[Sunday supplement]: How persistent are you?

Published: Tue, 01/03/17

Most entrepreneurs give up on a prospect after only 2-3 touches. That’s way too soon.

It has been confirmed by research that those who stay in touch and follow up 11 or 12 times have a 90% chance of winning the business. NINETY PERCENT!

There have been countless studies about how many "touches" or contacts it takes to turn a prospect into a client. And they all pretty much tell the same story. Those who follow up more often are much more likely to get the business. Some say 6 touch points is best, other say 8, and I've even seen research that goes as high as 20.

Regardless, one thing that we can all agree on is that it's certainly not 2 or 3. It takes regular, consistent contact and follow up to turn cold leads and prospects into clients.

Yet 79% are giving up between 2 and 3 contacts. 89% give up at just 4 contacts.

And if you don't believe me, take a look at this study that Microsoft conducted a while back.

This research shows that if you have the discipline to stick it out to the 8th contact, you are most likely to be the only person still making contact with the prospect.

And if you are the only person still making contact with a prospect, can you take a guess on who they are going to think of when the need for your product or services come up?

And here's the best part... by the 9th contact, at the point when the prospect is ready to buy, you have a 90% chance of being called.

Giving up on a prospect too early is the best way to throw away money. Now, I don't know about you...but I'm not in the business of throwing away money.

This is a common problem with the 90% of businesses out there that struggle to maintain consistent cash flow. Most of the 90% rely primarily on referrals and word of mouth.

But what about the 10% of business who are not seeing cash flow problems? They get plenty of referrals too, but the reason they are growing at a faster rate, achieving higher levels of profitability, and are consistently cash flow positive, is that they ALSO have powerful marketing SYSTEMS in place. They know that referrals alone are not enough.

Taking this all into context, this becomes the important question: What kind of systems do the 10% have? Systems that do 2 things:

Consistently make the contacts and keep their business front-and-centre in a way that provides value for their prospects.
Consistently grow their prospect database so that potential clients are being seeded (reached out to and warmed up) regularly. All with a focused goal of moving them through your sales pipeline.

But what if you don't do these things?

If you do not properly warm up and nurture your prospects, you will fail most of the time.

I want you to think about that this year. What are you doing to warm up your prospects?

What could you be doing better to properly nurture your offer into potential client's minds?

And what would your life be like if you could bring in a consistent flow of new prospects and clients every month?

To your success

Noel Guilford

Noel Guilford is the principal of Guilford Accounting a small business accountancy practice specialising in advising owner-managed businesses on current accounting, finance, and tax matters. You can reach him via email at noel@guilfordaccounting.co.uk or by phone at 01244 660866. He is the author of the best selling book 'Figure it out - an entrepreneurs guide to understanding your business numbers' which you can obtain by visiting http://guilfordaccounting.co.uk.