Episode #088 How to Win at Your Bookkeeping Sales Follow Ups

• #085 Why Bookkeepers Need a Follow Up Process
• #086 Creating Your Follow-Up Process
• #087 Automating Your Follow Up Process

Summary Keywords: closing sales leads, bookkeeping, bookkeeper, sales leads

11 tips for closing bookkeeping sales leads

Angie Martin  0:01 

Happy Friday everyone. This is Angie from Team savvy again, for The Bookkeepers Voice. And I'm joined by Maia. Hi, Maia. Oh, hello. So you are like one of the top masterminds of the Savvy team. I absolutely love working with you. And I super enjoyed this like automation series that we've been doing.

Maia Coghlan  0:24 

Oh, yeah.

Angie Martin  0:26 

Yeah – it's, it makes me happy. Yeah, it makes me happy.

Maia Coghlan  0:29 

Also, it's nice that you're not doing the podcast on your own.

Angie Martin  0:33 

Yeah, during the social media, one, I really felt lonely. I was actually thinking that we would finish up this series, the two of us with this episode, but I thought it would be good maybe to add one extra automation chat. Because today we're going to be chatting about how to actually win some deals. It's going to be some top tricks from myself, to help you guys when your leads. But I was thinking after you win a deal, there is still a lot of automation that happens afterwards.

Maia Coghlan  1:12 

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Like not just automation, but like processes and stuff. So like bit of organisation.

Angie Martin  1:24 

Yeah, so what I might do is create maybe another episode or two, about what happens after you close the deal, because I know a lot of our clients always kind of chat about like the engagement process. And, you know, once it's actually signed with what onboarding, yeah, onboarding is a big thing. So what we might do guys is possibly do a little break and maybe get a guest speaker in for next week's episode. And then we might just go into onboarding. So once the deal has been closed, what do you reckon?

Maia Coghlan  2:07 

Yeah, sounds great.

Angie Martin  2:08 

Yeah, I think that would be really great. Because that's always that's one of the number one questions I think we get is on board.

Maia Coghlan  2:14 

Everybody wants to work on their own.

Angie Martin  2:15 

Yeah, it's like, it's kind of like the top candy in the candy bar. For bookkeepers. Yeah, yeah.

Maia Coghlan  2:24 

But as exciting as onboarding is, there's a lot of other stuff that you need to work on first, before you work on your onboarding. Because there's no point in working on your onboarding, you're not making sales

Angie Martin  2:34 

great, which is why I wanted to do this episode today. So basically, what I've done guys is I've created, I've written down 11 ways you can win your bookkeeping deals, if your follow ups. So it's going to be going through, it's gonna be a bit of a short episode today just to kind of go through and really pinpoint some ways that you might be falling a bit short, and why you're not closing your deals, and just kind of giving you some hot tips and words of wisdom from someone who's been making sales. You know, I always say that I've been doing so since I was 16. But I technically created my first business when I was 12. And was making sales let. I know I was insane. And I was actually talking to my mom the other day, and she's like, all the 12 year old isn't like the 12 isn't the right age, because I was also one of those kids that I don't know if they do it in Australia so much. But we did a lot of like fundraising at my public school, my, like my primary school. And I was always the one who brought in the most fundraising. Because I followed up. I didn't even think about it. I was one of those kids I always had if I didn't have the most fundraising, I would be super disappointed.

Maia Coghlan  4:00 

I was terrible at fundraising as a kid. I would we didn't do it as well. Yeah. And you would get like prizes for how much? Yeah, and I don't think so one time I managed to get the lowest one which was I was terrible at it.

Angie Martin  4:18 

I'd love to on I was one of those people like I would I was a serious thing. I go into my dad's work, I'd go around the neighbourhood and I'd be like, you want to give me the $2 like, this is amazing. This is for a good cause. And I had my sales few. Like, I think I started to do it when I was six. I think they start to do it in Canada when you're like six or seven. Yeah, so she brought up on how like, I've been doing that and I've been really good at it. So I was quite a young kid and I learned very easy on the smile aspect as well. of you know, everyone was like like, oh, you're always smiling Of course. They'll give you some money for this. It worked. So, you know, let's, let's say we're gonna do some words of wisdom from someone who's been selling since they were six.

