Making money from sales is a delicate balance of lead-gen, initial communication and follow-up. Most salespeople focus on the initial contact but the FU money comes from the follow-up. There are three tiers of money in sales: “right now money,” “coming soon money” and “someday money.” Most salespeople are only concerned with right now and coming soon money but wealth is built from someday money.
Someday money only turns into right now money when you have great follow-up. The struggle salespeople face is executing the delicate process of following-up without pissing off, annoying, or running off the prospect. Oftentimes, when a prospect unsubscribes or asks not to be contacted again, it is because of lack of value.
Bottom line: If you want someday money to turn into right now money, you need to bring value.
For the purpose of this article, let’s call “value” something the prospect wants, cares about and benefits from.
That being said, most salespeople and marketers do the exact opposite of what the prospect wants. The prospect wants information and content they benefit from, but most salespeople send out content that only asks for business and only benefits the salesperson. This is what pisses the prospect off and causes them to unsubscribe or opt out of your follow-up.
Most salespeople lack an actual follow-up plan. They just blindly call, email or text the prospect and ask if they are ready to buy and remind them to buy when they are ready. This is about as useless as attempting to circumcise a mosquito. It’s like trying to go deer hunting with a shotgun. Sure, every now and then you’ll find a deaf deer that will let you get close but 99% of the time you are wasting ammo and time. (Sales advice from a country boy living in the city.)
You must have a follow-up plan. And that follow-up plan must benefit the prospect and entice them to eventually buy. How’s this done? I’m glad you asked. As usual, I have a process you can follow that’s all about follow-up and inching the prospect closer and closer to making the buying decision. I call it the “incubation process.” When you incubate an egg, it stays nice, warm and safe until its inhabitant is ready to exit. This is how you must think of your prospects.
First, ask yourself what the prospect actually wants. When it comes to a mortgage, for example, they don’t want a mortgage. They want a house, or they want to refinance so they can buy something else. When you figure out what it is they want, that’s what you start enticing them with. When it comes to coaching, I know that no one wants a coach, they want a better way of doing things, more money, a better life or something along those lines.
Think of this blog post. I know that if you are reading this and do what I teach you, you will make more sales and more money will come from those sales. At some point, if I have provided enough help and value for you, you have a probability rating of coming to see me to join one of my programs. I’m actually living out this process right before your eyes.
Figure out what the lead wants, then deliver it first.
If you sell houses, people don’t want a realtor; they want a way to get the best deal on a home or a way to sell their home for the most profit possible. If you sell cars, they want something that fits their lifestyle without overpaying. If you sell phones, they need something they can afford which will not run up their bill. If you sell roofs they want to keep a leak from damaging the contents of their home. Don’t think about surface needs. Go deep and figure out what they really want.
Once you know what they want, scour the internet for articles that exist about these subjects. Articles and blog posts from trusted sites are the best. If you can create your own content, that’s even better. You can make videos and ebooks and use a software called PhoneSites to deliver those items after they opt-in. This software will allow you to follow up on auto-pilot, too, which saves you time and effort. “Set it and forget it” is the most efficient way to do things. You can create these PhoneSites in less than 5 minutes from your mobile device or your desktop, even without any viable tech skills. Sign up at PhoneSites.com
Second, you need to come up with a delivery schedule. For example, if someone is buying a home, they’re not looking at homes at 6:30am. They are more likely to search for homes in the evening after work hours. If you sell workout supplements or equipment, your audience is prolly up early and that’s the best time to follow-up. I know most salespeople and entrepreneurs are up early, that’s why my follow-up shows up early in the morning and is motivational to help them start their day off right. My value is the Get Your Mind Right podcast first thing in the morning.
Every 5th or 6th follow up that you do after you’ve followed my system and given value first, you earn the right to ask for their business and see if they are ready to buy. If they say “not yet” get back to work and provide 5 or 6 more pieces of value to earn the right to contact them again.
Your prospect should look forward to your follow up. They will if you follow this process.
My challenge and your homework is now to find, create and deliver that value and make sure you keep track of how much value you have provided before you ask for the business again. People want to buy, but they don’t want to be sold to. Once you coax them to inch ahead and entice them to buy, they will, but they have to do it on their time, not yours.
I just bought a home. I’ve wanted a new home for two years, but the time wasn’t right. My realtor followed up with me for two years until the time was right. We found the right home, the right area and right price and my agent just cleared a big-ass commission check. Had this person bothered me with a “you ready to buy yet?” message every week, I would have avoided her like the plague. Know your prospect! It’s your job as a salesperson to get into the head of your prospect.
Now, that you know the process, get out there and get it done. Move ahead of the morons by actually using a follow-up strategy and sticking to it. You can thank me when your someday money turns into right now money and the sales come rolling in. And don’t forget to sign up for PhoneSites.com to give yourself the best shot at closing more money more often.
