A well strategized, long-term follow-up program will:

• increase sales and reduce advertising expense
• help keep sales staff happy and motivated
• improve customer and prospect satisfaction
• shorten your sales cycle and accelerate cash flow
• blow your competition out of the water!
• improve your reputation

How To Create a Follow-up System

1. Buy, and learn how to use effectively, a top-notch contact management database program. I recommend Gold Mine because it helps automate much of the follow-up processes through their "automated processes" section. (This program costs about $180 but takes some time to learn to use all of it's functionality. You may budget in some training time, but keep in mind it's got some of the best documentation I've found.)

2. Gather all prepared materials that may be used as follow up. This would include brochures, newspaper articles, thank you cards, post cards, catalogs, pre-written letters -- anything that you now sometimes hand or mail to someone to help them better understand your products or services, or to help establish more credibility for yourself or your organization.

3. Assess which materials address each stage of the buying cycle best. For instance, if you are an unknown organization and credibility is an issue, you might have a news story or two that would help establish credibility. If so, you may use it along with a cover letter as part of your follow-up process.

4. List available materials to be used at each stage of the follow up.

5. Determine where there are holes. Do you have enough prepared materials to follow-up 5-7 times? If not, determine what you need and create those materials so you have them on hand at all times.

6. If form letters must be prepared, create them all at once to maintain continuity. Then, at each stage of follow up, you'll have everything you need together to make that part of your process easy.

7. Assign a "piece number" and "package number" to all materials to avoid confusion in handling.

8. Enter the next follow-up date into your database for each prospect.

Generate a report weekly of all follow-up activity that must be performed, and see to it that the appropriate packages are sent on schedule.

Create a Follow-up System

Follow-up Package #		Materials Enclosed	Ready?		Piece #
			Y	N
1	1
	2
	3
	4
2	1
	2
	3
	4
3	1
	2
	3
	4
4	1
	2
	3
	4