The following is an excerpt from: James
Obermayer, Managing Sales Leads: Turning Cold Prospects
Into Hot Customers, (Mason, Ohio, Textere an imprint
of Thomson/South-Western, 2007) and Racom Books, Page 167
Seven Ways to Motivate Salespeople to Follow Up Inquiries
1. Greed:
They will make more money.
Talk to more people and they
will sell more product. It is a simple law of averages.
2. Fear: They
must make quota.
Sometimes sales reps need to be reminded that a sales
quota is a contract between the salesperson and the
company. In order to make quota, they must sell product at
a predictable level, which can only be done if they speak
to more people than the number of customers who must be
converted every year. A constant flow of new prospects
helps them do this.
3. More fear:
It’s a condition of employment.
The only certain way a
salesperson will understand and comply with your 100%
follow-up rule is if the rule is a condition of
employment. It should be stated in the job description
that each salesperson reads and signs upon joining the
sales department. While all of the reasons cited here are
important, this is the reason they most often respond to.
4. Guilt:
Inquiries are expensive.
Salespeople must be told that
each inquiry costs the company $50 to $1,000. If they only
follow up 50%, they are wasting 50% of the company’s money
being spent on their behalf.
5. More
guilt: They will disappoint potential customers.
The suspect who has
contacted the company expects to be contacted. The first
test of a company’s responsiveness to a potential
customer’s needs is to ask for information and get it
(either from the literature or a personal contact from a
salesperson). If the salesperson doesn’t follow up 100%,
those inquirers not followed up will be disappointed in
the company and the company’s brand name (and, ultimately,
the individual sales rep) will suffer. Remember the last
time you got bad service at a restaurant? Afterward, did
you say the waitress was to blame or did you blame the
restaurant? Probably both, but the restaurant’s name
definitely comes up.
6.
Exclusivity: Only the salesperson can close out the
inquiry. No one in
the company except the sales representative can accurately
report back on the inquiry resolution. With all of the
effort and money being spent to find the prospect, the
success or failure of marketing hinges on the inquiry
resolution from each salesperson. Only the salespeople’s
accumulated opinions for each inquiry, when added together
and judged by source, will tell management if the money
they spent on marketing was successful. That is a lot of
responsibility.
7.
Deliverance: Now marketing will stop asking.
If they close out the
inquiries, everyone will stop bothering them.
