A study done by Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happens on or after fifth contact. If you’re a small business owner and you’re only doing one or two follow-ups imagine all business you’re losing.

Not following up with your prospects and customers is same as filling up your bathtub without first putting stopper in drain!

But don’t be disheartened if you’re among 90% of business owners I talk to that don’t do any follow up. The good news is you have ample room for profitable improvement.

Consistent follow-up creates a predictable and profitable stream of prospects and customers that buy. Small businesses that capture leads and follow-up with them enjoy higher conversion rates and a higher percentage of referrals than those that don’t.

After asking many small business owners reason they don’t follow up I often hear responses such as, "I don’t have sales staff to chase down all our leads", or "We’re usually too busy to do a lot of follow up." These responses automatically set off red flags that tell me that they lack a systematic process for following up.

The problem is not that they don’t have capacity to follow up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have systems in place to do it. ______________________________________________

What Does a Good Follow Up System Look Like? ______________________________________________

A good follow up marketing system should have three attributes.

It should be systematic, meaning that follow up process is done same way every time.

It should generate consistent, predictable results.

It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run, meaning it should be able to run on autopilot.

Sounds like a dream come true for most small business owners doesn’t it? Not only can it be done, it’s being done every day. The secret to "follow-up marketing" is to make it automatic so that you don’t have to lift a finger but job still gets done.

With today’s technology it’s simpler than ever. Automating your follow-up processes gives you more time to work "on" your business rather than "in" your business.

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Three Types of Follow Ups __________________________

There are three types of people you should be following up with, suspects (people in your target marketplace), prospects (people who have responded to your marketing but have not purchased, and customers (people who have purchased something from you.)

Each follow up message and offer will be different for each type of person. With suspects, you’ll want to entice them to call you or visit your store / office.

With prospects, you need to persuade them to make their first purchase. And with customers, you want to convince them to come back and do more business with you and give your referrals.

Obviously hardest type of person to follow up with is a suspect because they haven’t shown any interest yet in a pool or hot tub and you usually don’t have their contact information.

But that’s not true with prospects and customers. You not only know who they are, but you should already have their contact information.

And if you follow up with your customers with consistency you’ll find that they will help you turn your suspects into prospects and prospects into customers for you through referrals.

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Your Follow Up Marketing Tools __________________________________

Your principal follow up marketing tools are telephone, direct mail, and email. Many pool and hot tub business owners make mistake of jumping right on telephone to follow up; however, most prospects don’t want a pushy sales message right away and most prospects have been trained to consider anyone who calls up to be a pushy salesperson.

Instead, you should try to develop a relationship of trust with your prospect by quickly sending informational items such as special reports, audio CDs, or videos before you make a phone call.

Remember to always include a "next-step-offer" to accompany your educational materials. If next step is to visit store, then entice them with an appropriate offer or if next step is to call you, entice your prospect to call you immediately.

People move through buying process in baby steps, especially when considering buying high-ticket items such as hot tubs or pools. Your offer should always help them take next step.

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Your Follow Up Sequence ____________________________

The days of ruthless downsizing and drastic cost cutting are long gone. Nowadays, companies have realized that best way to earn profit is only through growth – profitable growth. In this book, author Ram Charan provides 10 tools anyone can use to hurdle obstacles and achieve profitable growth.

These tools are:

1. Revenue growth is everyone’s business, so make it part of everyone’s daily work routine.

2. Hit many singles and doubles, not just home runs.

3. Seek good growth and avoid bad growth.

4. Dispel myths that inhibit both people and organizations from growing.

5. Turn idea of productivity on its head by increasing revenue productivity.

6. Develop and implement a growth budget.

7. Beef up upstream marketing.

8. Understand how to do effective cross-selling (or value/solutions selling).

9. Create a social engine to accelerate revenue growth.

10. Operationalize innovation by converting ideas into revenue growth. One of most critical points discussed is need for re-orientation of thinking. Most businessmen and executives think about growth as “home-runs” and more often than not disregard “singles and doubles”. Managers often look forward to big breakthrough or grand new product without realizing that home runs don’t happen everywhere – sometimes, they don’t even happen in a decade.

Instead of aiming for that one grand home run, aim for singles and doubles. This is a surer and more consistent path. Of course, it is important to note that while aiming for singles and doubles, one should not exclude home runs. These singles and doubles come from an in-depth analysis of ALL fundamentals of a business.

Another factor to be considered is difference between good growth and bad growth. Managers should dispel myth that growth in whatever form is a victory. Although growth (both good and bad) builds revenue, only good growth increases not only revenues but also improves profits and is sustainable over time.

Bad growth, on other hand, lowers shareholder value. Unwise mergers and acquisitions are examples of bad growth. Price cutting to gain market share without cutting costs can also be detrimental to your company’s health.