I recently received an email from one of my clients who ran an event that didn’t convert well on the day. She wanted to call and follow up with everyone who attended… but felt unsure of how to approach these calls without coming across as pushy.
So, I am incredibly excited to introduce Catherine Watkin, a sales expert and member of our Lifestyle Business System program as our guest blogger today… in her post, she shares her 8 tops tips for non pushy telesales to help you convert more sales post event.
Over to you Catherine….
The ideal outcome of a live speaking event is to have your customers commit to buying your offer on the day while they are their most excited and connected to their vision.
But the reality is that many don’t. There are things they need to check out, people to speak to, or they simply have a longer decision-making strategy and will never sign up on the day no matter how compelling your sales pitch.
One client of mine gets a consistent 10-20% conversion from sales from their one-day event which increases to 40-50% from telesales calls in the week following. Now that’s a big difference – does it make you wonder how much you are leaving on the table?
But of course this raises the question, how to make follow up telesales calls to people who attended your event without seeming to be pushy?
Let’s start by having a look at what “pushy” is
Can you think of the last time you were in a conversation where someone was trying to sell to you and you felt they were being pushy? I’ll bet they were doing at least some of the following:
– Called you out of the blue when you weren’t expecting it
– Launched into their spiel without checking if they were interrupting you
– Talked at you
– Didn’t listen or understand your situation
– More interested in their own agenda of making a sale rather than in what is best for you
– Tried to sell you what they had to sell, regardless of what you needed or wanted
– Didn’t take no for an answer keeping you on the phone even after you’d made it clear you were not interested
So the good news for you is all you have to do not to seem pushy is avoid doing those things – easy!
8 Tips for Non-Pushy Telesales
So here are my tips to help you avoid making the cardinal mistakes of the pushy sales person:
1. Be Expected – follow up immediately after the event with an email thanking them for attending and summarise the offer, the deadline and details of how to book. Also say it’s important to you that people get the most out of your events so a member of your team may be in touch for feedback in the next few days.
2. Respect their Time – when you do call, don’t just launch in. Check that it’s convenient for them to speak for a few minutes, and if not agree a suitable time to call them back.
3. Be Unattached – don’t go into the call with the expectation of making a sale. If you do the customer will pick up on this and it creates resistance, putting them in a defensive mode. Instead, approach the call from a place of genuine interest and curiosity. They will then relax and be much more open to making the best decision for their highest good.
4. Put them First – show a genuine interest in their life or business and their experience of your event. Ask for feedback – what did they enjoy most? what did they take away that they will implement? is there anything they think you could improve? Don’t get drawn into a lengthy discussion, but do listen to their feedback and thank them.
5. DO find out if they want to buy – but do it in a way that doesn’t create any sense of sales pressure. “I notice you didn’t register for the “insert name of offer”, what are your thoughts on this?”. If you’ve established rapport and they feel you care about them a comfortable, open question like this should get you an open, honest reply.
6. Stay Composed – if you can smell a sale because they are “on the fence” or it is a matter of cashflow and you think you can help, don’t suddenly get excited and start ‘talking at’ them about how great the offer is. It’s important that they continue to feel safe that you are not going to push them into anything.
Instead offer to have a conversation to help them decide whether it is the right decision for them (or to see if you can structure a payment plan that works for them). Reassure them that you only work with people who are absolutely right for your programme and if it’s not right for them you will tell them so. Then arrange a time for a structured sales conversation where you can get to know them better and lead them comfortably to a ‘yes’ decision.
7. Be OK with No – if their reason for joining is a clear ‘no’ and you don’t have a solution to help them with it then simply let them go. If you are not pushy here and respect their decision they will be happy to stay part of your community (i.e. your list) and will come back to you when they are ready.
8. Add Value – don’t just jump off the call as soon as they say they are not interested. Instead thank them for their valuable feedback and offer them something – maybe to receive your newletter, or priority tickets to your next event.
A final thought
It may compromise your integrity in the eyes of the customer if you sell an ‘event-only’ offer post-event. A great way round this is to have a ‘no-brainer’ bonus for committing on the day, but then allow people to join at the offer price without the bonus for one week following the event. This approach galvanises the action-takers on the day and also respects the decision making process of those who like to take a bit longer.
Catherine Watkin is a sales expert who specialises in teaching female business owners how to have effective heart-centred sales conversations that lead their clients to say a resounding ‘yes’- without being pushy.
She draws on 19 years experience in sales during which time she has always approached her clients with integrity and authenticity even in traditional cut-throat corporate environments. Her sales presentations yield consistent 30% conversions with 80% not unusual from follow up telesales calls.
For more information on how you can have really effective sales conversations without compromising your integrity or feeling uncomfortable visit www.catherinewatkin.com
Do you make follow up calls after your events to encourage more sales? What difference have you noticed this makes to your overall conversion rates? Do you have any other useful tips that you can share? Please comment below and share.
Great tips. I particularly like the last point about adding value. This will help to create good will and increase the likelihood that the customer feels there is a benefit of staying part of the community.
Thanks for this post Jo, and also to Catherine for sharing this.
Thanks Catherine – this is really useful!
I attended an event last week and was hovering on their fab offer … if I had had a call within the next couple of day I probably would have signed up.
So, with your advice too I will defo follow up in future
Kind regards
Claire
Thanks Sam and Claire for sharing your comments. Hm, interesting that you experienced that so recently Claire – yes, so often people leave an event still very on the fence and a sensitively done follow-up call can be all the nudge they need.
Catherine
I think what you’ve written is spot on.
I would add that no one should fear speaking to people!
As speakers, speaking is what we do.
I would add that if you never even think about the call being a sales call, then you have no reason not to call and have a chat!
My approach has always been, ‘I’m curious to know what you think about …’ Because as soon as you are asking for their opinion, the power shifts from ‘who is this taking up my time?’ to ‘oh, you want to know what I think’. And everyone’s got an opinion that they would love to share with us, haven’t they?
I’ve been calling people today based on Joey’s suggestion of getting people to host my events, but I don’t ask them if they want to host my events, I ask them what do they think of the idea of hosting events? Do they think people might be interested? Have they ever done something like that and if they have, how did it go?
And, you know what, they all talked to me .. some for ages!
And even if I think they might be interested, I don’t ask them if they are interested, I ask them if they would mind having a look at an email I was thinking of sending out to others about my idea. Would they give it a read and give me some feedback on it?
It works almost every time.
So my advice would be, ‘never make a sales call – instead make an interested to find out more call’.
Hi QJ,
Absolutely I like your take on it. I agree you will get so much further when you ring to ask for something – feedback, thoughts, opinions – “an interested to find out more call” as you say, and the approaches you have mentioned there are great ones. It’s also important, for people less comfortable with selling, not to fall into the trap of being so relieved that the person is talking and open that they completely lose focus on what the purpose of the call is in the first place, and forget to lead the client towards a decision. So a combination of genuine interest and curiosity plus a focus on getting an outcome are important. In a follow up call to sell after an event that outcome could be as simple as to lead the conversation to decision – whether it’s a yes or a no. I think many people falter at this because they are not comfortable being direct and then they get off the call no closer to a decision than they were before!