No B.S. Ruthless Management of People and Profits: No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take-No-Prisoners Guide to Really Getting Rich

by Dan S. Kennedy

The Human Factor: If You Are Going to Have Salespeople in Your Employ, Pick Carefully and Manage Tough

The third question is the trickiest. Just because he can and will sell does not mean he’ll excel at selling in your employ.

Salespeople really adept at selling are usually incredibly inept and irresponsible at follow-up.

They are called “salespeople,” not follow-up people.

plugging the leaky holes of poo...

Once someone has raised their hand and expressed interest in your products, services, solution, or information and you put them on your path, they should be moved forward toward the sale at a prescribed yet flexible pace, with a lot of nudges by mail, email, fax, drives to different websites, teleseminars, webinars—a primary sequence but for those who fail to move at its pace, a continuing, patient sequence.

Once someone has raised their hand and expressed interest in your products, services, solution, or information and you put them on your path, they should be moved forward toward the sale at a prescribed yet flexible pace, with a lot of nudges by mail, email, fax, drives to different websites, teleseminars, webinars—a primary sequence but for those who fail to move at its pace, a continuing, patient sequence.

and began selling our “follow-up machine”

Suddenly, prospects I had never talked to were calling me up saying they were ready to buy.

Streams of prospects were literally coming out of the woodwork, calling me, emailing me. They were hot and ready to buy.

you don’t need an army of telemarketers to do this. You DO need to know the proven secrets to mastering follow-up.

Are you consistently,

What would happen to your business if you consistently, religiously, and effectively followed up with all of your prospects and customers?

I mean, just imagine for a second how much more cold, hard cash you could have stuffed into your personal bank account last year if you had managed to consistently, religiously, and effectively follow up with your prospects and customers.

you’ll get two to four times the number of sales or customers from the same batch of leads you’d normally be spending the long hours of night worrying yourself into an ulcer about.

Not only will you close a lot more sales from your leads, but you’ll also do it in less time, your margins will be higher,

and your job satisfaction will be greater than ever because you’ll be selling your product or service from a position of respected authority!

3. If your sales rep does reach the prospect and the timing isn’t right, the sales rep doesn’t have the time or patience to constantly follow up.

The problem of cherry-picking comes when they neglect all those warm leads!

Of course, everyone says they’re going to follow up with the other leads “one of these days,” but the fact is, they don’t do it.

Secret #2: Timing Is Everything!

People buy when they are

ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell. And this means, by definition,

In other words, you have to follow up with them . . . religiously!

But truly effective follow-up is a gut-wrenching, time-consuming, tedious, and labor-intensive task that is almost impossible for the human mind to keep straight—so sales professionals simply won’t do it. So:

You need to follow up with warm and even cold-that-may-warm prospects consistently and frequently for an extended period of time.

You cannot afford to leave this in the hands of your salespeople.

You need a system for follow-up

and tools to implement the system.

S...

#3: Integrate Sales and...

To close the gap, you need to recognize that 1. Marketing’s job doesn’t begin and end when the lead is

acquired; 2. The sales job doesn’t begin and end with a “heat check” phone call to each lead; and, most important, 3. Someone (either marketing or sales) has to be in charge of “warming the leads” that aren’t hot right now but will be hot down the road.

Then, your sales department is wasting time and money trying to close sales with prospects who aren’t ready.

Every business has a lead generation department (marketing)

a lead closing department (sales),

lacking a lead warming d...

Send relevant, valuable information to every prospect regularly, relentlessly, and frequently. You need to be doing this until they buy, die, or beg you for mercy!

Communicate with prospects efficiently, aside from the normal, time-consuming, one-on-one methods.

Log all communications between your office and the prospect in an organized fashion.

Arm yourself and your sales reps with an arsenal of specific information you can send to prospects on request.

Secret #4: You Must Have a Living, Breathing Customer Database

I talk to entrepreneurs every day who dream of having a mature customer base that provides them with lots of repeat business.

There’s a lot of profit to be had by being more proactive.

This stance also assumes that your longevity in business translates to top-of-consciousness positioning with your past customers and prospects. It doesn’t.

As months go by, your past customers and prospects just aren’t thinki...

your customers are busy living ...

If you want the strongest possible customer base, you must actively, systematically, and methodically build your customer base.

Secret #5: Education, Repetition, and Variety

follow-up”

Step 5. Sales reps throw away, postpone, or neglect the leads that aren’t “hot.” Step 6. Repeat the process.