Maia Coghlan  5:10 

Whereas when I was six, I was organising all my books to be in alphabetical order

Angie Martin  5:15 

And why you are the king? Queen

Maia Coghlan  5:20 

Says lot about each of us.

How do I remain consistent when following up sales leads?

Angie Martin  5:22 

Yes, I love it. So my first tip for winning your bookkeeping sales, is making consistency your superpower. A lot of the reason why bookkeepers don't make sales is because you aren't consistent at following up in actually focusing on making sales. And that is mainly because you just don't have the time because you're busy doing bookkeeping, which is completely understandable. But you can't have inconsistent sales focus, you sales always need to be a focus every single month, I don't care if it's past month, or into financial year, you still have to have that constant focus on sales, whether you dedicate a certain like an hour to sales a day or day in a week to sales. And I'm talking about like just making sure that you're following up and having that consistent mindset of what is happening right now, in my lead in my pipeline, what's happening? Do I have anything where people can actually get come and actually inquire to work with me, having that consistency is really, really important. And that goes across also doing, you know, your digital marketing with social media, if you aren't consistent, you actually get penalised by the platforms. So the more consistent you are, the better it is for your business. The next step, the next tip I want to do is keep at it until you get a response. And I actually stole that wording from you, Maya from the other episode that we did hire either you either get a yes or no, if you get a no, don't take it personally. But get a yes or no. Or at the same time, though, you need to know when to stop.

Maia Coghlan  7:22 

Yeah, you can get them maybe later.

Angie Martin  7:23 

Yes. Yes. So that's also very, very important. But again, like you said, if someone doesn't want to talk to you, they will unsubscribe. And they will tell you. So don't just assume because you've sent four emails, and no one's gotten back to you that they are saying no, wait until they actually say no. Super important. My third tip is consider every no as one step closer to a guess. And I think this is the biggest thing when it comes to business owners doing their own sales. I think it can be a very personal job. When people say no to your service. It's you basically laying it all out there saying how amazing you are. And then someone pushing you down and saying, No, I don't want to work with you. Don't think of it like that. Think of it as always asking them why they're saying no. And then learning from it. That's one of the best things you can do. It's an in that's kind of like, almost with everything. It's almost again, last episode I was talking about. Don't try and go for a close deal in the first contact because it's like asking someone to marry right away. Even in dating life, let's say if someone if you break up with someone or somebody breaks up with you, you learn from that experience. And yeah, definitely. I know, I've definitely learned from each one. What you hope you learn. It's the same with sales, learn from why that one didn't work out and then take it on to the next. And sometimes I know that's really hard because again, it can be kind of a personal feeling deflated. But sales isn't personal

Maia Coghlan  9:30 

ticket is constructive

Angie Martin  9:31 

criticism. Yes. And then just take it on, brush off and then go Okay, so this is what I'm going to change that change next. Let's do this.

Maia Coghlan  9:42 

Also think like maybe they say no, because you're not a good fit, and then that's fine. Yeah, maybe you really wanted them to say yes, because you thought they were an excellent fit, but something in the process just didn't work. That's when you change something To try and fix that situation, and then you try again. Yeah. speak a little bit and you try again. And eventually you find the sweet spot.

How do I know when I should be follow up my sales leads?

Angie Martin  10:08 

Yeah. And that's, you know, every salesperson does that on a consistent basis, like I go through almost every week and go, what can I do better? Because there's never it's kind of like bookkeeping, there is never a point where you know, everything. There's never a point when the learning is done, which I think we all were reminded this year when job keeper and everything came out that bookkeeping, there is never a time to stop learning. But yeah, you just kind of go through. Number four for my tips is timing is everything. And this is something that is super important. And, you know, I know, everyone has these issues, do not leave a potential lead for like a month, and then contact them and then feel hurt that they've gone with someone else because you haven't contacted them. You need it. That is actually why triggers and automations are really important. Because they can help you make sure that they are contacting you, you they're getting contact from you right away. It's the worst.

