How to Win More Sales with Follow-Ups

At a recent Jack Daly (http://www.jackdaly.net/) seminar on Smart Selling: Increasing Sales and Margins, there were a number of key takeaways (and if you haven’t heard Jack speak, I highly recommend it), but the one that particularly stuck out was the art of follow-up.

Jack shared his perspective on what you can do to be memorable in your follow-up and why immediate follow-up is so important – prospects are more likely to choose the firm that responded the fastest.

Here are 3 tips from Jack:

1. Email the minute you leave the meeting – Once you’ve left a meeting with a new prospect, vendor, partner – essentially any new contact – send an immediate follow-up email. If you've met multiple contacts at once, send an individual and personally tailored email to each. The more individualized the better, don't simply plug names into a form message.
2. Send a personalized card in the mail – Don’t stop at an email. Take a moment to write and mail a personal card. The note should reinforce the sentiment you want to share and include brand signals – e.g. personalized cards, envelopes, a specific type of pen, stamp, etc.
3. Keep in touch even if there isn’t an immediate business opportunity – In sales and marketing (particularly in B2B) a high-touch, personalized approach is most effective. For prospects and past customers, it’s essential to maintain a relationship even if you aren’t actively discussing potential work. This can be as simple as sending a birthday or anniversary card. The key is to make it personal, something that prospects or past customer wouldn’t expect you to remember.

We live in an increasingly competitive marketplace; the more we can differentiate ourselves the better. In addition to having a well-defined competitive advantage, we should conduct ourselves in a manner that sets us apart.

If you’d like more information on defining your competitive advantage, call us at 416-598-4684 and speak with Lisa Shepherd.