People get busy. I get busy. What I question are the fruits of that busyness. It is very common to see people frantically running around the office, continually complaining about how busy they are, yet seeing limited results. The scary thing is that it is these busy people who are often too busy to make sales calls or too busy to do a follow up. In essence they are too busy to bring in any business.

To compound the issue it is also common for people to make excuses for busy people. “I can see why they’ve struggled with sales this month, they’ve been so busy.” – That doesn’t make any sense…

If there is a genuine capacity issue at your office then put forward a case to hire someone else, however if you really look at where your time is spent you may realize that you spend 20% of time on the activities that bring in business and 80% of your time on being busy.

This is also relevant to companies – sometimes its not the fault of the sales person and they can spend 80% of their time being busy (and not making sales) because they are expected to. Mixed focus tasks and overly heavy administrative duties can give people an excuse to be busy when the,’ why aren’t you performing question comes up?’

So consider your core tasks and what it is that you do to bring business in the door. Don’t let busyness stand in the way of business.

So often we talk about the price of something. I find myself asking it all the time after being shown something new. ‘How much did that set you back?’ or ‘How much does one of those cost?’ The truth of the matter is that often we will ask the price to see if we could afford one in our lives, or if we could throw it on the wish list.

When we buy something, getting a good price makes us feel like we have just outsmarted a system as old as mankind, ‘I’ve done something that no one else has ever done before.’

The psychology of this ‘need to come off on top’ will drive people to do some pretty stupid things. It may, for example, drive them to go to several locations, burning excessive fuel and time in an effort to save $10.00 – this to me is a love of the feeling more than the reality of “getting a good deal.”

We also hear a lot of negative publicity towards sales people and price. With the mass adoption of the internet it’s not easy to get ‘ripped off’ any more unless you really try. Researching a product takes five seconds and can be conducted whenever you want. So the point therein lies that if people are trying to achieve a smoking price, yet the margins are already excessively low from high competition and greater transparency, where else can a sales person take the ‘deal’ to provide the customer the feeling of ‘getting a good one.’

This is where value comes into play – the intangible assets such as customer service, relationships, care, training, etc… All of these other great elements that can make someone walk away feeling like they ‘got a good deal.’

From a customer’s point of view (and we are all customers), constantly trying to screw someone down will lead to nothing but consistently poor service. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to provide cost price product and still be able to hire someone to provide the service. If I ask my friend to build me a computer at cost, can I really expect him to prioritize me over a client who is paying his wage? If this is the case between friends, how do you think strangers would act? I could be pushed to the end of the priority list forever. As a result I am getting a great ‘deal’ pricewise, however I am not being prioritized, no one is contacting me and I can’t for the life of me understand why???????

So put yourself in the other persons’ shoes. Consider margins when you are a customer, and consider value when you are a sales person. All we both want to do is leave the transaction feeling good about it, and feeling as though we have accomplished what we set out to do.

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.