Maia Coghlan  11:29 

It's not like not contacting them for a month is not not contacting them personally. Yes, I'm getting emails from the automations counts.

Angie Martin  11:37 

Yes, yeah, I'm I'm saying that, let's say someone has inquired on your website to get a quote, or they want

Maia Coghlan  11:43 

to when they don't hear anything from you.

Angie Martin  11:46 

Yeah, that you're gonna go with somebody else. It's a really bad first impression. And it gets them a bit jaded, thinking that they aren't important enough for, for you to contact them back. And you can fail. Yeah, yeah. So

Maia Coghlan  12:02 

follow?

Angie Martin  12:03 

Yeah, at least have the automation set up, so that they get that Constant Contact right away. It's so important. And typically, I actually think from my chats with a lot of our clients is timing is the main issue. It's, it's the not wanting to do the sales calls is one issue. But timing is the second issue that we have a lot in this industry is that because you're so busy, you and you have no follow up process created, you forget to contact them, and follow up with them. That can be a really big thing. So you want to make sure that you have it put in place so that you can always contact who's ever inquired with you, or try to contact you as soon as you possibly can, again, while also having those delays, so that you're not hounding them. Because that's also really important with timing. I hate it when I sign up to something that I'm looking at doing. And then I get bombarded for like the next five days.

Maia Coghlan  13:10 

Yes. Oh, yeah. It happened to me recently, as well. It's like, Look, I'm interested. I'm not interested right now. But I keep getting these emails every single day. Send me what, like one a week, so I remember this. But

Angie Martin  13:23 

if that happens, it makes me not want to work with them.

Maia Coghlan  13:27 

It gives you a great deal. Actually unsubscribe.

Angie Martin  13:30 

Yeah. It's I feel like that timing is also super important. It's super annoying if you hound them. And that's also calling them every day. Let's say you've sent them a proposal and then you start calling them every single day for a week. I am not going to want to work with you. If you're going to hound me like that, because if you do not to get the sale, how much are you going to hound me? to do my bookkeeping?

Maia Coghlan  14:01 

Yeah, you you've got like, we've just talked about two completely different extremes you've got not contacting at all, which shows that you don't care. Or, you know, it doesn't necessarily it looks like to look bad, you don't care? Yeah. Um, and then the alternative, like the other extreme is to hound them, which just makes it look like you're desperate.

Angie Martin  14:23 

Yeah. So

Maia Coghlan  14:24 

people don't want to work with either.

Angie Martin  14:27 

Yes, it Timing is everything, figuring out your sweet spot for the timing with your own clients. Because every client is a bit different. Depending on what kind of clients you're working with, sometimes if you're dealing with a lot of like family businesses, they are usually slower to do things. Then, you know, more corporate businesses and then not for profits are also really slow to do things because they have to get the whole committee to agree on something. So you need to know your ideal client and learn their sweet spots because Timing is everything. Number five is be present without being stocky. Don't show that you're stalking potential clients like,

Maia Coghlan  15:18 

just everyone on.

Angie Martin  15:19 

Yes. Just so everyone knows I do a little stalking before I typically call someone. And that is every time I call someone with savvy, and I do that not to be stalking creepy comments, I do that so that I have an as much information as possible to prepare me for my call with you because I want to help you right away. Don't do it to the point that you look super creepy, because again, that will turn people off guys. There's ways to go through and follow the businesses go through, go through the business and just kind of understand their social media is, you know, go on and check out their website. But don't then send them an email and be like, Oh, I was reading this myth. And that's super interesting, you should do this. I still always ask even though I might know a lot about your business, I always ask if it's the first call, I still ask you to explain your business, how it came about. Tell me about yourself. Even if I already know a bit about your business. That way, I can just confirm and then have really great chats with you. Because I already knew that a little bit about you.

