How The Cool Kids Close Deals.

Let's talk about one of the main reasons why your sales team isn't closing more sales...

There is a "hope, wish, and prayer" tactic taking place! The lack of strategic follow-up to a prospect is hurting your revenue growth capabilities.

Strategic Follow-Up: How The Cool Kids Close Deals

If you read last week's blast, it touched on metrics for growth and selling success. Here's a link if you missed it.The 10,000ft message was about how to build the metric guide rails to achieve a revenue goal. The 1,500ft message, which we'll talk about here, is how to influence a greater percentage of close through strategic follow-up techniques.

So you want to increase your closing percentage from 25% to ... 30% or more? Great! The best place to 'look' for these underlying deals is in your current pipeline of already proposed opportunities. You've already done the heavy lifting. Let's work smarter, not harder. Here's a look at a few follow-up techniques to help guide stalled or slow-moving business:

• Don't simply communicate with a proposed prospect and ask for an update on their review process. This is the easy and lazy approach. This is what your competitors will do. This will keep your closing percentages near the bottom, and that stalled deal will stay stalled.

• Find a way to communicate new or fresh information that would be relevant to your prospect's needs. Bring something of value to the conversation that helps enhance your proposal, or helps with solution-finding for your prospect's challenges. Don't just ask for an update.

• What are possible next steps in your process that could be offered as a value-add? Does it make sense to discuss contract redlines? Is there value in introducing other members of your team? Could you insert a customer relationship into the conversation to help tackle any peace of mind objections? Don't just ask for an update.

• Continue to educate your prospect on the marketplace. If you've positioned yourself as a consultative and education-based sales professional (the sweet spot for any revenue generator IMO) don't allow a pending proposal to stop your regular communication cadence. If you normally touch base with a prospect after seeing them at the latest association luncheon? Make sure you continue that practice. Don't just ask for an update.

• Interact with others in your prospect's ecosystem. Who is a customer of yours already, that has a connection to this new prospect? Continue to fact-find and dig for relational connections. People do business with other people that they know and trust. Don't just ask for an update.

The moral of the story? When inquiring with a prospect about an outstanding proposal, don't be the sales professional that simply just asks for an update. If you haven't positioned or brought in other perceived values as a way to keep the conversation moving, you're not demonstrating your ability to be the selected vendor. "... but Nate, they are a price buyer, and we're offering the best price!" Congratulations. Add value and strategic follow-ups on top of your market-leading price and watch that deal, and others, close in record time. The most successful sales professionals are in continuous conversations where value and communication mix. They provide this before and after a proposal is submitted. They master how to effectively follow up with their prospects. There isn't any sitting back and twiddling their thumbs or crossing their fingers. They have a process, and they stick to the process, and so should you.

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