6 Essential Steps to take After a Sales Meeting

What you do after a meeting, is just as important as your preparation and presentation during the meeting. Here are six vitally important steps to take following your sales meeting:

1. Send Feedback
   As soon as you can, write up an email to send your client, with a brief overview of what was said in the meeting and thanking them for meeting with you. Be sure to add action steps to the mail, such as ‘I will send you the quote by close of business tomorrow.’ Your potential client needs to feel important to you – a connection which will place you in a favourable position at some point during your relationship with them.
2. Connect on Social Networks
   Find the person you met with on LinkedIn or Twitter and connect with them – steer clear of Facebook, as this is a social network of a more personal nature. As a sales professional, keep in mind that connecting with people on LinkedIn, requires you to have an up to date profile all the time.
3. Plan your Follow-Up Strategy
   Diarize your follow-ups on a CRM system. Plan to do more than your client would expect of you, do more than your competitors would. If you are planning to send any follow-up documents, which is highly recommendable, ensure that they are of a superior quality.
4. Send a Quote A.S.A.P
   Delight your client with your responsiveness. Send the quote as soon as you can and explain therein the value of your offer in detail. Wait a day or two to ring up the client and confirm that they received your quote. Ideally, send the quote to your client in a durable package. Include information documents, audio or visual materials – anything to support your offer.
5. Email them in intervals of 3 days
   Send the client useful things that either support your proposal or are related to the topic at hand, such as links to testimonials. This is especially important to utilise if you did not have enough time in the meeting to make use of all your material.
6. If You are not Successful...
   It happens. Clients do not always accept the offers we send them. But this is not a time to feel wounded. Send your client an email, thanking them for the opportunity to present your offer and wish them luck with the project at hand. Also use this time to ask them if it would be alright to keep contact with them and add them to your mailing list. These are not lost clients – you may find that they come back to you after a time, to see what else you have to offer them.

All of these steps open up doors to follow-up communication. Anyone you meet is a potential lead. Can you imagine how many sales you would have done by now, had you kept in touch with all the clients you have ever met with?

Read our articles ‘How to have a Great Sales Meeting’ and ‘How to Prepare for a Sales Meeting’ to find more tips on successful pitching.