October Tip of the Month – Write it Down

The past couple of monthly tips have discussed being as prepared as possible before making a sales call. Today I would like to suggest a good practice for after the sales call.

When you finish a sales call and while it’s still fresh on your mind, take time and write down anything that may help remind you of your discussions with the customer. Make sure and take note of any promises made or action items that need done before the next meeting.  A good set of notes will go a long way when you prepare for the next meeting with that customer.

I know you probably have a memory like an elephant and you never forget a thing. Heck, I hope that’s the case but I can promise you (speaking from experience) even the best memories will fail at times.

It takes only a couple of times of having to admit to a customer that you “forgot” to make you realize your memory isn’t what it once was.

Maybe it’s not memory loss.

Last week I attended Sales Training and the instructor told us that we would forget over 75% of what we learned without at least reviewing our notes within 48 hrs. He said, typically if you review the material within a couple of days the retention should exceed 80%. In fact, we will be reviewing the processes we learned each Thursday over the next 8 weeks to ensure maximum retention.

Now I don’t know how scientific these numbers are but many times I have attended a seminar and within a few weeks I would be hard pressed to tell you 10% of what I learned.

So if it’s just natural to forget things, I suspect that our sales process is lacking if we are not taking the steps of writing down or taking notes after a sales call.

In fact there are millions of dollars and tons of time being spent on Customer Relationship Software (CRM) that helps Sales Teams with the process of documenting sales calls. One of the objectives of a CRM program is to not let anything in the sales funnel slip through the cracks. The information contained in these software programs if done consistently and with good intent is invaluable in preparing for the next meeting.

What do you do if you don’t have that fancy software stuff?

• Find a good Note App like Notepad, Evernote or Notability and learn to use it. (I’m not giving a recommendation but I use Evernote and Notability)
• If you’re a little computer challenged and about all you can do is get email and read this blog then just get a spiral notebook and write it down.

The key is to make sure you document your sales calls and don’t forget to review your notes when you prepare for that next meeting.

If you don’t see any value in this tip, I would suggest beginning to practice your “I Forgot” speech. I can assure you at some point you will need it.

If you would like to share your process for documenting sales calls please leave a comment below or you can email me at feedback@wewaonthenet.com.

You can also follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WE_Ward where I tweet articles and quotes I come across that I think may be of interest.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Now let’s get out there and over-deliver!