” is related to the follow-up.

“How Often”
In the old school of high pressure selling, to make the most number of sales you had to be prepared to close at least 5 times. My experience in selling is that to make the most sales you should be prepared to close at least 5 times before you can expect a 70% successful sale conversion.

The rule for direct sales, face to face is that you ask for the sale 5 times or until they say go away. To be successful, without upsetting the prospect, this must be done in a non-threatening way, using powerful rebuttals, calling on logic and emotional techniques while appealing to the buyer’s weakness.

On the other hand, you can also apply the same principle of closing 5 times if your approach is not face-to-face. Let’s say that you make the initial contact by phone or by face to face but your prospect won’t or can’t allow you to close 5 times so you have to follow-up. What do you do?

These days, sales are not results of cold calling. To do this you would be considered a Dinosaur. Sales are made over the phone, through printed vouchers and via the Internet through a lead generation program.

Therefore, a follow-up process is absolutely and totally necessary to convert the leads generated into sales. After all, often you aren’t face to face with prospects.

These days we have a communication resource that has revolutionized the world. That tool is the Internet and we control it at our fingertips. This tool changes the ratios and conversions that we once relied upon and trusted as gospel. Instead of closing 5 times if you use the internet and emails you must follow up at least 20 times to achieve the same ratio above.

The main reason we have to follow-up more than before is that whilst the internet is a magic tool, it is also easy for prospects to delete, discard or send your promotion to the junk box. By making our emails interesting, different and of we can entice our prospect to buy. You can then use the same principle for closing but with a mixture of resources. I might use the C.P.R-N.O.W. approach.

C.P.R - N.O.W.

This system gives me the best results when applying the follow-up process. This occurs after the prospect has had contact and you are nurturing the lead. Ignore it at your peril C.P.R–N.O.W. stands for:

Confirm, Print, Review, New, Objections, and Work on.

Acronym Content/purpose How often Method

Confirm Thank them Next day… Email/call
Confirm the discussion
Inform your intentions

Print Send brochure Within five days... Email/letter
Send report
Send survey

Report Ask did they get the information? Three days later… Email/call/post
Ask what were their thoughts?
Ask what else do they need?

New Send more material Within five days... Post/email
Send new questionnaire
Send new report

Objections Ask do they have any problems Three days later… Email/call
Ask if they have any negatives
Ask for any other feedback

Work on Keep sending valued content Within five days... Post/email
Keep sending invitations
Keep you in their minds

TIP: keep following up until your prospect either buys your product or unsubscribes.

Why do we follow up so strongly? It’s for two reasons:
1. People’s circumstances change over time
2. Buyer’s weaknesses

Let’s discuss each in order of priority.

1. Peoples circumstances change over time
People are not always ready to buy just because you are ready to sell. Sometimes a prospect buys in cycles, seasons or by way of their budget monies. Also instant buying is shunned.

Some don’t like buying just because you have an instant deal. You know the type of hype you see from time to time. Buy now because it will never be back again. While it does work to some degree it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the purchaser having to buy under pressure.

It is far better to show why it is better buy now rather than later.

2. Buyer’s weakness
This is more to do with the pressure sales person with out the pressure. People will succumb to your wishes in the same way as you give in to persistent requests from your children. They keep asking and eventually you give in.

Dan Cavalli
Dan is an Australian businessman, entrepreneur, expert on small-business success, teaches essential marketing tactics and sales techniques to increase sales. If you really enjoyed this information, please consider recommending it to your friends and contacts. They may also benefit from Dan’s free subscription for Business and Personal Development Tips at http://www.commandobusiness.com