The Money Is In The Follow Up (My Follow Up Process Inside)

[Dan_Cardone]

Most salesman fail to adequately follow up with interested prospects.

I teach (more like PREACH) to every member of my sales teams that THE MONEY IS IN THE FOLLOW UP!

Most people simply aren't ready to buy yet. In fact, only about 3% are ready to buy right now.

7% Are thinking about buying and are in the research phase.

30% are somewhat interested but lack the necessary motivation and excitement to buy right now.

The other 60% just aren't interested. No big deal!

The typical salesman is only going after the 3%... and he is leaving A LOT of money on the table!

Question: How does the average "cold call" typically go?

Answer: The sales rep calls, introduces himself, ask how your day is going, gives you an elevator pitch, and tries to set an appointment. At least, thats how the last 124,584,788 salesmen who contacted me tried to push their wares... By the time I hang up (and I can't do it fats enough) I am annoyed at being interrupted.

There is a better (and more profitable) way!

How do the sales reps on my team cold call?

"Hi Tom, this is Dan over at [COMPANY]. I'm calling because I want to offer you out latest free report 7 WAYS TO EXPLODE YOUR PROFITS IN 7 DAYS... GUARANTEED. Its a quick read at only 10 pages but pretty much everyone we sent it to loves it. Its completely free, don't even need a card on file. Is growing your profits something you are interested in? "

The sales rep will say all of this the second the prospect picks up the phone and doesn't stop talking until he has every last word out. Its quick, direct to the point, offers something of value, and closes with a question thats almost guaranteed to elicit a "yes."

The rep will get the prospects physical address so they can be sent out a small booklet that contains the information. (You can get a 10 page, full color, booklet printed up for less than a dollar.) The rep will also offer a free webinar invite and/or valuable video to be sent to the prospects email address. Now we have their:

Phone Number
Mailing Address
Email Address

Three ways to follow up is better than one. So begins the follow up process.

At the end of the booklet is a pitch for a limited time free strategy session. The strategy session is typically between 30 - 60 minutes and goes over some aspects of the person's business. Then they are give, completely for free, a usable and easy to implement strategy that will help their business in some way. The goal is to impress them and make them want to continue working with us on an ongoing term.

If they DON'T call in we simply follow up with them.

Follow up:

1. Phone call a few days after they should have gotten the free report. The rep will ask them if they ha any questions about what was in the report and again pitches them a free strategy session. They stress how limited these are and that they don't need any credit card.
2. An email is sent asking if they got the phone call (most calls are sent to voicemail). If the call went to voicemail you then pitch the strategy session again. If the rep talked to the person but that person never took up the strategy session offer then the email pitches another high value offer. Usually its some sort of simple checklist that is sent to them in a PDF file. At the end of the check list is an offer for a strategy session.
3. Couple days later then get another email. This time it is simply a funny story. I want them to see that not all emails is just going to be a sales pitch.
4. Next day is another email that is simply what I call a "value post." Its an email that does no selling, it simply educates the prospect on something important.
5. Couple days later is another call. Ask if they got the checklist. If so they ask if they have any questions about it. If not, they offer to email it to them. The rep again pitches the free strategy session.
6. Another email with something funny along with a client success story and testimonial is sent to them the day after the call.
7. A newsletter will arrive around this time to their address via good old snail mail. The newsletter is short but valuable and again pitches the strategy session. Also has client testimonials. They will get 1 - 3 newsletters every month for at least three months.
8. They will get a call and ask about the newsletter. "Any questions or feedback?" Then again pitches the strategy session.
9. Email is sent inviting them to an upcoming webinar.
10. Text is sent reminding them of the webinar.
11. Email sent again days later with a final notice about registering for the free webinar.
12. Phone call. Tell them about the webinar and uses the following pitch "If you feel the webinar is a complete waste of you time and that you have learned nothing of value, let us know and we will give you $200. No questions asked!" This really gets their attention.
13. Email sent that teaches something.
14. Email with a "last chance" webinar invite.
15. Email with a link to a webinar replay if they didn't attend. If they did attend they get a phone call asking them about it and then pitching the strategy session.
16. Final phone call telling them that they have exactly x number of spots left and that now is the time to change their life and business for good. Tell them that if the strategy session is a complete waste of time they will be given $200 with no questions asked.
17. Another newsletter by snail mail has been delivered by now.

If after that they still don't take the rep up on the offer they are placed on the back burner for a good while until the process is started all over again with them a few months later with a different initial offer. Also, if at anytime they tell us to stop contacting them, we do. Not a problem.

The key is to keep offering them value until they are ready to buy. Prospects buy when they are ready, not when you want them to.

Until they decide that they are ready, we educate them, show them the value we can provide, and build trust with them. After 16 follow up who do you think will be on the top of their mind when they are ready to spend money? The company who keeps annoying them with lame "just touching base" follow ups or us?

I don't claim this is a perfect strategy. In fact, we are always working to optimize it and make it better. I do know that this has worked wonders for us and had radically transformed the sales strategy of other companies we have taught it to. All in all, its something for you to consider and try.

 

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[Bekit]

It's posts like this that make me want to hit the "clap" button 50 times in a row. Where is the REP+++ when we need it???

Super valuable share. Thanks for posting. LOVE this approach!

One of the biggest, biggest things that I think is being under-used is obtaining the customer's physical address.

I love how you're sending them the lead magnet IN THE MAIL. It's going to be more likely to be read, remembered, and acted upon, especially with the style of follow up that you're describing. And I love how you can print a booklet like this for a dollar.

So I'm full of curiosity. Can I ask a few questions diving deeper into this strategy?

1) Between the cost of time on the phone, design, printing, and postage, would you say you can keep your cost per acquisition under what it would cost using a digital funnel with adspend driving traffic to your offer?

2) Do you use any type of automation or software tools to trigger the timing of each piece of the follow up? Or are you doing it manually?

3) Is your webinar on demand or do you give it live on a regular basis?

4) How long would you say it takes you per week to conduct this follow up sequence for all your leads? Or what percentage of your time do you think it occupies?

5) Do people express resistance at giving away their contact info at the end of the cold call? How would you say the conversion rate compares to a web-based, digital-only landing page & lead magnet?

Thanks again for the awesome share. You're right. 95% of people will never use this. But those who put in uncommon effort will be the ones to get uncommon results.

 

[drmattolesiak]

Damn. This is an amazing post/thread. I'm going to take what you're doing and try and apply it to my medical marketing agency even if I have to be on the phone myself - maybe do the "doctor to doctor" thing?

I'm recording a webinar for the business this week too, perfect timing !

 

[Jeff Noel]

Thank you for sharing this with us. There's a lot of value in your strategy.

 

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