It blows my mind how many people I talk with that shop for a product somewhere, or purchase one, that when I ask them if they have received any follow up of any type after the visit or sale say no! Salespeople and Companies are not following up enough, and too often unfortunately not at all. A huge factor in having sales success is the variety and volume of your follow up.

Many people do not buy the first time they visit you, and no salesperson closes every single deal.

If you know a salesperson with a 100% closing ration, I guarantee it’s 100% because they didn’t count the ones they didn’t sell, and you tend to see this a lot in the car business! Most of the time you will not make the sale of the first contact, and you will need to follow up. I’m in agreement with many sales trainers, especially the Sales Master himself Grant Cardone, who believe it’s critical to follow up as quickly as when they are driving away.

Statistics show that the sooner you follow up, the more likely your customer is to buy from you and not someone else.Why is this you ask? Well, it is my opinion, and I base this on my experience selling the past 17 years, that people still like to buy from other people they like, and believe will take care of them during and after the sale. When you follow up with your customer it makes them feel as though you take them seriously, and it shows them you genuinely care about servicing their needs! The problem is that most salespeople don’t follow up at all, and some studies say the number on that statement is as high as 53% or slightly more than half of the salespeople.

So right out of the gate even if you just follow up once you are ahead of 53% of your competition. But making one call, or even worse sending one email that you can’t even be sure didn’t hit their SPAM folder first, is not going to be enough to really move the needle in your direction. So here’s what I suggest you do….

1- Alway’s make phone calls and follow up by phone.

If you don’t get your customer and you get a voicemail, always leave a message. If someone answers the phone do your best with them, make a great impression and again, always leave a message. I would continue to use the phone as follow up each day, keep leaving messages if there’s no answer letting your customer know you’ll check back another time, but be sure to leave your direct number, and leave the length of the messages in the optimal 8-14 seconds range! Eventually, you’ll catch your customer on one of these follow-up calls, but regardless you will want to do this next step as well…

2- Send a handwritten note to your customer thanking them for their time when you last saw them, and your phone number to contact you.

This is a GREAT tip from Cardone that I have integrated into my follow up strategy and one of the benefits of this is that it makes you feel great sending nice notes to people. I use this to follow up my sold customers all the time, I love sending notes telling my best customers I appreciate their business and that I was thinking of them hoping that all is well in their lives! So, along with your phone call to follow up, now they will receive this nice handwritten note, this will definitely make you stand out from the other sales reps they may have shopped with. Now that you have their attention, next you will…

3- Send a Video Selfie of yourself simply by using your Smartphone.

Send a selfie video on your phone that is really quick and to the point, keep it about 30-40 seconds long just letting your customer know that you were thinking about them and you wanted to reach out to them. Make sure that you put in a call to action that they contact you. Before you send the selfie video, upload it to your video editor (I use iMovie) on your phone, embed your direct phone number into the selfie video so your customer has it once again and see’s it while the video plays. This is a great, personalized, and highly effective follow-up method, they will watch and re-watch this video, be sure to USE IT!

If you don’t have your customers’ cell phone number but you have their email, then upload the video to YouTube, copy the link into an email and send that. If you’re new to sales and you want to establish yourself in your sales career right now, then you need to have a great follow up strategy for both your sold and unsold customers. Remember, your sold customers are your best resource because these are people who have already agreed to do business with you and likely will again if you take care of them, but the only way to do that is to follow up regularly. You will on average lose about 10-15% of your customers each year to things like moving locations, death, their needs change, etc. So be sure to follow up and keep as many as you can coming back to see you again and again.

On the other side of follow up, you are going to have to either follow up until the sale is complete with your unsold customers or hope that they will come back to you when they’re ready.Don’t hold your breath! Some of these “be-backs” can and will happen, but the majority of customers who leave aren’t coming back unless you follow up with them and make sure they return.

Wrapping it all up!

The choice is yours, but if it were me I would commit to my follow up right now and get serious with creative ways to do it, this will result in much more sales success for you in your career!