Does your lead followup process suck? Do you even have one?

We all know how hard it is to get a client so a lead followup process is critical. My team has a fabulous lead followup process both on the front end and the back end after meeting with a client. Once we meet with a client, it is almost impossible for them to say no because of all the touches we have in our sales process.

We have all heard of the fact that it usually takes 5-7 attempts to convert someone into a customer. Here is empirical evidence that proves it. This is from a study that I heard this past week as part of a conference call. The first part of the study was done to see how many salespeople go past a specific number of attempts asking a client for business. Here are the results.

1. 48% of salespeople stop after the first contact with a client
2. Only 25% of salespeople go past the 2nd contact
3. Only 12% of salespeople go past 3 contacts
4. Get this, only 10% of salespeople go past 4 contacts

Here is the other piece of the study. It determined what percentage of businesses committed to business after a touch with a sales person.

1. Only 2% of businesses committed after one contact. Amazing.
2. Only 3% of businesses committed after two contacts.
3. Only 5% of businesses committed after three contacts.
4. It improves slightly, but not by much after 4 contacts because only 10% of businesses committed after 4 contacts.
5. Here is where the floodgates open. 80% of business is done after 5 contacts.

That is amazing. Only 10% of salespeople go beyond 4 contacts, but 90% of business is done after 4 contacts (if you include the 10% after 4 contacts and 80% after 5 contacts). Match these results up to your sales process to see how you stand. Wanna improve your results? Build yourself a lead followup up process with different forms of touches to your clients spaced apart by a few days. Add handwritten thank you letters after an appointment, send an article showing how businesses have improved after using your services, etc. You get the picture. And by all means, keep stuffing the front end of your pipeline with qualified prospects and then let your lead followup process go to work converting them and providing you with a nice continuous revenue stream. Automate it if you can.

E.