Follow Up For Personal Success: Mental Strength Tip #163

In business and personal issues follow up is essential success.

In order to progress in our human development we must take time to ask questions and contemplate various topics of personal growth, such as “how are my follow up skills”, which is exactly the intention of these virtual personal coaching sessions.

Personal success is achieved through the disciplined execution of a fully established personal development plan which must include various success skills like follow up.

While most business professionals know that follow up is important, the fact is that very few are masterful at the art of it. Sure, they may leave one or two voice-mails for people or send a couple of e-mails, but those attempts are only scratching the surface of what follow up is really all about.

In truth, following up with a prospect or customer is about attending to the details of business. It’s doing what you say you will do and honoring your word. It is committing to what you know you can commit to and then doing it.

Following up is calling your prospect or client not to nag them or harass them, but to remind them of the wonderful, valuable product or service you know will enhance their business or life.

These virtual personal coaching sessions are to assist you in determining your level of follow up.

I take a personal success topic, in this case follow up, and give an overview about it.  Then I’ll continue by asking a series of mental strength questions.  I’ll wrap-up with a summary and some final thoughts.

Take your time with this topic, carefully consider your responses to the questions and write them down.  Personal growth is not supposed to be easy, it takes courage to face yourself.  But when you develop the courage and mental strength to do actually this, you will be building confidence.

[color-box]How’s our mental strength? Find out exactly how mentally strong you are with a complimentary Mental Strength Assessment. To take it, just go HERE[/color-box]

Objective of this Mental Strength Tip on Follow Up

To remind you of the critical nature of the follow up.

Let’s Get Started:

The fortune is in the follow up right??

This is one of the most overlooked opportunities in business.

According to figures from the National Sales Executive Association:

• 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 contacts

However

• 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

This is great news for you!

This means 85% of your competition is stopping after just 3 follow-ups so there is a large portion of business being left on the table available for the taking.

Business owners should be staying in regular contact with their clients and referral partners but for many reasons they just don’t do it. You would be surprised at how many people neglect this important business building technique.

Follow up is also an extension of your word, when you say you’ll check back…do you?

Questions to Uncover Beliefs about Follow Up:

• If keeping your word in business is important why don’t most people do it?
• What makes follow up so critical to success?
• How does someone go about improving their follow up skills?

Unsupportive Beliefs about Follow Up:

• Following up is common sense and doesn’t need to be focused on.
• Follow up is only important when the prospects wants to buy.
• Follow up is only critical on the big deals

Mental Strength Beliefs about Follow Up:

• Follow up tells the prospect more about you than anything you say.
• Follow up tells your customers how you think about service.
• Keeping your word is the best marketing strategy you can employ.

Outrageous Questions about Follow Up:

• Are your follow up skills more in line with the average person or a top performer?
• How often do you keep your word about the little details in your personal and professional life?
• Who is the best follow up person you know and what makes him or her so good?

Reflective Questions about Follow Up:

• What habit would you have to change in order to build excellence in your follow up skills?
• If you have better follow up skills would you be more successful?
• Are your follow up skills moving you closer to success, or do they need to be improved?

Mental Strength Coaching:

Depending on the type of business or service you may not even know if or when you lose a customer. Studies show less than 4% of your customers will tell you if they are unhappy so depending on your follow up process you may never know if you have a customer on the fence.

Here are the statistics on why businesses lose customers:

• 1% Die
• 3% Move away
• 5% Form other relationships
• 9% Leave for competitive reasons
• 14% Due to product dissatisfaction
• 68% Stop buying your product or service because of an attitude or feeling of indifference towards them by one or more persons representing the company.

 How can follow up save the 68% of the customers leaving? It’s about preventing the attitude or feeling of indifference. The following are 4 sales follow up steps to insure you don’t lose customers and avoid the 68% trap:

• A simple “thank you for your business” when the sale is complete.
• Send thank you cards to welcome new customers or sales.
• Create an email thanking your customer again for their business and let them know where they can go for additional service and support if needed.
• Determine the customer’s next need and remind them of your company or service by email, phone, or direct mail.

Final Thought

Follow up is not about nagging; it is about reminding. Unfortunately, when it comes to follow up, most people think of the telemarketers who call during dinner, and no one wants to be like them. But that is not following up. When done artfully and elegantly, and in the right way, follow up is actually a masterful work of reminding.

Also realize that not every follow up has to be about “are you ready to buy from me right now?” Sometimes you just do it because it’s the right thing to do. As an added benefit, when you follow up without an immediate sales goal in mind, you see how it can be.

For example, suppose your phone rang and in the caller ID you see the name of your bank displayed. Possibly alarmed there is a problem, you answer the phone. The person on the other end says, “Is this Jane Doe? This is John Smith, your personal banker. I just wanted to call and tell you to have a great day.”

Get started today on creating on follow up mindset and request your Introductory Consultation by going HERE.