Don’t let these sales follow-up mistakes bring your numbers down. Find out what to watch for and how to get back on track.
Sales follow-up is one of the essential skills sales professionals can have, yet it needs to be done correctly. Too many sales follow-up mistakes can lead to lost opportunities and decreased customer loyalty. For sales managers looking to help their sales teams excel, teaching them proper sales follow-up techniques and avoiding common mistakes is vital.
Fortunately, most mistakes are easy to correct once you know what to watch out for. Let’s look at some of the most common mistakes salespeople make when following up with leads and customers and how to avoid them. With these tips in mind, your sales team will be equipped with the knowledge they need to succeed!
The 7 sales follow-up mistakes that you can’t afford to make
1. Taking Your Time
When it comes to sales follow-up, the speed of follow-up and the number of times a lead is contacted are essential factors in determining a sales team’s success. Research suggests that following up with a piece of information within 5 minutes can increase the chances of qualifying the lead by 9 times. Additionally, leads contacted more than 5 times are more likely to convert into customers.
2. Giving Up Too Soon
Teach your team to be relentless. One of the biggest sales follow-up mistakes that teams make is not following up more often. A lead may need multiple follow-ups before they are ready to buy. Giving up too soon can result in missed opportunities. Teach your sales teams to follow up until they get a firm no or their lead requests a quote. If it takes 100 times, always follow up.
3. Failure To Set Goals
To motivate your sales team to improve their follow-up process, you can set clear follow-up targets and provide regular training on effective follow-up techniques. You can also regularly share the follow-up statistics with the team and provide incentives for meeting and exceeding follow-up targets.
4. Not Differentiating Leads
It’s important to understand that not all leads are the same, and only some leads would require the same number of follow-ups. Teach your sales teams to segment your leads and create different follow-up strategies for different types of leads. This same advice applies to using the same script for all leads. Your sales teams need to tailor follow-up messages for every lead.
5. Failing to Track
This is one of the sales follow-up mistakes that lies largely on the shoulders of sales and district managers. Your sales teams need systems to track the entire sales pipeline. Give your teams the tools they need, and if those tools are out-of-date, you need to consider upgrading to a full-featured CRM like Blitz. Failing to keep track of the follow-up process can make it challenging to determine what is working and what is not. The other mistake falls upon your sales team, which needs better data hygiene. Your teams need to be methodical and diligent about their data entry into your CRM. They need to make notes about every contact they’ve made. Train them well and reap the rewards of having a data-rich sales pipeline.
6. Failing to Listen
You may have sales team members who could be better listeners. They need to listen to customers’ objections and address them effectively. Glossing over the customer’s objections can lead to lost sales. Use dynamic role-playing scenarios to teach your sales teams to listen and react to customer objections.
7. Only Following Up With New Leads
Your sales team needs to keep in touch with past and current customers, not just new leads. Your current and past customers will have a longer follow-up schedule, like every six months or a year, but they still represent significant opportunities.
Discover more opportunities to improve
At HBW Leads, on average, we spend 4-7 minutes with potential prospects asking them qualifying questions on your behalf. Our lead specialists do the hard work for you, making cold calls in your state to deliver results. Once we have thoroughly confirmed your leads, you can expect to receive them in a snap – as fast as just a few hours! Our leads are the perfect opportunity for your sales team to practice new follow-up techniques and give inexperienced sales team members practice at closing deals.
Our leads are exclusive to you and your team, so you’ll never compete with another agency to follow up with them first. Sign up for HBW Leads today!