How to follow up with prospects.

Many people consider the whole grail, especially in these difficult times, is getting the "all important meeting". Which has lost some value today as this is often simply a call or video call which in the past would have been considered prep to an actual face to face meeting...still we live in difficult times so let's go with the flow - a meeting is any pre-arranged communication between you and the prospect.

Now, that is indeed important, and increasingly difficult to achieve but I think a common mistake is attaching so much importance to it that once the meeting is over you think some kind of sea change has happened. The prospect has agreed to exchange some of their time to talk, indeed positive but it does not mean necessarily that anything has changed and they are now your best friend and that you should ease off your pursuit - that pursuit being to help them. Do not expect that after this meeting that the dynamic has changed and they will follow up with you now that they know what your offering is.

Hopefully it was a positive meeting, you established yourself as a friendly, trusted resource that they can turn to. That however is not enough. There is a constant need to remind prospects of the value that you and your company offer and for the need to change. I have been guilty of this myself where I have imparted great advice (Well I think so anyway) and knowledge to help the prospect - but that only goes so far. To really help them, they have to buy your product / service and you have to put it to work on their behalf. To do that then you need to get them to change the status quo - they can not stay where they are, they have to make a decision. So long as that decision is to their benefit they should be pushed along the process to make that happen.

You might think they are the experts that know their own job, their industry and these days there is a pile of information available online for them to know everything. But they don't know what their competitors are doing, thinking or planning, or have some done already - but you know who does? The same person who is pitching them for business too - you? You talk to them, ask questions, share information, get their thoughts - you are therefore an aggregator of information. That makes you the expert so your prospect should listen when you tell them their competitors are thinking of change - so they should too.

It's not just about moving them off their comfortable "no decision" cushion it is still about providing valuable advice and your genuine ideas of how their situation could be improved - still providing that trusted consultant viewpoint. Once you have made that initial contact, provoked them a little to consider taking action you still need to follow up with value - every take you connect it should be a value exchange for their time. At some point for them to realise the full value - they have to work with you - but it's your job to earn the trust, offer the proof points and then push firmly for decisions - that will benefit you both!

Sometime this takes some time - sometimes not. I have just confirmed some business with a contact I made four years ago that was about to place an order with me - but never did. Every communication since then I have tried to offer real value - the onus was on me - not them to move the relationship along. Since that initial contact my prospect changed company three times, each one different to the last. Everytime we reconnected, it was different circumstances, different industry, different requests and different value proposition. What remained the same was my intention - to help to the best of my ability. It was not all about me, the prospect was a fan of the brand I represent, however I would like to believe he became a fan of my brand too.