Nurturing is underrated, and it’s also a little boring. But, if you don’t do it, you won’t win.
Over my career, I’ve been in thousands of customer meetings. There is a successful nurture flow that winning meetings and the ensuing follow-up tend to follow.
Set expectations, offer resources, be helpful - repeat!
Sharing more ideas on how to get you started below:
1. Agree on why you’re having the meeting in the first place: People are busy and they need a good reason to meet with you and hear you out. In your initial outreach - share why you want to meet and get their buy in.
- Are they a new prospect you’re meeting for the first time to get to know them and their pain points and share your pitch?
- Are you checking in on their deployment?
- Do you want to show them new features that just became ?
2. Share a clear agenda: Based on your mutually agreed upon goals for the meeting, add an agenda to the meeting invite. The likelihood is that your client is VERY busy so when it comes time for the call - you want to jog their memory about why they’re meeting with you.
Sharing an example agenda that has worked well for me over time:
- Introductions
- Discussion of [customer name’s] process, strategy, and challenges in X space
- Overview and demo of [your company’s solution]
- Q&A
- Next steps
- Relevant links for review ahead of time
3. Listen and take notes during the meeting: A good sales person should be asking more questions than answering - you want to really understand the challenges your customer is facing, as well as the questions they have about your solution. Take notes and log them in your CRM for future reference, it can be helpful to break them down into categories:
- Questions to follow-up on: If your client asks a question you don’t know the answer to, jot it down to include in your follow-up and go find the information for them.
- Resources on your offering: Note any details they want more information on.
- Introductions to other internal resources or partners: If they want a deeper, more technical explanation or support with deployment, note who to introduce them to and set up a follow-up call with.
- Proposal: Are they interested in receiving a quote? Note down any relevant specs so you can easily cost out the options specific to their needs.
4. Follow-Up: I live by a very simple rule - if you say you are going to send something - do it. If you have a customer meeting, your follow-up should be sent to them within 2 business days at the most. If you can’t send it within that time frame, set expectations on when they should expect to receive it, or break out your follow-up into parts based on what you can provide.
5. Circle back: Give your client time to digest the information (minimum 3 days, maximum 2 weeks) and then circle back to ask if they had any questions about the details provided. Offer to jump on a follow-up call at their convenience. Do this again with longer intervals between emails, giving them time to digest the information.
A word of advice: There is a fine line between positive nurture and being annoying. A key principle to remember is that people buy from people they like - don’t harass your client and be respectful that they have other priorities on their plates.
What nurture strategies do you use to support your clients?
Happy selling!
