What to Do AFTER You Hang Up the Phone
Image downloaded from Pixabay.com
Being prepared for a prospecting call before, and during the call is extremely valuable, and that has been covered in previous articles. However, the activities that must be done after the prospecting call is where most salespeople fall short.
It can take between 7-10 “touches” before a prospect will buy something from you, and become a new customer. Most salespeople don’t follow up more than once after an initial conversation, and you can clearly see why they aren’t happy with their results.
This brief article will go over the five most critical things you can do right after you hang up the phone. We will discuss what you should do after you leave a voicemail, and what to do after you have a productive conversation with a customer or prospect.
Log Your Call Notes
This is the most important step, and it’s probably the one that most salespeople dread the most. Regardless of what happens when you place a call, you should always have a log of the effort.
That log should be in your CRM. If you don’t use a CRM, then we need to talk! No, seriously, just stop reading and send me a message because you’re going to need a CRM to really take advantage of Sales Therapy.
Different salespeople have different techniques when it comes to logging calls. Some of them will make a series of phone calls, and then wait to log them later. This is to spend less time typing and more time dialing. I don’t necessarily subscribe to that philosophy.
Rather, I like to type my call notes as soon as the conversation is over. I want to capture the essence of the call while it’s still fresh in my mind, and if you want to improve your sales game, you should want to capture the essence as well!
When typing your call notes, you should try to include some standard things, and those “standard things” will be specific to your product. For the most part, you should know what those are since you are selling it.
Aside from product based things, you should also include the customer’s tone, exact words, phrases they used, and anything that you think may be of value to you in the future. Especially if you need to review those call notes a few years later. Being that diligent with my call notes has saved my ass more than a few times, and trust me, I include seemingly irrelevant details in my notes that have helped me later on down the road.
Another great thing to add in your call logs is any questions they may have asked, or anything that you agreed to follow up on with them. This can be easily done as a list at the very bottom of your log. This allows you to keep track of the things you need to do, and again, you never know when you’ll need that information in the future.
Lastly, I have a few “standard” voicemails that I leave when prospecting. No, it’s not a scripted message, but I typically switch between a few loose scripts when prospecting, and I also log a call with what I said in my voice message to them. To be clear, most salespeople do not do this, and a lot of them may even think of it as a waste of time.
Trust me, they’re wrong.
Schedule Your Next Call
Again, you’re going to need a CRM to do this properly. Sure, you could use the Calendar app on your phone, but it’s not the same as using a CRM. As a matter of fact, there are few solid CRM apps available for mobile download.
Free CRMs like Zoho CRM will prompt you to schedule a follow up call as soon as you’re done with logging your initial call!
You can schedule the call for any date and/or time in the future, and you can even schedule reminders for yourself. The open activities in the CRM can be prioritized from VERY IMPORTANT to JUST KINDA IMPORTANT which allow them to stand out, or not, in a long list of open activities.
Not only can you schedule when you want to make the call, but you can also plan what you want to say! When you schedule a call in a CRM, you can use the “notes” section to type in a few reminders for your next call. This can be products to discuss, a question they asked last time that you can answer, or whatever it is you want to remember to discuss.
I always suggest folks get personal on their phone calls with customers, and I would typically type in personal information into the open activity, but we can discuss what that all means during a one-on-one Sales Therapy meeting.
Send Your Follow Up Email
There are certain instances in which this rule does not apply, but you want to send an email after every phone call you make. This can be done after a productive conversation with a customer, or the fifth voicemail you left for a prospect.
Depending on how the call went, there are a few different types of emails you can use.
For this example, let’s assume you had a great discussion with a solid customer, and there are a few things you must do for them in order to get the ball rolling on the “deal”.
Your email doesn’t need to be incredibly long, but it shouldn’t be too brief either. A nice summary email of a good conversation is just a formal way of handling yourself, and getting clear on your customer’s expectations.
The email should be a high-level overview of what you discussed, what they committed to, what you committed to, and the “action items” you are going to complete for them.
If you want to be really fancy, and you should, then you can also include a due date for when everything will be done, especially if they never requested it. The quickest way to earn a customer’s trust is to set expectations, and then honor those commitments you made and deliver results on time.
Even if you call someone and just leave a voicemail, you should send them an email. This may sound like you’re being annoying, and maybe so. But, in order to get business going with people, you need to first have them engage with you, and this is an effective way to get that.
By leaving a voice message and then sending an email right away, the chances of them responding sharply increases. In fact, it’s a 90% chance that they respond to your email only, and ignore the voicemail.
If that happens, then you need to respond in kind. Your customer just showed you their preferred method of communication, so you need to respect that.
Create A Calendar Event
This is mainly used for when you have a conversation with a customer which will require a future phone call. Or, better yet, if you are able to land an in-person meeting with them!
When a future discussion is necessary, you need to get that on your calendar, and then send the customer an invite. If the next discussion is not going to be in-person, then you could always include a link to a GoToMeeting or other video call service.
Regardless of what the next conversation is for, it’s always a great idea to include your main talking points, what you plan on discussing, and any supporting documents that may be needed. By attaching documents to the calendar invite, you are saving yourself some prep time in the future!
Once you include their email on the event, you should also set a 15-minute reminder for both of you. Depending on the size of the project, a follow up discussion could be months in the future, and people often forget appointments that far in the future without a reminder.
Actually Place Your Next Call!
Yes, this is serious. This has been mentioned several times in other articles and LinkedIn posts, but a majority of salespeople never actually follow up with customers! Sure, they may have every intention of calling the customer back, but it’s just a fact that most don’t do it.
If you read last week’s article about preparing before a prospecting call, then you have already put in a lot of work with your prospect. Don’t throw that away by getting to the finish line and not crossing it. You worked hard to get there, so just place the call.
Why most salespeople don’t actually follow up is a bit of a mystery. My theory is just not wanting to “harass” or “chase” their customers. But the reality is, customers are talking to plenty of other salespeople who don’t feel that way. There are some salespeople out there who aren’t afraid of following up, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily good at it. But, if they are talking to the customer more often than you are, they are more likely to make a sale.
Everything covered in this article thus far is about planning and preparing. Sure, you’re clicking a few buttons on a computer, and logging call notes, but that’s all about planning for the future more so than it is about accomplishing anything today.
This tip, however, is about actually executing on those plans.
“The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry”
That quote from Of Mice and Men can mean different things to different people. To me, I think of it as people spending too much time on planning and scheming and not enough time actually executing on their plans.
Having a great plan is amazing. Planning is absolutely crucial to almost anything!
But, even with the best plan in the world, if you don’t execute on it properly, all you have is a lot of nice words and thoughts.
CONCLUSION
A lot of sales advice I see on the internet is all about “magic” words, perfect pitches, and what to say while on the phone with a customer. All valuable tips, absolutely, but I feel as though they miss some critical aspects of sales.
What you do before and after the phone call is just as, if not more, important than what is said during the call. In this part II article, we go over what to do AFTER a call, but check out the previous article about preparing for a phone to really get a jump start on your sales process.
The most important takeaway from this article should be logging your calls. If you are not currently logging your calls, then you need to start. If you are currently logging your calls, I would bet there is some room for improvement. If I’m wrong about that, then that’s awesome! Happy to be wrong about that!
If Sales Therapy can help you with anything from leaving clever voicemails, coming up with a follow up cadence, script writing, email templates, or anything else sales related, just reach out to me for more information. The first hour is always FREE, and the hour can be split into multiple meetings!
