Yes, follow-up.
All salespeople know they’ve got to do it, but few actually enjoy it. Naturally, we would rather work to close sales than making call after call after call. Historically, sales follow-up has been the elbow grease that made demos and closed sales possible. So it remains the “necessary evil” of the sales profession, the action we all begrudgingly perform to get the results we want.
Or maybe not.
In a recent InsideSales blog post, John Ternieden recapped some of the highlights from Grant Cardone’s session at the 2016 Sales Acceleration Summit. At first, it worked more like a reminder of all the things we know we need to be doing. Cardone reminded us that we need to get on the phone and call prospects. He reminded us of that staggering InsideSales stat: when sales reps respond to inquiries within five minutes versus 30 minutes, qualifications blow up 21x.
It was all enough to get salespeople squirming in their seats, nodding their heads, and saying, “I get it. I get it. I need to do better.” But then he said this:
“You need to find creative ways of reaching out to customers. It doesn’t always have to be a phone call or an email. You can text, post on social sites, send invitations to charity events or offer referrals.”
In the past, sales follow-up has been strictly on the phone, sometimes in person or via the mail. But with email, smartphones, and social media in their arsenal, salespeople are no longer limited to the cold drudgery of calling when it comes to follow-up. In fact, it might no longer be the most effective way to follow up.
Consider, for instance, that a salesperson can now share relevant short videos with prospects right on Twitter, without them having to even click a link. Consider that, without dialing a number and interrupting a prospect in the middle of a busy day, salespeople can follow-up with a quick email that contains a professional, personal, relevant, and short video demo.
The best part about these approaches is that they: 1) don’t inconvenience the prospect, 2) are much quicker than making a call, 3) make more frequent follow-up more likely, and 4) work with the way today’s prospects prefer to communicate and collaborate.
Surely, the phone will never be completely be abolished as a follow-up tool. But today’s salespeople have a new set of tools at their disposal that can allow them to follow-up without burning themselves out or annoying their prospects.
To learn how Consensus allows sales teams to give a personalized video demo just by sharing one link, click the orange “Watch Demo” button below.
