EP # 152 - Stay Top of Mind: Follow-Up Strategies to Increase Customer Conversion and Retention

In this episode,  I talk about the critical importance of sales follow-up and how it can significantly impact your business's success. We'll explore three types of follow-ups that every business owner should master:

1. Post-Conversation Follow-Up: Learn why you should follow up after an initial conversation with a potential client who needs time to think about their purchase. Discover the best practices to stay top of mind, without being intrusive.
2. Cold Lead Follow-Up: Understand the techniques for re-engaging cold leads. We'll discuss some fascinating sales and follow-up stats and how that translates into cold-lead selling.
3. Post-Purchase Follow-Up: Find out how to nurture relationships with clients after their first purchase. to encourage repeat business and foster customer loyalty.

Additionally, we'll share some fascinating and important follow-up statistics that highlight the effectiveness of these strategies and why they should be an integral part of your sales process.

Key Takeaways:

• The critical role of follow-up in closing sales.
• Techniques for effective follow-up at different stages of the customer journey.
• Statistical insights that demonstrate the power of consistent follow-up.
• Practical tips for implementing a successful follow-up strategy.

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Key Time Stamps:

The art of follow-up in sales (00:01:31) Maggie discusses the importance of follow-up in sales and distinguishes it from marketing nurturing.

Different types of sales follow-up (00:02:51) Maggie explains three types of sales follow-up: after initial client contact, cold prospecting, and post-purchase.

Stats on the impact of follow-up in sales (00:06:20) Maggie shares statistics highlighting the significance of follow-up in sales and customer decision-making.

The impact of follow-up in acquiring clients (00:13:00) Maggie shares personal experiences and success stories related to following up with potential clients.

Strategies for effective follow-up in sales (00:15:24) Maggie provides insights on establishing a follow-up process and overcoming discomfort in follow-up interactions.

Cold messaging and prospecting (00:18:58) Maggie discusses the effectiveness of cold messaging and prospecting, emphasizing the need for a robust follow-up process.

The importance of post-purchase follow-up (00:21:22) Maggie highlights the significance of post-purchase follow-up in building client relationships and loyalty.

Transcript

Maggie Perotin (00:00:01) - Your business exists because you had the idea to start it. Everything begins in our minds. That's why your business results cannot outgrow your current level of thinking. Do you want to serve more clients, make more money without working more, or burning yourself out? Grow yourself first as a leader of your business because that's who you are as a leader. Even if you're the only person in your business right now. When you lead yourself first, the business results will always follow. My name is Maggie Perotin. I'm an international business and leadership coach, an expert in business mindset, strategy and high performance. I created the Diamond Effect podcast to help you elevate your thinking, expand your perspective and through it, grow your business without overwhelm. So let's get started. Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Diamond Effect Podcast, episode 152. Last week I talked about selling and sales that feel natural and not salesy and pushy. And today's episode is a follow up or a second part to that. So if you haven't listened yet to episode 151 titled Authentic Selling How to Make Sales Feel Natural and Effortless.

Maggie Perotin (00:01:31) - I invite you to do that first and then come back to this episode, because today is all about the art of follow up, and follow up is part of sales, but I thought I would split this topic, do a separate topic because I see a lot of business owners have a lot of thoughts about follow up, and not necessarily follow up and leaving a lot of money on the table. So first, I wanted to distinguish between sales follow up and the consistent marketing that nurtures your potential clients before that. Okay, because sometimes you might understand follow up as just that nurturing in marketing. And that's not what we're talking about. We do a lot of episodes here on marketing. So I invite you to maybe go back and look at them. In this episode, we'll talk about three types of sales. Follow up. First type. It's a situation where an interested potential client reached out to you and you have interacted with them. Maybe you had a sales call, maybe you had a message, maybe you had an initial consultation, and then they told you that they would get back to you, or they had to think about it or whatever.

Maggie Perotin (00:02:51) - And you're following up on that. The second type of the sales follow up is when you maybe do some cold reach out and cold prospecting and outreach to potentially find clients. And following up after that very first message that you initiated. Okay, so not client initiated, but you initiated that message and I wanted to include that here. The cold prospecting, even though I don't recommend it to everybody because there's definitely the conversion rates of the amount of time and effort you put to the results you get is so much lower than when you do warm leads and when you warm up your audience. However, there are some industries where it makes sense and the way I do it with my client, we do it like a whole system when it's not just cold. Reach out and I'll talk about it a little bit later. But I think it's important, especially when you use that strategy to follow up. So we'll talk about that as well. And then the third follow up type we'll talk about is after client purchases from you.

