“I tried that once and it didn’t work.”
Ever tried to win a chess game with only one move?
There’s a rule of thumb in sales that says 80% of all sales are made after the seventh contact. It’s true if your prospect doesn’t know you. And it’s especially true if your prospect does knows your competitor. Maybe because they’ve been exposed to your competitors’ advertising or media or marketing or sales efforts.
The solution: you need to stay in contact and keep on making moves.
- In sales, it’s follow-up phone calls or appointments.
- In marketing, it’s daily, weekly, or monthly email or monthly direct mail pieces.
- In advertising, it’s making multiple impressions.
- In public relations, it’s pitching story ideas and sending releases to the same media outlets, and then following up.
Otherwise, you’re trying to win a chess game after your first move. Which can be done - if your opening move is so intimidating that your opponent quits.
What challenges do you have in staying in contact? Share your own situation below now:
Related posts:
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Right on! So what’s the source for the “80% after seven contacts” factoid?
My challenges for staying in contact are primarily time, time, and probably time.
Backing up the potentially impersonal impact of newsletters, we have more personal touchback systems like this blog. You invite interaction.
Just like a supply and demand explosion, what happens when you have 300-400 people interacting with you? It must highlight a similar dynamic to the dating situation. Dating like crazy, everyone “loves” you and raves about the dates to their friends, and obviously you must be giving away the milk, cuz they aren’t buying the cow.
Anthony, I learned the statistics “80% of sales made after the seventh contact”
years ago in a sales book — I don’t remember which book.
Ian, you need a system to interact with 300-400 people. If you’re dating, a certain % of first dates lead to second dates, and a certain % of those lead to third dates. If you’re dating the same 300-400 people and building relationships with them, you may have started with 1200-1600 people on first dates, 600-800 agreed to second dates, and 300-400 agreed to third dates, and so on.
People who “tried that once and it didn’t work” stop after the first date.
I directed a professional telephone salesperson who worked with 3159 leads and steadily produced hundreds of sales — only three of which happened on the first contact, and shocked him when they bought so early.
Bill, this is totally in alignment with my experience as well most of the time. I actually had somebody I’ve been sending newsletter to for over a year, whom I had met 10 years ago, tell me she wants a hand analysis after all this time. You just never know. I also agree that only a percentage of the people on your list will actually ever pay money to you for your products or services. You know who they are usually.
Pamelah, I’m glad you personally identified with this. The more consistent you are in keeping in contact, the greater your odds of winning some business. For at least two reasons:
1. they get to know you and your offerings better
2. equally important (and a competitive advantage), most people drop the ball and stop contacting their list.
On the percentage of your list who will pay you money, two quick thoughts:
1. always build your list.
2. there are ways to get them to invest more and more with you.