I get asked this question a lot, and my immediate response each time is by asking the other person how often they contact prospects now.
Recently, while working with a large company and their sales team, this question came up.
The response not just from one person, but the vast majority, was “about once a quarter.”
I’ll say it right now — you have got to be kidding!!
What these people were doing is wasting their time!
Ask yourself, “Do you think contacting a prospect once a quarter is the right frequency?” Can you remember everyone who contacted you last quarter? No!
There’s no way anyone can, so what that is telling me is that if you think you can be successful by only calling once a quarter, then you clearly have zero expectations of being successful.
Contacting once a quarter will only create success if you happen by chance to be calling at just the right time and contacting just the right person. Those are not good odds to bank on!
We increase our prospecting potential dramatically when we increase our frequency of contacts.
A quick statement I make to salespeople when asked how frequently to contact someone is that you can contact twice as often as you think you should be. Maybe for the company I was talking to, I should have said triple or quadruple what they were doing!
The objective of prospecting is to allow the prospect to see how you can help them and that’s not going to happen unless you have enough touches. This is why I say the objective of each prospecting call is to learn new piece of information I can then leverage the next time I contact the person.
Key to prospecting is to share with the other person how you can help them, and the best way to do that is by providing to them valuable information. It’s not about screaming in their face “Buy from me!”
The right frequency of contacts with a prospect is to start with the idea of 8 contacts in 8 weeks, this means once a week for eight weeks. Start with this approach, making each message different, each one of value.
The results you get will not come from the first 4 messages, not even the first 5 or 6. Most likely, the results will come from the last two.
To build confidence with the prospect requires repetition. Don’t be afraid of it. If you’re sharing critical information, they will value you and ultimately look to do business with you.
This plan, just like any other, isn’t going to deliver 100% success. But what I will guarantee you is the probability of your success is going to be far greater than making one call per quarter.
Copyright 2015, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price.
One Response
Hi Mark, I was wondering, are you considering calls or only emails in your article regarding the 8contacts/8weeks rules? There are also tools to optimize prospects follow-up, such as Tilkee, which gives you the right time to call them back. Are you familiar with those?