Maggie Perotin (00:03:59) - But then whatever service you offer they could purchase over and over again. Or they should be for their best interest. So for example, you know, a massage therapist going to massage once a year only will do you good so much, right? The best results you will get if you go at least once a month or every other week. Same with the hair stylist. You know, doing your hair once a year might be good for some, but like myself, I go probably every other month or maybe every two and a half months. And if I don't, that affects me. So there are some of us who provide services where or repeatable, and the client can come back more often and it's in their best interest or in their best experience. Like if you're a restaurant, of course you want the clients to come back, even though they don't necessarily need to. So that follow up is important because the client who already worked with you, and if they love you, it's so much easier to get them to come back, then convert a colder potential client who who's never worked with you, right? That full trust hasn't been established yet.

Maggie Perotin (00:05:11) - And those three types, I thought about it when I kind of looked at the definition. Okay, what follow up is. Right. So a follow up is really in every interaction that you make or have after making the first contact with a potential client. Okay. So every interaction could be a conversation, a phone call, a meeting, a message, an email, whatever that is. This is a follow up. And before I dive a little bit deeper in those three types of follow ups, I looked at some stats that I found interesting, and I wanted to share some of them with you. Just to show you how important follow up is. Now a full disclaimer, I found the stats in an article online and the article didn't share this. A source of the data. So I understand how data works. So, you know, depending on what type of industry the study was made, how many people or businesses participated or surveyed, how it was analyzed or affects the results. So don't take this percentages or the truth of the world.

Maggie Perotin (00:06:20) - And it's always like that, but it's directionally correct. And the numbers are so crazy that even if they're skewed by it, it's still worth to know them so that they make you really think about your own process and your own follow up. And is it really what is in your best interest? For example, the stats are showing that only 3% of your current potential clients that are in your orbit that already know of you, that are, you know, people who can definitely use your services because they have a need or a potential want. Only 3% of these people are active buyers in any given time. So active buyers, it means there want to make a decision they're considering and they're ready to buy. So if you think about it in out of a thousand people, let's say you have 1000 people in your orbit, whether there are between your email list and social media followers and people in your network, only 30 of them would be ready to buy from you. Now, the other 97% need to be nurtured or followed up with on a regular basis, because they're just not ready to buy yet.

Maggie Perotin (00:07:40) - Another great stat that I definitely resonate with as a customer is that 60% of customers say no four times before they say yes, and 75% of buyers actually want to follow up, and they want to be reminded two, four, multiple times about the fact that they wanted to buy in 57%, not only want it, but actually appreciate the follow up. And yes, nobody wants to be pushed or made feel guilty that they're not buying. So people appreciate appreciate that gentle, professional follow up. But why is that the case? And I'm going to tell you from my experience, because that study didn't really explain that, is that we're busy. We have a lot going on. We juggle a lot in our lives the jobs, the business, the family, the kids, community obligations, whatever that is. As human beings were busy, and we are also more and more distracted or less and less focused, right? Our our attention gets dragged in a million directions. So even though we might want to buy something and we might be ready to make a decision if we're not helped with that to our own detriment, we usually take longer than we need to, right? So myself, when I want to buy something, but I need to check something or think about something, I always appreciate a follow up from a supplier or vendor or a business that I want to buy things from, and I'm not ready yet.

Maggie Perotin (00:09:21) - In that moment or during the conversation, I usually try to make a decision fast and say yes, I wanted to get it and take it, but if for whatever reason I need a little bit more time, I actually appreciate the reminder. Clearly, I'm not the only one. It looks like the majority of customers and buyers are in the same bucket, only because, for example, you might be the person that wouldn't appreciate the follow up. Don't make that your default behavior, and don't think that all the other people and all your customers are like you. They're not. There are different humans. They might be like me. There might be in that majority that actually appreciate multiple professional follow ups. So that's just to say that maybe you having some thoughts about a follow up and feeling uncomfortable has more to do with how you think about it, then really how your clients think about it. Your clients might be appreciating, but you are not making it easy for them because you're sitting in your head thinking, oh my God, they're going to think I'm a salesy and pushy when that's not true.

