Another thought on the cumulative effect of prospecting.
They say that numbers can be made to support just about any position. They say figures lie and liars figure. But here’s a set of numbers you should pay attention to. They are statistics about how often we sales reps follow up.
In my last blog, I gave you an example of the cumulative value of prospecting and how a ‘Dialogue Bond’ develops over time with a suspect that has yet to grant us an appointment. It’s a simple case of being persistent about following up, applying the appropriate ‘Art’ professionally on each call which allows us to qualify a little more on each call, and having an enabling technology that allows us to do so efficiently. (Don’t let those follow up calls fall through the cracks – they’re more valuable than we think.) Here’s some sales ‘statistics’ to back that up:
· 48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
· 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
· 12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop
· Only 10% of sales people make more than three attempts
And
· 2% of sales are made on the first contact
· 3%of sales are made on the second contact
· 5% of sales are made on the third contact
· 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
· 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
What makes us think that a first call to someone else will be more effective than a subsequent call to someone we’ve tried before? We must have a plan (we call them Ideal Pursuit Plans). How many times will we attempt to reach someone, how often will we make those attempts and then what kind of time period will we allow to elapse before putting them through another cycle. The activity itself (the planning, the calling, the recording, reporting, etc.) can be time consuming and fraught with opportunities for us to lose track of our progress, follow-up timelines.
If you haven’t thought this through, I encourage you to do so. We’ve even got a free Activity Calculator that will help you do so. We’ve also a tool called Klpz that will double or better your productivity on the phone.
Call us if we can help!
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