The Art of the Follow- up

Years ago, I began my sales career like many other salespeople. I was inexperienced and struggled to sell the product lines I had created for my home improvement company. I quickly learned that my closing rate ultimately determined my ability to buy groceries. My determination to avoid ramen noodles for every meal motivated me to consume every resource I could find to improve my sales skills and learn proper sales techniques – books, lectures, networking with other sales professionals, you name it.

Fortunately, through trial, error and study, I became quite good at sales. This newfound success along with repetitious exposure to salesmanship through my role training and managing my new sales people gave me the confidence to feel qualified to be critical of others trying to sell me products and services, which I also found to be useful sales training.

But the following story isn't about my journey from novice to sales expert. It's about the time I was schooled by a salesman I thought was anything but stellar. It wasn’t until I ran into this “mediocre” salesman I had underestimated, that I realized I had lots more to learn. While most of my sales fundamentals were textbook, a clear understanding of a vital element of the sales process was missing – the perfect follow up.

Sales Skills from the Blind Side

It all started when I agreed to meet with a salesman who had been calling on me for several months. This guy was selling a technology solution that I thought could be useful. Early in his visit, I noticed how painfully average his sales skills were, or so I thought. His technical presentation left a lot to be desired as he wandered through his sales pitch. Among other shortcomings, he was poorly dressed, used lazy grammar, and had very distracting body language.

To make matters worse, I felt like he kept wasting time asking about things that weren’t connected to the product. With only an hour scheduled for the pitch, he was throwing away valuable minutes asking about my professional interests, family, sports, the weather, and politics. But hey, he was wasting his opportunity and I was only going to give him this one hour.

During our meeting, he focused on taking lots of notes, jotting down notes during what seemed like every moment of our conversation including small talk. I was half tempted to suggest that he also jot down a couple of book titles on sales fundamentals while he was at it.

Despite being prepared to fend off the hard close I was taught to execute in my sales training, the salesmen thanked me for my time without an aggressive push for me to buy his product.

A Hidden Lesson in Sales Mastery

What I didn’t realize was that this “bad” salesman was cleverly working to execute a sales strategy that caught me completely off guard. I quickly learned that what he lacked in classic sales skills, he made up for in follow up mastery.

First, he checked in with me at a perfectly paced frequency. When I heard from him, it didn’t feel so frequent that I was annoyed by him reaching out, but he didn’t wait so long that the connection grew cold. He also changed up that way he reached out. He’d connect by phone one week, then by email, followed by a text message later in the month. This helped keep the connection fresh without me getting bored with the same old weekly follow up. 

What surprised me the most was that he didn’t often reach out to bother me with another sales pitch about his product. It became obvious to me that he kept well informed about the periphery of our industry. He took each connection as an opportunity to share useful information about topics that were unrelated to his product – news about our industry, other product recommendations, and most notably details about upcoming events that I didn’t know about but were related to my professional interests. Periodically, he’d inquire about my family, respectfully and surprisingly recalling details I had shared with him. His priority was simply bringing value to our relationship by connecting me with resources that aligned with my interests and the needs of our company.

Call me a softy, but I eventually looked forward to receiving his calls. Rather than avoiding him like other robotic salespeople, I actually went out of my way to return his calls, emails, and voicemails. What kept me engaged was the genuine value and strong relationship that he worked hard to build between us. 

Transforming Your Sales Efforts with an Expertly Crafted Follow Up

At the end of the day, our company decided to suspend the technology initiative and with that went the need for my “new friend's” product. But he had already left his mark. In the years to follow, his brand would always be top of mind whenever I needed a similar product. And I referred him to my peers that operated similar businesses.   

The lesson I walked away with was a game changer. Selling isn't just about sealing the deal on the first go. It’s a lesson that many sales professionals could learn from this “just ok” salesman. The reality is that, statistically, and depending on the product or service line being offered, the likelihood of closing a sale on the first visit is quite low. Despite this, we often resort to the same closing techniques that only result in a 20-30% closure rate in most industries. It’s during the consideration period following the initial pitch that most purchase decisions are made.

Knowing this, we can benefit from flipping the script on the traditional approach. Rather than trying to nail the perfect sales pitch and get from point A to point B in the first meeting, it’s more effective to gather tools we need to build a strong, long-term relationship. Understand your prospect’s motivations, both professional and personal. This information will be as valuable as gold in the weeks and months to follow as you nurture trust.

The next time you're tempted to rush through a pitch, remember this story. Be the person who surprises, who captivates, and who leaves an indelible mark. And when you find yourself faced with a sales journey that stretches beyond the horizon, armed with patience and insight, know that you're on the right track.