Maggie Perotin (00:10:28) - And it clearly data shows that majority of cases not true. A couple of other stats that are pretty interesting is that 80% of sales require follow up touchpoints. And why? Because only 2% of sales are made during that first touchpoint. During that first conversation, another 3% are made on the second, another 5% on the third, another 10% on the fourth. So. That's only 20% of potential sales happen within the first to the fourth touch point, and 80%. So the vast majority happens between somewhere between the fifth and 12th touchpoint. So if you think about that is think about how much opportunity there is and how much potential money are you leaving on the table. If let's say you're only following up once or not at all, 98%, 98% of opportunities you're leaving on the table, and you're depriving 98% of your potential customers to be helped by you. You're depriving them of help only because you don't want to follow up, and it's not because they don't want it. The data clearly shows they want. It's because you might not want to feel the discomfort that your brain is offering, because for the follow up, that's actually that discomfort.

Maggie Perotin (00:11:59) - It's also a lie, like what your brain is telling you that people think about your follow up clearly is a lie. So food for thought on that. So let's go back quickly and talk a little bit more about those three types of sales. Follow up. And I really wanted to touch upon this topic because even for me, the most recent clients that came to me were partially because I followed up with them. And yes, those were people that fall into the first category that we're going to talk about. So my potential clients who reached out to me expressing interest in working with me, and they told me they wanted to work with me, but needed some time to get ready or save the money, whatever the case was. And we agreed on the time when they would get back to me. And when that time came and they weren't, I gently followed up. I followed up, I think, once or twice within a time, like I have a system, right, that I do or process that I follow.

Maggie Perotin (00:13:00) - And they were appreciative of that and they were working with me. And it's the same for my clients when I work with them. Once we create their sales process, we create that organic marketing funnels and we create the process. We establish a follow up process that makes sense for them based on whatever we're doing for sales, and that makes sense for their clients, for their industry and so on. And when they follow it, they get so much more sales without really going crazy and burning themselves out, marketing and looking for new, new, new people all the time. Because if you only think about only 10% of sales close after the first touchpoint in order to make enough money. If you only do that, you need a lot of new people all the time. Given that again, only 3% in your audience are ready to buy now, and that can be so exhausting to do, as opposed to also not only bringing new people and closing the clients that are ready, but also nurturing the people and following up with maybe some that express interest, but they're not ready yet.

Maggie Perotin (00:14:12) - So the first type of follow up we talked about is when it's your potential client who reaches out, you have that first contact, a sales call conversation message, however it looks like, and then they haven't made the final decision yet. At the end of that touchpoint, either they tell you they need to talk about it or they're not ready yet, whatever. But they haven't really made the final decision. First of all, at the end of that conversation, if that's happen, always establish the fact that you're going to follow up. Don't let it just be unclear, because then the client gets busy, the life gets in the way, and as much as they want to make a decision, they will forget. They get distracted and so on. So at least the fact that you're going to follow up or you set up the follow up meeting or whatever that is, whatever your sales process looks like, establishing that expectation already takes away maybe some nervousness on your part saying, oh, you know, should I follow up or not? Because if you establish that in the client is okay with it, then of course they will expect you even to follow up automatically with the follow ups that will happen after that.

Maggie Perotin (00:15:24) - You just want to help the client make a decision whether it's a yes or a no. It shouldn't matter to you in a sense where you shouldn't be attached to that, as long as it's the best decision for the client, right? As long as the client had all the information that they needed from you to make that decision. With that, the follow up will give you an opportunity to maybe answer some questions that the client could have that will come up to their mind after your initial conversation, right where we often were in the conversation and sometimes we. Go away in here. And they were like, oh damn, I wish I could answer that, or I wish I knew that or I wish we talked about that. So the follow up gives them opportunity. If you do it professionally and in that way, it gives them opportunity to maybe ask some questions that come to them later for you to clear up any not misunderstanding, but anything that maybe isn't clear to the client to ultimately help them decide.

Maggie Perotin (00:16:27) - Now, know that any follow up, if you feel uncomfortable about it and you have some discomfort before like, oh, what should I say? What should I do? How often this is normal? Okay, it does take practice and implementing, right? Your sales process for your brain to normalize it as something you just do as part of your business processes and that view normal. Okay. But be willing to feel that discomfort to potentially get those 80% of the sales that lie somewhere between the fifth and the 12 follow up, and not just keep struggling with the 3% of the sales at a time where you can be helping so many more people now, how often you should follow up, how you should follow up, and so on. You want to establish a process when you are reinventing the wheel each time and you're making things on the go, then it feels new to your brain all the time. So no wonder it's always uncomfortable. But if you make it a process, this is what we do in our business.

