Video Mystery Shopping Tip: How to REALLY Get Your Sales Team to Follow Up!
Sarah Brody
We’ve all heard the saying ‘If you don’t follow up with your prospects, your competition will’, right? I always disliked that quote. It sounds more like a THREAT than a quote to me! I thought quotes were supposed to motivate and inspire us to do better, not make us feel like losers!
Anyway, while I don’t necessarily like the ‘tone’ of the saying I do agree with its message 100%! Our new home sales people absolutely must follow up with their prospects on a regular basis in order to close the deal. And, as sales managers, it often times falls on our shoulders to insure that they do follow up. You see, being a sales manager is a lot like being a parent! We have to ‘follow up’ to make sure they ‘follow up’, comprende?
When my daughter Sarah was a little girl she used to love getting presents (she still does for that matter, I wonder where she gets that from??). Anyway, each time she got a present I would encourage her to write a THANK YOU note to the individual who had sent her the gift. She didn’t really enjoy or understand why I encouraged her to do so. You see, she enjoyed getting the gifts, but didn’t enjoy the follow up that came with it. This can be true of a lot of new home sales people. They enjoy the challenge of the hunt, the excitement of the deal, but not so much the administrative, often laborious task of following up.
So, in order to make sure Sarah did her follow up, we came up with a system which made it a lot easier for her to do it. We went to a card store and purchased a big box of fun thank you notes that she picked out. Next, we purchased a bright pink pen for her to write the notes. When we got home, we pre-addressed and stamped the envelopes with names of those whom she regularly received gifts. All of a sudden writing thank you notes became a fun project for her!
We should all start thinking of our prospects as gifts! When they call us, or take the time visit our new homes sales offices they are giving us the gift of a potential new home sale. And, in doing so, it is only appropriate (not to mention polite) that we thank them for that gift. If you do this correctly and on a regular basis, you will receive the ultimate gift of a new home sale!
Take a look at the follow up system you have in place for your sales team. Is it working for you? Have you put the processes in place to make it a seamless next step for your team, or are you expecting them to devise their own program? I guarantee that if you create the system and give them the tools to follow up appropriately, they will be thankful to you and you will reap the rewards by selling more new homes to your prospects!
Remember, we all know getting the gift is more exciting than writing the follow up note, but if you don’t write the follow up thank you notes, chances are the gifts may just stop coming.
