Rocket Fuel - Should I follow up on a quote?
This week, I would like to dedicate the sales tip to all of you that are new to sales. One of the questions I get asked a lot from people who are new into the sales arena is “should I follow up a quote?” and the answer to that my lovelies? Yes! Definitely!
Hi everybody, Julie here, The Sales Ace, bringing you a sales tip to help skyrocket your business.
This week, I would like to dedicate the sales tip to all of you that are new to sales. One of the questions I get asked a lot from people who are new into the sales arena is “should I follow up a quote?” and the answer to that my lovelies? Yes! Definitely! Follow up quotes.
Now, I know the reason why you're asking this, (and I know from discussions with my clients over the years): you don't want to bother people, you don't want to come across as being hard salesy, too pushy, you don’t like to worry, and some people have even said to me “Well, if they're interested, they'll come back”, and that's all very well, but let me just turn this around.
Whenever I have this conversation with people that are new to sales, I say to them (especially to the “if people are interested, they'll come back to me” camp) that it’s not necessarily the case. People get busy, their lives change... there's a lot going on. I'm definitely one of those people, and if someone sends me a quote, I’ll go, “Oh, yeah, I'll have a look at that”… and then it just gets pushed to the back of my brain.
It might not be a priority for me at the time. So somebody taking the time to follow up with me and say, “oh, did you like it? What did you think about it?” just makes me stop in my tracks and deal with it then and there. And there have been people that have won business from me by taking that stance.
So here's the thing that I would suggest you do, and I'm going to give you two little approaches here. One for people who might be a little bit nervous about it and the second one is more for people that are comfortable with being very proactive.
So let's look at approach 1, first of all.
For those of you that might be a little bit nervous about this, what I would do is send your quote, and then between 24-48 hours after the quote has gone out, just give the person a call. And I'm saying give them a CALL rather than sending an email. That’s important. Just give them a call and say, “did you get it? I'm just checking that you got it okay”.
Now they'll probably say to you, “Yes, I've got it and just haven’t had a chance to look at it”. That's absolutely fine. Your comeback is going to be “when would be a good time?” and then that gives you permission to call them back when they're ready to receive that call.
But you never know! It could be a good time for them to talk about it there and then, but at least you're following up. Now, the reason I say this is there are times when people don't get the quotes you've emailed to them because it gets stuck in the spam or junk folder. So this post-quote call helps to mitigate for that instance.
Now then, let’s look at approach 2:
Let's talk to all of you out there who are watching this video, who are a little bit more happy and comfortable about being proactive. So, my advice to you would be while you’re on the call with the potential client, at the time that you've taken all the details and you’re about to close the call, what we can say is, “When is going to be a good time for me to give you a call and follow this up with you?”
So we're already getting a date and a time in the diary. Now you can send the quote and then follow up at that arranged time, but at least we've got a date and time in the diary that the customer knows that you're calling. If it's a week/10 days’ time down the line that that call has gone into the diary, great! But do just give a call within 24-48 hours just to check that they have received it because again it could be stuck in junk or spam. We just need to make sure. And you can also just give them that little bit of warning and say “I might just touch base just to make sure that you've got it because we've had a few quotes get stuck in people’s junk folders”.
So those are a couple of little approaches to help overcome that nervousness over following up. And the other thing to think about is if you're following up, you're showing an interest in the customer, and that you want their business.
Those people that don't follow up on quotes; what does that possibly say? They're not really that interested, and that's how I (and your potential customer!) read it.
So I hope you found this useful. Have a go and if you need any more help and advice, just drop me an e-mail. Give me a buzz - I’m happy to impart some words of wisdom for you and help you with that, and do let me know how you get on.
So that's it for today.
Julie, The Sales Ace signing off, and I'll see you soon.
