Page 238 - 101 Ways to Market Your Business

ANOTHER 20 MARKETING IDEAS

113 Most businesses don’t follow up on sales leads

It is an unfortunate fact of life that most businesses don’t
follow up on leads. They may attend a trade show and have
a thousand names to contact but they never do. I often
find myself chasing companies that I am trying to buy
things from. They make promises that they can never keep,
they don’t return phone calls, they don’t send through
quotes when they say they will, they don’t provide the
goods on time and so on.

From my experience, there are a lot of businesses like
this. They spend a fortune on fitting out great shops and
then spend another fortune on advertising, yet they are not
organised enough to have a telephone enquiry followed up
on or a possible lead generated.

I believe there are five main reasons for this. The first
is that no one particular person is responsible for following
up on leads. They often end up in a collective pool that
floats from desk to desk until they are dropped into the
bin. All leads should be given to an individual who should
follow them through from start to finish.

The second reason is that businesses often don’t have
enough promotional material. A potential customer rings
up and asks for information and prices about a product,
but because typing up a letter and finding a brochure and
mailing it all takes too long or the information is not
available, it is forgotten.

In our business we keep a standard envelope pre-packed
and ready for posting. It contains our company brochure,
references from past clients, samples of work that we have
done before and any information relevant to the customer’s
particular enquiry. Then all we have to do is to attach a
brief cover letter and pop it in the mail. This makes an
enquiry a two-minute job rather than an hour-long process.

The third reason is that businesses often don’t know
what to do with a lead when they get it. Should they ring

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