Maia Coghlan  16:39 

And you can already have follow up questions prepared because you know what they're gonna say,

Angie Martin  16:43 

Exactly. I do that all the time. And again, it's just he understands you guys more. It's really handy. But don't do it in a way that you look. Super, super creepy guys. Cuz again, especially with bookkeepers, because it is such a personal thing. If you make them uncomfortable before they even start working with you. It's not great. It's not a great starting point. Number six. And this has basically been the whole point of the series is whose follow up reminders. I have a horrible memory. I put so much information in my brain that for me to remember to call someone is nearly impossible. I even have to put reminders for me to see my own friends in my phone, because I will forget. I'll remember it's on the day. But when Where? Who? Now?

Maia Coghlan  17:43 

That's not how to do that.

Angie Martin  17:44 

Yeah, no, no, everyone does that. I was talking to one of my friends. And they're like, I just know.

Maia Coghlan  17:51 

But you don't have to. It's just so much easier to put a reminder.

Angie Martin  17:56 

Yeah. Like you always say, Take out the information, you don't necessarily have to have in your head

Maia Coghlan  18:02 

exactly

Angie Martin  18:03 

what it is somewhere else.

Maia Coghlan  18:04 

Like, yeah, you might remember to follow up with them. But you don't have to remember to follow up with them if something else can tell you when exactly

Angie Martin  18:12 

do it. Exactly. And it's so easy to do have the email follow ups set up through your CRM or whatever platform you're using, so that it can email you and notify to call that person. And this is again for follow ups for people who already have clients to check in on them, not just for sales. Number six, is use different mediums. I know in this series, we've been heavily focusing on email campaigns, because that's the easiest way of creating the automations for us. But there's other ways of contacting people and engaging with people. The one in the easiest for automations to streamline your processes is the email marketing. Number two is actually picking up the phone and calling. Great way of connecting number three, connecting via social media. A lot of businesses now and you Deaf if anyone's listening to us right now and you haven't set up a social media after I did like a month and a half of education on how important it is to have a bookkeeping social media presence. Please do it this week, guys. But the reason why it's so important is because you can connect your business with their business and start following them there and commenting on things and having chats. It's a great way of connecting on a different level. The other way of doing it is like wide mentioned, I think in last episode, where offers zoom meetings, if you can't meet in person, you can meet in a zoom meeting and do meetings. There. It's a great way of doing it. So don't forget that there are other mediums out there that you can have different points of contact. Which is great. And lately, you've actually been having a fun point of contact us this week, you've been doing a couple social media engagement apps and you've been loving it, haven't you?

Maia Coghlan  20:23 

Yeah,

Angie Martin  20:24 

yeah. And yesterday, you were telling me about how you were just thanking someone for joining for joining us on Instagram. And then you started to have a chat with them, because you actually realised the Instagram account is one of our clients.

Maia Coghlan  20:39 

Yep

Angie Martin  20:40 

I would have had no idea, but you were really into it and going through and you guys aren't you guys?

Maia Coghlan  20:46 

Yeah, this is a business thing.

