When was the last time you got an email, letter or postcard from your retail therapy centre – as in your favourite store, restaurant, or the last shop you visited?
My guess is probably never. You might get the occasional flyer, but nothing personal or even interesting. The best you can hope for is boring cut-price offers.
There’s a big lesson here for all of us.
As business owners, we can never be good enough at following up with our customers. In the past I’ve been guilty of this as much as the next person.
But now I refuse to let a business owner moan to me about the Recession until they have a multi step follow up sequence of 7-30 touches or contacts (email, mail, postcard, telephone etc.) with everyone who comes into contact with their business as a potential or paying customer or client.
Funnily enough, when people do this, they tend to make so much money from increased sales, they just shrug off the Recession and stop talking about it.
As business owners, we can’t afford to make the big, costly mistake of not following up, because one way or another we pay good money to get leads, and if we let them disappear without them becoming customers, then it’s money we’ve wasted.
And just in case you have any doubts about how important this is, here are some scary statistics:
48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop
It’s staggering, but only 10 % of businesses make more than three contacts. This means they’re losing a small fortune.
Because…
2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
So if you’re like almost half of all businesses and make no more than one follow-up to your prospects… you’re leaving 98% of your income on the table for someone else to come along and pick up.
If that wasn’t bad enough, here’s why it’s even worse.
Here’s Why People Stop Buying From Businesses:
1% die.
3% move away.
5% follow a friend’s or relative’s recommendation.
9% find an alternative they perceive to be better quality or value.
14% are dissatisfied with the products or services.
And a massive 68% of people leave a business because of… indifference.
They take their business elsewhere simply because they do not feel valued.
Since you spend a lot of time, money, and effort to get a visitor to your business, if you let them leave because of indifference, you might as well be flushing $20 notes away.
They take their business elsewhere simply because they do not feel valued.
So, how often should you follow up? Most business owners I speak to follow up maybe once a month, if they use follow up at all. This is a mistake. You can quite safely send something once or twice a week.
See, it’s not the quantity of stuff that annoys people. What annoys them is if it’s boring, and nothing but requests that they buy something from you. As long as your follow up is friendly, personal, full of personality and fun, then you’ll be fine.
There’s a golden rule in Marketing that will make you wealthy. Once you have someone’s details keep on following up until they either buy, die, or tell you to stop!
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