Bridging the Follow-Up Gap

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Pop Quiz: What's the biggest canyon in the world?

No, not the Grand Canyon. It's the "Follow-Up Gap."

This is the gap between the marketing activity you direct towards a prospective client and setting up an appointment with this prospect.

No gap is wider, and untold millions fall between this gap every year. The prospect is interested, you've done a good job at marketing and then what happens?

You either don't follow-up or you follow-up ineptly.

So how do you manage the follow-up gap? Understanding this could have a huge impact on the success of your business. Here are the three client-attracting steps you need to master:

1. Marketing generates interest and warms up prospects. In marketing ball, you get the attention of a prospect, develop familiarity, provide information and then offer an experience of you and your business so they are at a place of genuine interest in your services.

2. You then follow-up appropriately, not to make the sale or even to pitch your services, but to talk to explore the possibility of setting up a selling conversation (also known as a Strategy Session).

3. A Strategy Session must be set up with a qualified prospect under favorable conditions. The conditions are: a) They already know you and know something about your services, b) they are able to meet with you for 60 to 90 minutes uninterrupted, and c) they are sincerely ready to explore working with you.

Once you've set up this session, you switch from Marketing to Selling and you finally have the opportunity of converting a prospect into a paying client.

Sounds easy, right?

But since most have such a hard time making this happen, something must be wrong. What are you missing? Well, a whole lot of things can go wrong in this process without you being aware of them. Here are a few:

1. You fail to implement the marketing process effectively. You don't get the attention, build familiarity, provide information or offer experiences. In other words, you don't build relationships. People like to do business with people they know, not strangers.

2. You follow up either too soon, trying to get an appointment before the relationship is established or you follow up too late, even if the prospect is qualified and interested. Or worse, you don't follow-up at all because you're afraid of being rejected.

3. You conduct an incompetent selling conversation. You talk too much and don't listen enough, failing to really understand the prospect or their needs. You close too soon, too late, or not at all and wonder why nobody appreciates your wonderful services!

Look, attracting new clients to your business is not a mystery. Many people have cracked the code and enjoy as much business as they can manage. It's not luck. It's a skill implemented with discipline and consistency.

But if you had to work on only one thing, what would it be?

It would be mastering the Follow-up Gap.

Why? Because if you get into the habit of following up, sooner or later you'll discover when follow-up works best and what marketing you have to do to warm up the prospect. And if you follow up a lot and get more appointments, sooner or later you'll get the hang of the selling process.

Byron Katie says something similar: You can have anything you want in the world if you are willing to ask 1,000 people.

Who will you follow up with this week?

Next week I'll share some specific techniques on the Follow-up Gap.

*

The More Clients Bottom Line: There are three simple keys to attracting more clients: Marketing, Follow-Up and Selling. Master all three and you'll never worry about your future or the economy or money again. But you might want to start with follow-up. For one, it's free, and secondly, the opportunities are infinite.

*

Who do you need to follow-up with this week? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below:

Comments

[Jean Kurniati]

This is another great and thorough post with practical advice that most certainly are very helpful. Thanks, Robert.

[Charlie Lang]

Important points laid out by Robert here. There is just one point I see somewhat differently: Sure, I may think that my service is of value to the prospect, however, that doesn't matter too much. What really matters is that the prospect thinks that my service could (!) be of value to him.

I never have the conviction that my service will be of value to any prospect, I only see the possibility. This is a slight but important difference. I don't see selling as a process to 'convince' someone that my service is of value to them. I see selling as a process of discovery whereby both parties try to figure out if doing business together is valuable to both sides.

This way I will never create undue pressure and yet I help drive this process forward through appropriate follow-up up to the point where we both decide it's a good idea (or not). Then we have the sale as a result or move on. 'Closing' as such is not really required. When both see it, then a close is automatically happening.

I have been extremely successful with this changed mindset (I tried to convince people for over 15 years before I realized that this approach is very suboptimal) and it's something we teach with our innovative 'Stop Selling! approach.

[Mike Klassen]

I have to give my friend Bill Gluth credit for sharing this with me, but I've been learning to use the phrase, "Do you have your schedule handy?", as a way to make sure I'm following up correctly.

I used to think that if someone was really interested in hiring me after a phone conversation, they'd call me back when they were ready.

If they didn't call after some period of time, I would follow up, but I had no real plan.

These days, at the end of a project consultation, I'll pull out that "schedule handy" question which is probably more for me than them. It forces me to plan out the next contact in the sales process.

If they're not serious leads, they'll usually say something about not being sure now and wanting to think about it... they really don't want to set up a time for a follow-up.

People who are serious generally don't mind planning the next follow-up call or e-mail.

[Carol Briney]

The fortune is always in the follow-up! Thank you for the great reminder Robert. You are the best!