756: Follow Up and Sell, with Jeff Shore

Jeff Shore, Founder and President of Shore Consulting, Inc. and a top-selling author, joins me talk all about follow-up. Specifically, how do you follow up with a buyer who isn’t ready to move forward? Listen and learn how to provide value that helps the buyer stay informed until they are ready to engage.

KEY TAKEAWAYS



Jeff’s seventh book is coming! It’s about sales follow-up after the appointment. Jeff found there weren’t a lot of sales follow-up books, so he wrote it to help people get this poorly-understood idea.What does follow-up mean? If the customer “wants to think about it,” after you ask for the order, the customer is not ready; you need to follow up to keep the sale alive.Daniel Kahneman, the founder of behavioral economics, said when you rob people of the emotional impulse, they make worse decisions. Jeff seeks to elevate the emotional altitude and extend it throughout the sales process.Andy cites Herbert Simon on maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers make the best decisions but they are the least happy with those decisions. Satisficers make faster decisions and are happier with their choices.Each follow-up must provide value. Don’t convince the buyer with discounts, persuade the buyer with a good solution to their problem. Andy shares a ‘war story’ that ended with a highly-discounted sale to a sour customer.If you have to work too hard to make a sale, something is wrong with your value proposition or your business practices. Your perception of your value as a professional is critical to how you extend value to your prospects.If your prospect is qualified for your product, there is no reason to let the relationship lapse. Schedule follow-ups for the next 90 days with value for every interaction. Jeff suggests, solving a problem they don’t know they have.Instead of treating contacts as targets, treat them as your customers. When you create content for customers, personalize it also for prospects. Stay in the game with them, whatever their buying stage is.Are you really in the running? A prospect may not have confidence in you. Your product may be a commodity. Make such a deep connection with the prospect that you are the differentiator.Keep finding new ways to serve with industry news, ideas, and solutions. Your ability to differentiate yourself as a seller is increasingly important. Make sure your prospects remember you, even if they don’t buy.You won’t get all the sales but your behaviors can build connections that lead to sales. Make sure you do all the right things and do all you can do. Getting a sale doesn’t mean you did everything right. Develop good behaviors.The phone is ‘new’ again. Call and connect. Or record a personalized short video. Send gifts. Invest in your sales relationships. Don’t wait for the prospect to call you; call them while your last visit is still fresh. And call after a sale!

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