The Perfect Follow Up

One of the best ways to follow up a great sales call or meeting is to write your prospect the next day and thank him or her for their time.  This is one of the simplest and most effective ways to stand out from the clutter of your competition and reconfirm your interest in the relationship you’re building.

In this day and age of email, SMS, voice mail and other technologies the good old fashioned hand-written note has become so rare that when they do arrive in our mail boxes and on our desks we’re thankful to receive them and they stand out to be remebered.  The simple truth is that the vast majority of sales and business people intend to send thank you notes but never get around to actually doing it.  That creates a great opportunity for you!

Before sending out your note there are a couple of ground rules to consider:

1. Stay away from the email shortcut. Everyone uses email for the majority of their correspondence including you and me.  The point of the follow up letter is to stand out and show a little extra effort.  An addressed, stamped and delivered by post note does that.
2. Send your letter within a day or two. By sending your letter promptly after your meeting (and this could include a telephone meeting), you re-establish your presence and your commitment to helping the prospect achieve their desired outcome.  You can be sure that once you left their office or hung up the receiver the prospect didn’t sit around pondering you and your compny for the next 48 hours.  Their phone rang, other meetings came up and their customers demanded their attention.  Your timely letter re-focuses them on you while they still remember the conversation!  If your letter is too late it loses its relevance.
3. Keep it brief. The purpose of this letter is thank your prospect for the meeting and to reinforce the potential relationship with you a valuable partner. That’s it … don’t write an endless novel here.  Less is more.
4. Don’t try to close! You may have left the meeting feeling that you are the best match with best solution for your prospect and that may infact be the case.  But I will strongly encourage you not to give into the temptation to point that out here.  You can undo a lot of your hardwork by taking an assumptive tone.  The purpose of this short and sweet note is to reinforce the relationship and the spirit of cooperation.  Speak in terms of possibilities, not absolutes.  Stick to your sales cylce and to agreed upon follow up meetings when it comes to closing.

Take a look at the following example: Your note should resemble it fairly closely.

Dear {Prospect’s Name},

I just wanted to drop you a short note to thank you for taking time out and sharing a few moments with me yesterday.

I found the information we exchanged very intriguing and I come away from our meeting feeling that there could be a nice fit between us.

I’m looking forward to {insert your follow up action here} and to the prospect of a mutually beneficial relationship with you and  {prospects firm}  and to opportunities the future may bring.   I hope also that you’ll feel free to call me with any questions, challenges or problems I may be able to help you or your associates work out.

Sincerely,
{your hand written signature}
Your Name

Sending a note like this on company stationary can go a long way to winning positive attention for you, your company and your offering, however, most of us just don’t do it.  Why?    Because it takes time and effort, we may not like our own handwriting, or we simply don’t have the creative energy some days to think of what to write.  All of these were my illegitimate excuses until I found the solution that that ended them all.  I created for myself a standard template on my PC using MS Publisher.  Publisher will automatically format the document with your contact details and your logos and create a simple note card using the standard paper sizes.  I selected a handwriting type font to make it personal and made the template.  Now at the conclusion of a meeting I just open the document make some slight modifications, hit print, fold it and stuff it into an envelope!    It’s that simple and it’s fun (for an admin task!).  It’s also rewarding knowing that you probably made someone else’s day with just a little effort.  The results that it brings speak for themselves.  It amazes me how many prospects go out their way to thank me for taking the time to thank them!

It doesn’t take much to exceed the expectations of your customers and prospects.  To go just a little further than your competitors is really quite simple.  At 211 degrees water is hot, with just one degree more at 212, it’s powerful boiling  steam.  Going the extra mile doesn’t take much and there is no traffic congestion on the last mile!

About Howard: Howard Olsen is President of High Output Training Systems, a Boutique Sales Training & Sales Consulting firm based in Vancouver Western Canada. As a professional sales trainer, keynote speaker and sales coach & mentor his powerful sales process and positive profit producing messages help thousands of sales people and business professionals look through the eyes of their customers to close more sales without pressure or friction every year. Follow Howard on Twitter @howardolsen or just give him a call at (604) 731-0901 to see if he can help you and your team.