Training yourself to appreciate the value of a follow up, and making them consistently, is the first part. The second is successfully delivering that follow up to achieve the best outcome. For the purposes of this blog entry I am going to use the example of a sales person following up a client on a quote that they have delivered.

You don’t run into battle with no armor; you can’t cook without ingredients; so why do so many people follow up without any preparation? Before you make the phone call there are a number of things to consider. What do you want to achieve? How can you become more ingrained in the customers buying process? How can you be seen as an irreplaceable resource as opposed to a sales person trying to make a sale? Why does the client care if you win the business? The answer to these questions can be summed up in one word… ‘Care.’ How much do you care about all of the above? Does the client see that? Do they know that you care about the outcome, and that your assistance is in their best interests? These are the questions that you need to consider when you are going to perform a follow up.

Some examples of this offering include:

• Drawing the client to specific parts of the quote which are key differentiators for your company.

• Further drilling down on their needs and cross referencing these against your proposal to show where they overlap.
• Offering more information on any aforementioned points.
• Relating their decision making process to an allied client in a relevant field and how they went about it…

You want to prepare your follow up so well that you can answer any questions confidently as well as be working in the clients best interests. Don’t follow up to say, ‘where’s the order?’ Follow up to say, ‘how’s the process going? Can I be of further assistance? What time frames are you running on? I firmly believe that we have the best product for your situation, and I will do anything to try to convince you to go with us, as it will ultimately serve you the least headaches and the most flexibility!’ Just be careful not go in with that last one unless you are oozing passion… Effective preparation will give you the outcome that you seek.

Next week, part three will discuss delivery.

What are your perceptions of a follow up? Do you prioritise them? Do you value them? If the initial action is talking the talk, then following up is walking the walk. Say what you are going to do, do it, and then follow up to confirm it was done to the expected level.

I am a salesperson and to me follow ups are one of the most important things that I can do. Let’s say I send a quote and don’t follow it up; I don’t make sure it arrived and I don’t try to point out the benefits of my quote. What’s the point of investing the time into the quote if you aren’t go to make sure it gets there? Most clients won’t give you a second chance if you fail the first. Following up ensures that you give yourself every opportunity to provide the best customer service possible and helps you control the outcome.

What if a builder finishes a small installation and doesn’t confirm with the client that they are happy with everything? What if something went wrong and the builder wasn’t aware of it. In this circumstance the builder may have a toxic client out there spreading the bad word, one that could have been remedied with a phone call. If the sales call helps you get the initial sale, then the follow up call helps you get the next.

A follow up is your way of caring about the outcome – whether it is beneficial to yourself or to someone else a follow up should always be regarded as a stake in the outcome. Consider this next time you are being followed up, or following someone else up, don’t see it as being negative or something that you have to get out of the way. See it as a genuine concern for the result. Once you achieve this, you will come across more confident in your delivery of the follow up and respond better to receiving one.

Next week part two will cover preparing to give a follow up.

How much do you value your time? Lets say that a salesperson attends a meeting with a potential client. The meeting lasts for 3 hours and the client seems like they are almost at tipping point. In order to ‘WOW’ the client and potentially secure the sale, an extra 2 hours of work is required. What would you do in this situation? How would you prioritize your time?

Option A – 3 hours invested, 2 more wasted.

Decide that you’ve already invested 3 hours of your valuable time into this sale, and choose not to ‘waste’ any more time on this sale. Instead, you opt to ‘better utilize your time’ in other areas such as sourcing a new client.

Option B – 3 hours wasted unless 2 more are invested.

Decide that you have already invested 3 hours of your time into this sale and follow through with the extra work to increase your chances of success. You believe that those three hours of work will be wasted if you don’t allocate the extra time to secure the sale.

Many people often blame others for ‘wasting my time’. The truth is, we waste more of our own time, than any other person can ever be responsible for.

When we understand and respect this, we can work to make ourselves more productive and more efficient which will ultimately lead to better customer service and greater success in business.

Tip: Spend some time identifying the activities and tasks that are going to win you business. Then prioritise your time around these activities.

I and most of the people in my circles are Generation Wise… I, like many of my peers enjoy being analysed by Baby Boomers and Gen X’s as if there is some great code to crack. To me, the general gist of a generation is a cocktail of two things –people and their environment.

Firstly lets sum up the characteristics of the people that make up Gen Y. The biggest characteristic is that they are young. They are un-educated in the ways of the world, brash, eager to learn and experience, and exposed to peer pressures and social obligations.

The rest of the generational stereotype is dictated by the environment. The difference in technology available to the generation and the current political climate shapes how they behave. For example, if you have peer pressure and social obligation at high school when you’re a kid, then coupling that with Facebook or MySpace and a whole lot of time is like throwing oil on the fire.

Now when you take these characteristics and apply them to the environment, it is really quite simple to understand Generation Y. An eagerness to learn when you were a kid in the 1930’s was quenched through reading books and asking family members… Now we have Google, which provides mostly accurate results instantly… and they wonder why we’re impatient?!? Therefore theory and intellect are easy and for the most part we can get it whenever we need it, but our memories are absolutely shot because we have little need to commit things to it. My total dependence on technology has removed my thought process so much so that when I drive somewhere beyond my norm I am completely dependent on the GPS in my car. So much so that sometimes when I drive out of work to go somewhere and the tracking signal hasn’t picked up yet I drive completely in the wrong direction. People say, ‘I would be lost without my GPS’ – I think I’d start remembering where the hell I was going!

This is my observation of our generation. We are no different to how any other generation has been created, however we were brought up with loads of technology and in somewhat peaceful circumstances. We probably need to consider generational gaps much closer now as the technology changes so quickly and this is truly what affects the behavior of the generation.

With this in mind, how does an impatient, yet incredibly fast paced generation find fulfillment in the workplace? We are labeled as being selfish and arrogant, un-loyal and quick to jump ship for more money. I don’t believe that this is entirely true – whilst many of us are, many of us aren’t and often the reason behind changing jobs is due to boredom in a role.

Consequently, how can we achieve long term career success if we can’t tolerate the same job for a decent amount of time? Is this patience? I hope not, because I lack that virtue. This is what I will explore through the Generation Why Not series.