How many Follow Ups are too many?
+
How many Follow Ups to close a sale?
Follow Up is Everything.
If you're asking about "How many follow ups", you may be in the upper category of sales thinkers. After looking into almost every top sales program, I came up with next to nothing which made sense.
Can We Actually Know? "the BEST number of Follow ups?"
Almost nobody will approach this question in the right terms, but then again, almost nobody follows up. The answer to How Many Follow ups to Close a Sale is said to be between 8-12...
This is taken as Gospel, I've found it to be profoundly unhelpful. Sure, it suggests the importance of follow up to some degree, but it's a very basic understanding indeed.
If you're asking about "How many follow ups", you may be in the upper category of sales thinkers. After looking into almost every top sales program, I came up with next to nothing which made sense.
Can We Actually Know? "the BEST number of Follow ups?"
Almost nobody will approach this question in the right terms, but then again, almost nobody follows up. The answer to How Many Follow ups to Close a Sale is said to be between 8-12...
This is taken as Gospel, I've found it to be profoundly unhelpful. Sure, it suggests the importance of follow up to some degree, but it's a very basic understanding indeed.
Here are some "Better" questions
about the "Best" number of follow ups.
+ How does follow up affect my value per sale?
+ Does following up early in the cycle vs later matter?
+ Can following up less make you more?
+ How many follow ups to make a desired amount?
+ Can I follow up too much?
+ How does the number of follow ups affect my funnel?
How does follow up
affect my value per sale?
Consider... (The 2 SECRET myths of Follow Up)
MYTH #1: Salespeople should follow up between 8-12 times
MYTH #2: There is no exact number
The idea of following up 8-12 times derives from the general statistic...
( on average it required between 8-12 follow up attempts to reach a prospect)
NOW.. you can imagine how easy that would be to include as your funnel math...
simply divide the TotalSale by 10 contacts
Your range for "Value Per Contact" would be
Worst Case......... TotalSale / 12
Best Case............ TotalSale / 8
With $1000 Sale Price
Worst Case......... $1000 / 12 = $83.33 per contact
Best Case............$1000 / 8 = $125 per contact
But, wait a sec.........
Does following up early in the sales cycle vs later matter?
You better believe it.
Here is a POWERFUL secret...
Even if a person considers for a moment... "Is following up 10 times with someone qualified as valuable as.... following up with someone who is ready or near close."
There are too many variables to simply imagine.
I own a gel company and wanted to know how expensive my samples could be before it would affect how much I was making per lead / contact, and the degree of improvement in sales needed to justify such marketing cost.
To explain this DEEP problem I built a Sales Funnel calculator. It was eventually answering almost everything I needed and had four stages..
When considering the concept of follow up funnel math...I soon realized that merely considering the conversions per stage was insufficient.
I had to construct the right way to calculate the results if follow ups were unique to a given funnel stage.
The funnel model I created to convey this became....
The Davis Funnel
I had to construct the right way to calculate the results if follow ups were unique to a given funnel stage.
The funnel model I created to convey this became....
The Davis Funnel
Can following up less
make you more?
Using my own personal Davis Funnel I can know EXACTLY how many follow ups are needed for each stage of the sales funnel.
It's was incredible to have a working interpretation of follow ups. I was discovering that following up at the end of the funnel is more valuable, and "How valuable?" depended upon several factors, such as "Cost per sample", "Margin", and of course "Total Contacts".
How many follow ups to
make a desired amount?
If we take the example depicted above
2000 contacts...1255 are follow ups
This is a follow up ratio of 62.75%
Knowing this makes sales more predictable.
Imagine. You now know so much more about the subject of sales funnel math and follow up math than I'm sure EVERY top sales leader you can think of. good.
You deserve to know. I love you for that.
Ok. so now you know how many follow ups vs initial contacts.
Take a look what else we got here... Follow ups Per Funnel Stage
Attempts represent the number of initial contacts.
Reach, Qualify, Proposal, and Close represent follow ups.
Take a look what else we got here... Follow ups Per Funnel Stage
Attempts represent the number of initial contacts.
