Only two percent of sales happen at the first meeting. That means a whopping 98% of sales require more than one interaction with a potential customer.
This is especially true in business-to-business sales, where the sales cycle typically lasts months, there are multiple people on the buying committee, and the sales process involves multiple steps, including meetings, presentations, site visits, demos, proposals, negotiations and more.
If you want to succeed in B2B sales, you must master your follow up. One way to do this is to avoid the six most common blunders that sales reps make when following up with leads.
Mistake 1: Giving up after just one follow up
A staggering 44% of sales reps give up after making just one follow up. For example, they meet with a prospect, follow up a few days or weeks later, then drop the lead if the lead is not ready to buy. This is a fundamental blunder because at least 80% of sales require at least five follow-up touches.
Plus, 83% of prospects who request info from a company don’t buy for 3 to 12 months (MarketingDonut). This means follow up not only requires multiple touches, but it also requires multiple touches spread out over a period of months.
Seventy percent of salespeople stop at one follow-up email. Yet if you send more emails, you’ve got a 25% better chance of hearing back from a lead(YesWare).
Mistake 2: Relying on email
Many sales reps try to boost their efficiency by following up by email instead of by phone. Email, after all, is convenient. You can write and send an email message at all hours of the day, even while travelling. Plus, you don’t have to waste any time dialing a lead repeatedly throughout the day, hoping to catch them when they are by the phone. You just compose and send.
But email is a poor way to follow up with leads, particularly if they are further along in your sales process. In B2B sales, 92% of all customer interactions happen over the phone. And for good reason. Only over the phone can you detect tone of voice, address objections immediately, answer questions as they arise, and build your relationship.
If you need to set up a meeting or give a simple yes or no answer, use email. But if you need your follow up touches to be meaningful and productive—and move a lead along your pipeline—use the phone.
Mistake 3: “Just following up”
One of the biggest blunders you can make when following up with leads is just following up with leads. I’m talking about those calls and emails that begin, “Hey, hope you are well. I’m just following up after our meeting,” or “I’m just following up on my quote.”
Remember, you are following up with your lead precisely because the lead has not followed up with you. If they had wanted to follow up with you, they would have. Which means your follow up has to do more than just follow up. It has to add value.
Add value by answering common questions, addressing common objections and educating your lead about the process of selecting, buying and implementing a solution like yours. On the phone or by email, offer helpful resources, case studies, buying guides, white papers, implementation guides, research reports and other assets that position you as a valuable resource and not just as a vendor looking for a sale.
Mistake 4: Not following up for long enough
There are two numbers to remember in lead follow up: count and cadence. The follow-up count is the number of times you reach out to a lead. Add up all the calls, emails, meetings and other touches you have with a lead during your follow-up sequence and you’ll arrive at your follow-up count. The follow-up cadence is the frequency of those follow-up touches, or the amount of time that transpires between each touch.
Some reps follow up too many times immediately after a sales meeting, following up every few days for a week or two, for example. Other reps space their follow-up touches too far apart, leaving weeks or months between each touch.
In every sales cycle there is an optimum number of times you should reach out to leads as part of your follow up. And there is an optimum cadence, too. Not too frequently, and not too infrequently. Discover what your follow-up count and cadence numbers should be, then plot them out on a spreadsheet or calendar and stick with them.
Mistake 5: Not using automation
Which brings me to the fifth blunder that salespeople make with lead follow up—relying on their memories. Sales reps will return to the office after attending a trade show, for example, with a pocket full of business cards and good intentions.
They honestly believe they will follow up with each lead. So, they phone the first few leads, or send out a few emails. They put a few placeholders in their calendar to remind them to follow up. But then life happens. They get busy. They get distracted. And their leads get neglected.
The easiest way to avoid this blunder is to automate parts of your lead follow up. And I’m not talking about adding leads to an automated drip email sequence, or simply adding them to your email newsletter. I’m talking about adding leads to an automation sequence that sends emails at strategic intervals, reminds you to phone leads at key times during the sales cycle, and notifies you anytime a lead takes a meaningful action, such as visit the pricing page on your website.
Mistake 6: Relying on automation
Marketing automation platforms and sales enablement software are useful in lead follow up, but you can’t rely on them to do your follow up for you. Long, complex B2B sales can’t be automated—and neither can their follow up.
The temptation with automation is to think that you can add a lead to a follow-up sequence, then set it and forget it. But you likely know from first-hand experience that this doesn’t work. Have you ever, for example, talked with a sales rep, by phone or by email, only to receive an automated email from that same rep, asking you redundant questions about the very topic you just resolved?
That’s the trouble with automating your follow up. It doesn’t allow for the human interaction that takes place (meetings, presentations, emails back and forth, phone conversations) in most B2B sales. Should you use automation to make sure you don’t lose sight of leads, to ensure that you follow up with each one consistently? Yes. Should you expect that your CRM or sales automation platform will do everything for you? No.
Conclusion
Fifty percent of sales happen after the 5th touch (InsideSales.com). So, if you want to boost your win rates and reach quota sooner, follow up with your leads. Don’t give up after just one call. Use the phone. Add value. Follow up for as long as it takes. Use automation to stay organized and efficient. But don’t expect automation to replace you. When your follow-up phone calls and emails are personal, relevant, timely and valuable, leads notice. And give you their business.
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