News
 Follow
Up to Maximize Appointment Setting
By Mark Sanford, business development coach, Sanford
Associates
Most appointments come from prospects that had been
contacted several times over the past weeks, months
and years.
This experience prompts me to recall again how
important it is to mix in with your new calls a
steady diet of follow up and relationship building
calls. I believe that the familiarity bred from
repeated contacts and conversations is what drives
new business development. But, of course, it all
starts with the first calls.
WIN THE WAR. The National Sales Executive
Association has conducted a survey on how many sales
you can get depending on how many times you contact
your prospects. Their statistics show that most
sales are made from the 5th contact through the 12th
contact. Here is the data they have compiled about
on which prospect contact the sale is made.
Cumulative:
2% of sales are made on the 1st contact 2%
3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact 5%
5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact 10%
10% of sales are made on the 4th contact 20%
80% of sales are made on the 5th-12th contact 100%
With these statistics in mind, structure the mix of
your calls to maximize success. The first calls
require 50 attempts to succeed while fourth contact
calls require only 10 attempts to succeed.
Follow-through drives results.
CALL ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE OR PAYROLL.
Employees in these departments are taught to answer
telephones and return messages. Customer service is
important to their job function. They will talk with
anyone. Ask some questions and get a lot of useful
information before asking to transfer to another
extension.
E-MAIL A FOLLOW-THROUGH. An
e-mail follow-through to
your listener greatly increases the chance of a
return call. I encourage you to turn on the return
receipt requested feature in your e-mail software.
Knowing that the listener opened your e-mail is very
valuable when making the next telephone call. The
subject line should reference the voice mail and
have a date stamp: "Follow-through on Tuesday's
voice mail."
CALL YOURSELF. Most people do not like to
hear themselves on tape. The reason is because few
people are polished speakers. Voice mail is the
simplest version of public speaking. A poor voice
mail on the initial contact leaves the other person
with a negative impression. Practice, practice and
more practice are the keys to a professional voice
mail presentation. Experiment with different
messages and techniques on yourself before you try
them on others. Listen to yourself honestly and make
needed changes. Ask yourself one question, "would I
return this voice mail?" experimenting until the
answer is "yes".
THE BIG $$ HABIT. High producers will block
out dialing time to leave voice mails. Review the
"win the war" statistics above. What would happen if
you left 100 third or fourth contact voice mails
while working during off-hours? Nothing bad except
filling your schedule with revenue opportunities.
This block dialing time is planned with the goal
being approximately 30 messages left per hour. The
big money is made by closing transactions during
normal business hours. You need to plan your dialing
so that you are available to receive calls during
prime business hours.
---Source:
SalesVantage.com May 8, 2006 issue (www.salesvantage.com)
Mark Sanford, is a business development coach for
Sanford Associates. Reach him at
msanford@coldcalling.com
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