Maggie Perotin (00:17:33) - Then at some point you'll be fine. And that's what I do when I work with my clients. We actually establish a process, a sales and marketing process that they can follow and rely on to give them good results and also get good at it so it becomes something they just do. Let's move on to the second type of follow ups when you potentially call the message people. So when you're prospecting with your potential clients, ideal clients, but you don't know if they're ready to buy, right? So there are your ideal clients. Yes. They could use your services. They have the need, but you don't know where they are on their buying journey. If they're in those 3% that are ready or not. When you decide to use this type of strategy called messaging called prospecting, you have to be prepared to follow up. Otherwise, there's no point doing it with cold messaging. It's all about following up the chances of you cold messaging somebody and getting that person that's ready or so low that if you're not prepared to follow up, if you don't have a process to follow up, then you might as well not do any cold reach out and focus your effort on nurturing and warming up people who are already there in your audience and in your network.

Maggie Perotin (00:18:58) - Now, my stance on cold reach out is it depends on your industry. It depends on the network you already have, and also what you're willing to do and whether you can change your mindset around it. So, for example, I don't really do cold reach out to people that I don't know or even remotely interested in coaching. And that's because for a person to really get results from coaching, they need to be ready to apply. And if they don't come to that conclusion themselves, there is no follow up. And there's no way I could, even if I wanted to convince them that they're ready. So I don't do cold reach out the same way therapists don't do cold reach out saying, hey, are you ready for therapy? I can help you with your problems, right? They don't do that because the best client and a person who get the best results, it's when they come to that decision on their own and when they're already looking. Then yes, I'll be nurturing them and showing them how I am the best business coach for them.

Maggie Perotin (00:20:04) - Now, I do have clients who are in industries where cold reach out makes sense and it's an effective way, especially again when you don't have big network in the industry or ideal clients or in. And that's usually I would say I don't want to generalize it, but that's usually happen when your ideal client or larger organizations and larger companies when you're in business to business, but not business to small business, but more business to larger organizations. So then when I work with my clients on that strategy, we actually combine it with some warm strategies, and that in tandem works together to not only increase their sales, but speed up the process of getting the client on their journey for. From? Yeah, I'm interested, but I'm not ready to buy two. Ready to buy. And again, as I said, if you do cold reach out, you need to be prepared to follow up at least 5 to 7 times. Otherwise, don't waste your time. The third type of follow up is after your client purchases your services, and they benefited from it, and especially when they're happy with it.

Maggie Perotin (00:21:22) - Follow up and nurturing of that client is a must. It's not only a good professional business practice, but it also shows your clients that you care, that you have their interest in mind, that you weren't there just to take their money one time and they're like, okay, bye. I don't care about you anymore, right? No follow up shows your clients your care, shows your clients that you understand that they're busy, that you want to make it easy for them to keep benefiting from your services, to keep that you want to keep helping them. And as we talked in the beginning with the States, most people are busy and they do appreciate the follow up. It also, if you do it right, if you do it professionally, if you're creative with it, the follow up builds the relationship, takes it even deeper, and with that builds the loyalty of your clients to stay with you, to be coming back to you, to be referring others. All of this when I work with my clients one on one, we cover it through top SEO winning strategy and then continue a success recipe.

Maggie Perotin (00:22:34) - And when I do that with my clients, their winning strategy and the continuous success recipe is individual to their business, to their industry, to what they want to accomplish, the life they want to lead, and so on. So we set up proper marketing, so proper nurturing of new people. Then the sales process and after sales process or the follow up process to ensure that they use their time most effectively, that the results of their actions give them the highest reward rate and attract the best client. So if you're ready to double your business without adding more time, book a sales call with me through the link in the show notes. Other than that, see you next week. Bye. Thank you for listening today. If this podcast resonated with you, please come back. Also, you can leave a review on whatever platform you're listening, and if you have a suggestion, question or a topic you would like me to talk about, let's get in touch via email. Email me at Maggie at Stairway to Leadership.

Maggie Perotin (00:23:45) - Com. See you in the next episode.