Research shows that business people and sales professionals do not fully pursue about 70% of the leads generated by their expensive marketing efforts. For example, 67% of leads generated at trade shows are never followed up with. That translates to huge amounts of marketing dollars being wasted when you consider the financial cost and time invested to participate in a trade show!
It is common knowledge that 30-45% of leads that are not ready to buy now will become ready within the next 12 months. That’s why it’s critical to keep your name in front of your prospects and customers to build a relationship through frequent contact. When they are ready, they are more likely to choose you to do business with because they know, like, trust and remember you!
For every month your business is not in contact with your customers, you lose 10% of your influence with them.
Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts. It takes multiple contacts to make a sale! In fact, 80% of sales are made between the 5th and 12th contact with a prospect, yet only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts.
In 1986, when my husband and I bought our first home, we sold it three years later and moved across town. When it was time to sell our first home and purchase a new one, we did not call our previous Realtor because he never bothered to build any relationship with us or express appreciation for the business we gave him three years prior. Would we have hired him again if he had stayed in touch over time? Most likely, yes. We liked him and he did a good job. But we could not even remember his name three years later, so we hired someone else. Had this Realtor kept in touch with us, he could have received a commission for the sale of our first home and the purchase of our second home!
As business professionals, we don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan. If you don’t have a plan in place for building a relationship of trust AND being remembered by your existing customers and prospects, you are missing out on receiving repeat business and valuable referrals.
Remember that timing is everything – their timing, not yours. Since you have no idea when your customers and prospects will be ready to make a buying decision, you need to stay top-of-mind by keeping in touch regularly.
For tips on how to foster relationships that will turn into lifetime loyal customers and referral partners, request a free copy of my eBook, 7 Secrets to Fabulous Follow-up
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