Simple tips for bookkeepers when working to close sales leads

Angie Martin  20:48 

Yeah. So it's just a, that is an like, perfect example of connecting with clients. And you know, we do it all the time. A lot of people follow our savvy Instagram account, and then they follow her off the hook Instagram account. And the other week, I think it was last week, someone started to talk to us on the savvy bookkeeper account. And they actually needed help with their bookkeeping. So in that account, I was like, Oh, hey, actually, please go to this account. So we can chat through you there. So I can send you more information that's relevant for you. She did right, immediately went to the other account, sent a message like a DM, and we had a chat there. And I sent the links all through there for her. And it's a great way to have that connection. Again, it wasn't through email wasn't through phone, it was through social media. So it works really, really well. Number eight, he follow ups short, sweet in specific. This is super important. And this is one of the things I work really hard at doing well, we all actually work really hard at doing with the email marketing that we do, we go through, I'll create it. And if I'm having trouble shortening it, that's when you come in. And you're like, what if we do this, what if we do that a lot of follow ups are being looked at on your phone, you don't want to have to scroll like four scrolls down guys to get the gist of the follow up. Keep it short, sweet to the point, it makes a lot more to get actually done. And it shows that you value your context time. If they're up for a chat and you're making a phone call, then let them have a chat with you. But always get to the point of why you're actually calling, like contacting them, either with email or anything like that. Number nine, is help your lead move forward with call to actions. This is super important. In automations, you should always be able to lead them to the next step, or stage. This is really important. And this is something that we work on really heavily and we've both been kind of working on lately with off the hook is we are trying to automate the process. So it's still really personalised, but makes it so that they immediately know what their next step is. Just because we have a very specific ideal client for the business. So in it, you want to help them go through the sales journey. And it's very easy to do in emails, to be honest. It's clicking the link like putting the links in there to help them do the next step of everything. It's Yeah, I can't under estimate, like it's so important. And it's so easy to do. So you can do this by you know, the first contact for the bookkeeping, you know, an inquiry, whether it's a quote, or they want to contact you is you have them booked in to do the initial consult. You do the initial consult. And then let's say you make them a requirement to do health check to actually see what is behind the curtain. We'll do a link to book in the health check. And then when you send the proposal, make sure there's a link where you say, review this proposal in sign when you're ready. Again, they know what the exact call to action is. The same thing you can do on the phone. So I usually after I have a phone call with you guys, I always send a follow up email. This might have resources for you to review and might have a proposal for you to review or product or blog to read or anything like that. That is your next step. And so I send it directly to you. So you can have it. That way, you don't have to search for it, you don't have to find it yourself. I'm handing it to you. And that's what you want to do for your leads, because again, they're busy business owners, and they don't have time to go through your entire website to find that one blog, you were telling them about. Number 10, this is super important. have a bit of fun and show your personality. Everyone still has this like preconception in concept that bookkeepers are boring people. But over the last year of working with you guys, I would hundred percent say that is super incorrect. Every bookkeeper that we have spoken with and worked with that savvy have such amazing personalities, and you guys are so different. You owe it you know, and that's one of the things that we always say, you know, make sure you do your business plan, because none of you are the same. And it's because of you. You know, like, we work really hard to show our personalities. I think everyone knows that I'm super outgoing, chat a lot. And you know, Maya, you're super funny. But you're a bit reserved and a bit you know, you don't love doing podcasts, let's say by yourself.

Maia Coghlan  26:35 

Yeah,

Angie Martin  26:36 

I love that. I don't love that. But we make a big effort of showing who we are. We don't get super personal. But we make an effort of showing who we are. And we do it even in our emails as well. It lets people connect with you. So it's super important. That's actually one of like that, in your timing is everything is one of the most important tips I have for you show that you're a person.

Maia Coghlan  27:06 

Yeah, like, if you're sending an email, and your natural way of speaking is, you know, for me, it's pretty laid back and relaxed. And Jesus a little bit more excited if

Angie Martin  27:23 

I use a lot of exclamation marks because I actually

Maia Coghlan  27:27 

use a lot of exclamation marks in my emails as well. But I also like, good grammar in my emails sometimes because I'm just like, I'm and this is I basically type how I would say it if I was talking to them on the phone. So like, I think a lot of people think that they need to be really professional all the time. And you don't like obviously you're not gonna I'm not gonna swear or anything. But I'm still

Angie Martin  27:56 

are very professional. Like, I like to have a very professional persona like, I do this podcast, I'm wearing a blazer. Yeah, you're not. But at the same time, we're still showing our personality. So you can have both. In typically it works better. If you show your personality.

Maia Coghlan  28:20 

Yeah. And if I, if I send an email to someone that I've never emailed before, I'll make it a bit more formal. But then if they reply, and like, based on how they respond, money, email could just be old man. No formal. Yes, depending on like you can gauge Some people prefer the formal, some people are being who they are

Angie Martin  28:52 

Yeah, and it's one of the things that we have clients that we do that same thing with, like, we have some clients that are super outgoing. Don't take life too serious, or very serious about their business. But just do it in a different way. And then we have other ones that are more reserved. It's not, you know, all exclamation marks and crazy smiley faces, and that's fine, but we still get our personality across no matter what. And it really helps. And it you know, even just from looking at engagement on our I heart, bookkeeping, you can see our personalities there as well in how we reply and talk to our clients. It's really important and helps you just feel more part of a community, which is also really, really important when you're a bookkeeper number 11. Now I kind of did a sneaky lead into this in the very beginning. up this episode, but number 11 is remember to smile. This is so important guys, whether you're writing an email or leaving a message on the phone or anything. Remember to smile. It helps to change so much. And it helps to get it across that you're excited about possibly working with this person. Now, sometimes it's hard to remember to smile when you're writing an email, especially when you're doing marketing emails. But there is a difference. When you smile,