Reach, Qualify, Proposal, and Close represent follow ups.
|
Attempts
745 |
Reach
0 |
Qualify
484 |
Proposal
339 |
Close
432 |
From here we can determine that Follow up Ratios per stage are..
Reach 0%
Qualify 24%
Proposal 17%
Close 22%
Reach may be Zero if deciding against redialing a list that didn't pick up the first time.
Reach 0%
Qualify 24%
Proposal 17%
Close 22%
Reach may be Zero if deciding against redialing a list that didn't pick up the first time.
Can I follow up too much?
For at least a year or more prior I had been reaching out to Grant Cardone with this calculator, aiming to actually bring some depth to the question of how to calculate follow ups..
I had No Luck.
Interestingly enough, Grant Cardone later had a hilarious run in with his rival, Jordan Belfort, "The Wolf of Wall Street". Belfort is famous for teaching nobodies how to cold call like a pro.
On Jordan's show, "The Wolf's Den" he asked Grant something sneaky.... he knows Grant is all about VOLUME OF CONTACTS-(very top funnel philosophy).
Jordan asked, "but what's the time management situation? Old Doors to New Doors"... "How many follow ups until you decide that's it, is there a sweet spot?"...
Jordan knows that Grant hasn't realized the paradox of
A.) Following up endlessly
B.) Calling As Many As Possible
Jordan then attempted to convey that the degree to which one can contact a lot of people is proportional to the degree to which they can swiftly qualify
I had No Luck.
Interestingly enough, Grant Cardone later had a hilarious run in with his rival, Jordan Belfort, "The Wolf of Wall Street". Belfort is famous for teaching nobodies how to cold call like a pro.
On Jordan's show, "The Wolf's Den" he asked Grant something sneaky.... he knows Grant is all about VOLUME OF CONTACTS-(very top funnel philosophy).
Jordan asked, "but what's the time management situation? Old Doors to New Doors"... "How many follow ups until you decide that's it, is there a sweet spot?"...
Jordan knows that Grant hasn't realized the paradox of
A.) Following up endlessly
B.) Calling As Many As Possible
Jordan then attempted to convey that the degree to which one can contact a lot of people is proportional to the degree to which they can swiftly qualify
How does the number of follow ups affect my funnel?
The number of follow ups will reflect changes in almost every aspect of the sales process. The extent to which change is reflected is determined by how integrated ones estimations are
Below are the various facets which all work in symphony to convey the resulting values unique to a given funnel signature.
Below are the various facets which all work in symphony to convey the resulting values unique to a given funnel signature.
FUNNEL
FIG. 1
110, Total Number of Calls / units Input
112, Display Number of x for Desired value / overall value
114, Display Live Updated Funnel Design
116, Set Funnel Button- considers proximity of values to keep target value visible
118, Display Funnel value ex: REACH QUALIFY PROPOSE CLOSE
120, Follow-up Rate ex: REACH QUALIFY PROPOSE CLOSE ~ follow up
122, Target ex: REACH QUALIFY PROPOSE CLOSE
124, Desired value ex: REACH QUALIFY PROPOSE CLOSE
126, Desired value per x ex: REACH QUALIFY PROPOSE CLOSE
128, Instructive walkthrough option
130, Display Breakeven ex: REACH QUALIFY PROPOSE CLOSE
132, Display Desired ROI ex: REACH QUALIFY PROPOSE CLOSE
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY
FIG. 2
210, Interactive Module
212, Calls / Follow ups / Initial- Schedule
214, Interactive Funnel Comparison Displays Estimation Yielding Ease of Change
216, ROI
218, Cost Per x
220, Value Per x
222, Pipeline Decay
224, Target number of successes
226, Target number of samples checkpoint weight
228, Total number of initial x
230, Total number of follow up x
232, Net revenue
234, Gross revenue
236, Investment per x
238, Total investment
240, Total marginal result
242, Total sample checkpoint weight result
244, Total cost of samples, or cumulative checkpoint weight per success
246, Value breakdown
ECONOMICS
FIG. 3
310, Value of sale / x module
312, % Margin module
314, Cost per sample or checkpoint weight
316, Desired ROI input
318, Desired Revenue Input
320, Desired Value per x input