How many times have you followed a lead that looked like a sure thing only to find out that it was a dud? Or, what about this: you have a hot prospect on your hands, and suddenly you’re overwhelmed with new leads that you have to get into your pipeline and by the time you get back to the “hot prospect,” he’s gone cold. Here’s how to save the sale and recover from a deal gone sour.
Start Over: Offer Value
Assuming the only problem with the deal is that you never actually followed up, you should treat your “failed deal” as a cold lead. That means you need to reach out to them with something of value. You can’t approach people out of the blue with an offer for your product.
Offer them something informational – something that builds value in your product or service.
Get a Handle On Your Leads
If you don’t have a CRM system, fix that problem. Get yourself something like this mortgage software to help you manage your leads. It’s especially important if you’re managing leads from multiple lead sources. Staying on top of your sales process usually means setting followup reminders, sending out “drip emails” with content that’s relevant to the prospect.
Then, after 7 to 10 emails, follow up with them and ask for the sale.
Start A Drip Campaign
If you’re not doing a drip campaign, you’re losing a lot of sales. Drip campaigns are email campaigns where you “drip” emails on prospects every so often, sending out valuable information that people want to read.
Today, peoples’ inboxes are filled to the brim with “stuff.” There’s an overload of information out there, and too much of it is conflicting. People just don’t know what to do. Rather than cram users’ inboxes with even more information, start asking them questions about what they want, what’s important to them, and most importantly…what they don’t like.
Then, you can tailor emails to prospects, use advanced list segmentation to divide up your email lists and send out emails only to people who want to hear from you. Most importantly, when you do send out emails, you’ll be sending information that you know for a fact people want to read.
Almost no one is doing this right now. Why? Because it’s easier not to.
Call Your Prospect With A Bonus Or “Upgrade” Offer
Calling a prospect can be nerve-wracking if you’ve messed up the deal in the past. Get over it. Here’s how. Call up your failed deal and offer an upgrade to a previous service or product – but here’s the catch: offer it for free. Yes, free.
Get clearance from upper management if you have to. Why offer a free trial or upgrade? Because you messed up the deal silly. Offering them something for free, giving them a taste of your real value, is the single best way to get back into their good graces.
Brady McElroy works as a marketing consultant. He loves writing about his marketing experiences on the web. Look for his posts mainly on marketing and business blogs.