The numbers make it pretty clear; while sales usually take at least 5 contacts, most sales professionals don't make it past two. That should be a pretty big reminder to a salesperson that might be struggling. Of course, there are reasons that sales people don't follow through with prospects to improve their chances at winning the business. A few of the reasons might be no process once they identify a prospect, too many hard to handle clients, or they are just consumed with following up on too many prospects that waste their time.
On the whole though, it seems to be that it's primarily lack of a process. A sales person should have a way that they want to communicate with their prospects,and it should be proven. You can see great examples with real estate agents who consistently send information. It might seem like a daunting task to remember, but what makes it possible is a good CRM software program. Good prospecting software programs will allow you to layout the steps that you'd like a prospect to go through. Then, when steps are due, you simple have your assistant take action on them when they don't require you making a phone call or a visit. Using a good CRM software program, it can keep things in your pipeline moving towards those all important 6 contacts and keep your lead generation system running. By the time you place the phone call or make the visit, your prospect is at least warm from having seen your material.
But that still doesn't solve the problem of having customers that take up too much time though or too many prospects that are not our target client. Getting rid of customers can be done, but not always. But one thing that every sales person should be doing is cleaning up their prospect list to identify only the ones with large upside potential. If you combine that with a good process for prospects that you can follow, then you will be successful at brining in more sales to your company.
