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Why Most Small Businesses Lose 80% of Potential Sales

hope you had an OMG moment like I did reading these stats. They come to us from the sales experts at the National Sales Executive Association.

Follow Up Success.com captures these statistics perfectly.

Here are two eye-popping takeaways:

Almost exactly half of sales people NEVER FOLLOW UP with a prospect.
If a small business owner is not following up with prospects at least five times the small business is losing over 80% of potential revenues.

If you’re not following up with sales prospects already in your network at least five to twelve times, your revenues are 20% of what they could be.

Said another way, you can build relationships with one fifth to one tenth as many sales prospects and make four times the revenues.

That concept makes me really happy.

Revenues lead to cash flow. Cash flow is the key to staying in business.

Are revenues important? Yes!

Do any of us want to be pests? Of course not.

The takeaway here is, if you or your salespeople only follow up with prospects three times, you’re not doing the job.

You have to follow up between FIVE and TWELVE times to make a sale. Get that in your head. It was news to me.

It will change the way I reach out to prospects.

Small Business Sales Advice

Have a database that captures absolutely every contact you have made in your small business. I use Outlook.
Put follow up dates in your calendar to reach out to high potential prospects on a regular basis. Maybe it’s once a month. That’s not nagging.
Schedule two calls a day; one in the morning, one in the afternoon to two different prospects on your list. In one month, that’s sixty calls. You can do this.
Engage your potential customers; get them excited about what you’re doing for other customers. Communicate with them don’t just sell them.
Boomerang.com can also help you follow up as a sales prospect evolves from a cold to a warm to hot lead.

You know those business cards you have stuffed in the corners of your briefcase? Time to enter them into a database that has all the information at your fingertips.

Is this a lot of work? Yup. But if it makes sales easier, just do it. Remember, a sales lead is not “dead” until you’ve reached out twelve times. Once a month, that’s one year to nurture a new customer.

Don’t give up!

This article was originally published by BestSmallBizHelp

Published: June 16, 2014
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Dawn Fotopulos

Dawn Fotopulos is the founder of BestSmallBizHelp.com, a site dedicated to helping struggling solopreneurs. The site is home to an array of valuable tools for small business owners that will guide you through all the steps necessary to develop a successful small business. Dawn also serves as Associate Professor of Business at The King’s College in NY. She’s a frequent commentator at MSNBC’s “Your Business,” the NY Times Small Business Summit, the Kaufmann Foundation’s Fast Track Program, and Forbes.