Failure of the Sales Team to Follow Up

If there is a cardinal sin for any salesperson, it is the failure to follow up on viable leads or closeable prospects. What constitutes a closeable lead can be very subjective. However, I would rather error on the cautious side than to assume an opportunity has passed me by.

There is a myriad of reasons why your prospect is not communicating. It may be that higher priority projects were assigned to them. They could have changed the capital budget criteria, so that your item had to go through a budgeting process. Don’t forget long-term illnesses and COVID type issues that stop projects in their tracks.

Economic downturns can put a halt to projects based on management directives to curtail spending. I have been in the selling field for four plus decades and have rarely outsold a downturn in the US economy.

Simply do not assume that silence from your prospect does not mean that the project has vanished.

And yes, I know it would have been so simple for your contact to drop you a quick note to let you know what happened. However, most of the time that simply does not happen.

I would also use other sources in the company to determine why there are delays. On several occasions in the past, I have contacted the staff secretary to ask if the person is well. At least that gives you a clue if something serious has happened to your primary contact.

There is a lesson to be learned here as well about getting to know as many people as you can and developing trust relationships to keep the flow of information coming.

Set up a follow up schedule based on your last correspondence with the prospect. Be sure to ask them why the purchase has been delayed. Don’t make a fool of yourself by following up to aggressively.

When you follow up, remind them of the previous communication, including the specific date referenced to lend credence to your follow up call.

If they are difficult to catch in person, follow up with other methods, including e-mails, texts, video clips and paper mail. Consider a donation to a charity in their name and then ask for a personal meeting.

One of my clients tried a FedEx letter which included a personal letter, pricing, and a company capabilities brochure to catch the prospect’s attention.

A recommended timetable might be a twice a week contact effort to start, then a weekly, a bi-weekly, and then a monthly outreach. Never let your follow up efforts go beyond a quarterly contact.    

All follow up efforts should be purposeful. State specifically why you are calling and add some aspect of closing now to expedite the business. Never make your contact effort so casual that it appears you are calling just to shoot the breeze or imply that the business is not important to you.

As a motivating factor, remind yourself how much of a sales and marketing effort that you and your company put into closing that sale.

As a sales manager, I knew exactly what the salary, benefits, and sales expenses where for myself and my sales team. We also knew our inside sales support team expenses and the amount of inventory held in stock. Once you have those numbers, minimum goals can be established to justify having a salesperson in the field.

Remember the number of people who are depending on you to close the business, so they can have a job that they depend on.

Gary D. Seale - MBA

Trucon Communications and Consulting

Austin, TX