Maia Coghlan  30:41 

you're while you're typing, you smile,

Angie Martin  30:43 

I smile, and I'm like in some of them one. So one of our ones for the podcast, let's say you sign up to be a member of our podcast. So you get emails, every podcast every week, when I was writing that follow up series, I wrote it first. And then I went through it. And I was like, that doesn't sound like savvy or the bookkeepers voice at all. And I was actually having not bad day, but like a down day, it was raining outside, I didn't have that much energy that day. So I came at it the next day. And I remember to actually smile and be like these people are signing up the podcast, God is awesome. Like, we love doing this podcast for you guys. And so I put a smile on my face, and I rewrote the email series. And it came across. So much more welcoming than the first one did. The other one was fine, like I had all the exact same content. But the different way that my brain had it come out was so much more engaging and exciting than when I was sitting very straight face at the computer. And it's one of those things that you know, when you smile, you actually like your seratonin and actual chemicals change in your brain. So one of those things is like when we do these podcasts, just to kind of open the curtain for you guys. Typically when we do these podcasts, we do them an hour after we start working for the day. That means we are both doing a mad dash to get as much as possible done before these podcast recordings. So typically, we're not doing a heck of a lot of smiling. Before the podcast, it's usually oh my gosh, I need to get this done. Need to get that done. stress.

Maia Coghlan  32:42 

This happened I got this email. Oh, what do we do about this? Ah,

Angie Martin  32:46 

yeah, it's it's really crazy. But when we go on the podcast, we actually do it in zoom so we can see each other and we smile and have fun and talk. And that comes across. When you are I realised it was a couple episodes in to the social media when I when I was by myself. I didn't smile as much, because again, I was talking to myself. And listening back. I actually heard a difference in the podcast than in once though I smile.

Maia Coghlan  33:27 

Much better having somebody else here.

Angie Martin  33:29 

Yeah, it's so much easier. But it's one of those things you can actually hear it in your voice, in the tone in your writing in everything. It's incredible. So remember to smile, guys, because that will make people want to work with you to say when you meet someone, if you meet someone, you shake their hand and they just kind of nod your direction. It's a heck of lot different if they're smiling and super welcome. So those are my 11 tips to closing sales is a lot of tips.

I wanted to give as much information as I could. But do you have any other tips that you want to do?

Maia Coghlan  34:16 

No, I think you've done a lot of stuff. How have I know.

Angie Martin  34:23 

I hope this helps you guys because I know sales are really scary sales just like automation, sometimes can be very scary. So it's kind of my mission over the next little while to make it a lot more welcoming and straightforward for you guys. So now that we've done kind of the sales process to win the deal. Now we'll go through and make the process just that much easier on doing the onboarding, which I'm pretty excited about. So make sure you tune in next week because I am hoping To have a guest speaker, you won't know who it is yet, but I am kind of working at something behind the scenes. And then the week after that we will get right into onboarding. Exciting, also.

Maia Coghlan  35:16 

Very exciting.

Angie Martin  35:17 

Yes. Thank you for joining me today Maia, I know it wasn't too much up your alley, but it was nice to be able to have a conversation

Maia Coghlan  35:25 

someone Yeah, no, I know.

Angie Martin  35:29 

It's great. So, as always, guys, please feel free to join us on the I heart payroll and I heart bookkeeping. Make sure you answer the questions on the Facebook questionnaire before actually sits doing like submitting to request to join the group. We can't, we can't actually admit you until you answer the question. So please feel free to join us. We'd love to have you a part of the community. And as always, you want to close it

Maia Coghlan  36:01 

Safe, stay sane and stay savvy.

Angie Martin  36:04 

Bye, guys.