How to: Get my Sales Force to Follow Up?

At my session at IBS in Orlando, a Builder stood up and stated, “Can you tell me how to get my Agents to Follow Up?”  Oldest question in history right?  We were on another topic and had a limited amount of time to speak, but I wanted to answer his question in my own words.

My Answer:  “If you have Agents that don’t follow up, then that is a personal problem with YOU and your management.”

There you go, it’s that simple.  Here’s why: I don’t believe in Agent bashing, in fact, I am an Agent Advocate and spend my days working with them to help them to be the best they can be.  When things go wrong, I witness a whole lot of Agent bashing that takes place, when the truth is, Agents are the blood flow of any company.  But that’s another topic and the long and short of it is, if you have an employee who is not doing what you expect them to do, and they are still working for you, one or two of the following things has happened.

• You were not clear on your upfront expectations.
• You have no system to gauge if expectations are being met.
• You had no consequences set if expectations were not met.

In order to get your Sales Force to follow up on a consistent basis, you must first:

Hire the right Sales People

Use out of the box hiring techniques to get to the really good Sales People.  I interview on-site and role play quite a bit.  I want to see them come prepared and already informed on the subject.  I give them standard objections to see how they overcome them and run them through a sales cycle, BEFORE I hire them.  I ask them lots of great questions that are not the normal questions to gauge how quickly they can answer me.  And I like when someone tells me about their creative ideas they used to capture business.  I also ask to see their goals, I can tell a lot by looking at a Sale Person’s goals.

Set your expectations CLEARLY

Any and all expectations, including follow up should be set out VERY CLEARLY, in writing with an opportunity to ask questions.

 

Set consequences if expectations are not met.

It should be clear to the new hire, that should expectations not be met, they will not be working for your company and follow through on that promise.  It’s quite simple.  But in order to pull that off, you must be able to have a way to know they are not meeting their expectations.

 

Have a follow up system so you can gauge if expectations are being met.

The Manager must have a system in place where they can see if the expectation is being met.  If follow up is the expectation, how do you know your Agents are or are not following up?  How do you know they are getting registration cards on everyone?  If there is a system in place, people are more likely to perform.  We know this from secret shops; once an Agent knows they are being secret shopped they try to perform more thoroughly.

 

Provide the tools needed to meet expectations.

Buy follow up systems CRM’s that are EASY to use.  Sales People don’t have the time, patience or focus to use complicated systems.  Their eyes will glaze over…it’s part of their DNA!  I know this because I am one and I am the same way.  Make it easy and user friendly, so they can get to their real job which is selling!

 

Provide consistent TRAINING to hone skills and work through issues.

In this market training is critical and it’s the first thing many organizations cut out.  Now is the time when REAL Sales Skills are being developed and honed.  It just doesn’t make sense not to have constant support for your sales force.  Now more than ever is when they may feel stuck.  I know this, because I talk to them daily and believe me; they get super stuck in tough markets.

 

Involve your Sales Force in the MARKETING

Anything that is given for FREE, doesn’t carry the value of something we work hard for.  If Sales People are involved in the marketing and can see the results they will value the prospect more. Also, you have more in depth marketing when you involve the Agent, they know the community better than anyone.  Random mass marketing is great for branding and must be done but is a huge expense that you cannot gauge.  The Agent can do local, spot on marketing if you provide the tools and materials needed.  It gets their Hunter personalities going when they have a prospect walk in, that they marketed to.

 

Remind your Sales Force of every prospects VALUE

Remind them regularly of the value of a prospect walking in the door, by adding their commission on a sale plus what it costs to walk a prospect in the door.  (Ex: $2500.00 commission plus $500 advertising/marketing = $3,000.00 per head)  So when they see a head coming their way, they think…Here comes $3,000.00.  After time, this technique seeps into the head of a Sales Person.  Not that they are in it for the money only, but many really good Sales People, like really nice toys and things of value and it’s a good way to remind them of the goals they have.

 

By using these simple suggestions, you will have only the very best working for you!   Happy Sales!