Why following up is one of the key sales skills

Are you regularly in touch with your clients and prospects? If not you could be missing out on valuable relationship building opportunities, not to mention sales! Following up is one of the essential business sales skills to produce sales growth.

Follow up is defined as the methods you use to keep in contact with your prospects, customers and referrers.

Why bother with following up?

Did you know that less than one in ten prospects will make the decision to buy on the first contact? In fact, according to a recent study by the Thomas Publishing Company, 80% of sales are only made on the 5th or subsequent contact. (And, most interestingly, 90% of sales people have given up after the third contact!)

Also, staying in touch with existing customers will result in increased business through repeat business, cross-selling other products and services and referrals to others.

And the great news for you is that very few people follow up properly or even at all!

How best to follow up?

This will vary according to your style, your prospect’s preferences, the time of year or where they are in the sales cycle. The main methods are via phone, post, fax or email.

Whatever methods you use, rather than only "chasing the sale" you should think about what valuable information you can give your contacts: send interesting tip sheets, special reports, thank you notes, news items they may be interested in and a regular newsletter.

How often to follow up?

This is a judgement call, but once a month is a good rule of thumb. Any more, and you could become a nuisance: any less, and you risk being forgotten.

Following up and profit

With proper follow up you can convert more prospects into clients, more clients into repeat clients, and increase your referrals.

To finish off this article here are some astounding statistics. A recent study by Performark (a USA research company) showed how few companies follow up properly or even at all. They found that out of 10,000 advertising enquiries made:

So with disciplined follow up, you can be way ahead of the pack!

Are you doing enough to stay in touch? Add your comment to let us know.

• Published 10 March 06
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6 comments | Add your own 

• I couldn't agree more Peter. I try to keep in touch regularly with what my clients are doing and always get business out of it. A good way to keep in touch, if it works for your business, is to ask for a copy of the finished product (this works for me as I often write copy for brochures etc and I'm not involved in putting the final piece together). This gives you an opportunity to get in touch with them again, discuss how the project went, find out how the response was, all of which can lead nicely on to them asking you about an upcoming project. Karen Morris from Sydney | Read my articles

• Hi Peter - your 2nd paragraph under 'How Best to Follow Up" says it all, in my opinion - don't harass prospects - provide them with value each time. Grant Hyman from Sydney | Read my articles

• I decided that people almost compulsively read lists. So I devised a follow up second letter (I sell kids chairs mainly by mail order) which lists '10 good reasons why it would be one of the best investments you could make'. While the Mums are generally already convinced, I've found it works a treat on the Dads. Sue from Eureka, Waikato, NZ

• Hi there, thanks for your comments. It's great to know that people have read the article. The idea about asking for a copy of the finished work is something that works well in my business - newsletters.
  Also having a follow-up program with tipsheets etc, and thinking about all of the decision makers (not just the obvious one) and how they may respond to different material is a good point. Peter Griffin from Sydney, Australia

• Great info and i wasn't aware of the 5th contact principle but i am going to put it to the test.
  Thanks Luke Hobbs from Sydney Australia

• Hi Luke, yes it's interesting that we could be giving up just at the time when good results can be expected. Dan Kennedy, a great marketer, talks about this regular follow-up as "coralling your herd" and reckons $30 to $40 per client and similar per prospect as a minimum annual spend <gulp>. Peter Griffin from Sydney

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