Engaging a lead into a conversation involves a lot more than just following up – it requires tact, timeliness, and persistence. The success of any sales team is highly dependent on their ability to nail key aspects of sales follow-ups with a prospect. We like to call these aspects the 5Cs of effective sales follow-ups. In this article, we discuss the 5Cs in detail to help you understand their importance in taking a customer through the buyer’s journey.
The 5Cs include:
- Consistency
- Competitiveness
- Continuity
- Consciousness
- Consideration
Let’s deep dive.
Consistency
In 2015, Harvard Business Review found that there was an 18 percent revenue growth gap between companies that followed a defined sales process and companies that didn’t.
Consistent sales efforts produce consistent sales numbers. Sales teams can achieve consistency by sticking to a follow-up process diligently and holding themselves accountable for it. Several salespeople assume that they can make a sales call unprepared as they have excellent communication skills. Though this approach might work out occasionally, in the long run, it will not yield the desired results if salespeople do not follow an established process.
Competitiveness
When you try to convert a prospect, there are only two possible outcomes –
1. You convert them.
2. Your competitor converts them.
It simply can’t be any other way. As salespeople, you can never afford to lose the competitive streak in you, or the business might stagnate.
Most B2B prospects are likely to compare your offerings against the competitor’s to check their value for money. In most cases, a successful follow-up often involves staying ahead of the competitor and offering the prospect a deal they can’t refuse. It is therefore critical that your competitiveness shines through all your follow-up interactions.
Continuity
In most organizations, once the proposal written by the proposal team elicits a sales meeting, the role of the proposal team ends. The salesperson works on the presentation and takes it forward from there. However, this may not be the best practice. If the proposal written by the proposal team caught the attention of the prospect in the first place, it means that they have understood and met the expectation of the prospect at a certain level. Taking their support to create the slide deck for the meeting can increase your chances of making a good impression. By ensuring continuity in your sales follow-ups, you allow your business to be perceived well and earn more conversions.
Consciousness
Salespeople must be expert sellers, and yet, be conscious about it. ‘Conscious selling’ refers to the art of bringing together purpose, profit, and people in business. To sell consciously, you need to engage your prospect in engaging commercial conversations. According to Bernadette McClelland, author of ‘The Art of Commercial Conversations’, there are nine ways to achieve successful conscious selling.
- Believe in your offering and be bold about it. This makes convincing others buy from you a lot easier.
- Always be available for the buyer. This helps the buyer identify you as someone who can help them amidst competition.
- Never underestimate the power of Social. Leverage the social space and identify potential customers.
- Master the art of storytelling. Create engaging content and distribute it to channels where prospects will find it.
- Personalize your consulting with logical reasoning. It helps you stand out from the competition.
- The context of your consulting must be premised upon thorough knowledge and understanding. Make room for variations, when you must.
- Learn when to agree and when you must disagree.
- Customers are an integral part of your business. Collaborate with them to achieve the best results.
- Assign your contribution a purpose that goes beyond profits and numbers. Keep it meaningful.
Consideration
Prospects at the Consideration stage are well aware of their needs and are already researching your competition to find the best product and value for money. So it is important to get the first call with this set of prospects right. Salespeople cannot afford to deliver a self-serving pitch, and instead, must obtain all the information they can about the lead from marketers. After duly researching the lead, you must try to understand the challenges of the lead and give them the time and space to do the talking. Once you share how you can help them solve their problem, end the conversation on a note that leaves them asking for more. This is crucial to ensure follow-ups.
Adopting the 5Cs can greatly enhance the quality and success rates of your sales follow-ups. If you feel short of time or staff to dwell in the process of the 5Cs, invest in a tool such as SARA AI. SARA AI works on multiple levels to organize data, set up meetings, guide you on the conversation approaches to adopt and streamline sales processes.
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