Apathy After the Sale Affects Referrals
How about these powerful insights into referrals from Jeffrey Gitomer …
You worked like crazy trying to attract attention to your business! You spent hundreds of dollars on marketing, sales and your team to grow your business.
You treated the ‘prospects’ well while you were trying to get them to join your club or business. They knew the quality of your business is matched with the quality they would get out of it. You assured them that service is your middle name. You smiled and used their name when you said goodbye, thanking them for the sale. And then, after all that caring attention on your part, they came once or twice and disappeared.
Why? Too hard? Wished they had never joined or started this fitness journey?
Nearly 70% of business is lost due to apathy after the sale. Apathy is the deadliest enemy of marketing. A ‘love ’em and leave ’em’ attitude is usually fatal to profitability.
Once you have new clients or members your attitude should become ‘love ’em and love ’em even more!’ Here are just a few tips to get you started:
- Send a handwritten thank you note within 48 hours. Not an email – take the time to write them a personalised note!
- Call them within a month of the sale to make certain they are satisfied and have no questions.
- Contact them again three months after the sale, this time suggesting new items that may tie-in with the original purchase.
- And three months after that, you could make contact again.
This caring follow-up is not sales focused but caring focused.
This will prevent dreaded apathy from setting in and help increase business anywhere from 20% to 300%. That’s because customers, in their hearts, silently hope for recognition, acknowledgment, information, advance opportunities to purchase, and new calls to action – which you are now delivering!
Instead of the kind of apathy that loses customers forever, constant attention and follow-up results in healthy back-end sales. This means repeat sales, ancillary sales and referral sales.
And this means big profits to you – because it costs six times more to sell something to a new prospect than to sell that same thing to an existing customer.
Justin is the Managing Director of Active Management, which he began January 2004. He offers coaching to businesses worldwide in everything from start up and design to marketing and sales systems. Justin also facilitates four Australian and New Zealand ‘fitness industry roundtables’ events, which allows him to see a huge cross section of business models.