Finally! A good sales call! It takes time, experience, practice, and a little bit of luck to have a good sales call, but after a successful sales call, don’t just sit back and bask in the glory. You’ve got work to do. To capitalize on the success of your good sales call, you need to master the art of follow up.

What is Follow-up?

A follow-up is any contact you have after a good sales call to remind your prospects of you, your company, and the products or services you sell. People are bombarded with marketing every day, and if you don’t set yourself apart from the others with multiple contacts, you may soon be forgotten. Following up also lets your prospects know that you’re organized, professional, and willing to work hard to help them solve their problems.

There are many ways to follow up with prospects after a good sales call. Use one or more of these follow-up methods with each good sales call, and you’ll find your network expanding and your sales increasing.

Send a Thank You Note

Always send a thank you note to a prospect who was gracious enough to spend time with you on the phone. Email is not the best format for thank you notes; it’s too easy. Keep a stock of thank you cards and stamps in your office, and hand write thank you notes after good sales calls. Handwritten notes are so rare these days that they really get the attention of the recipient.

Schedule Follow-up in Your Calendar

After a good sales call, follow up about once a month for the next six months. So you don’t forget and let someone fall through the cracks, put these follow-up times in your calendar. Calendaring software is the easiest way to track follow-up contacts.

Vary Your Follow Up

Show some creativity in your follow up and keep things varied. Call on the phone sometimes, and send an email at other times. Showing up in a person’s snail mail is great, too. You can even follow up through social media. This follows the “Be Everywhere” principle of marketing and keeps you present in a prospect’s mind.

Send Helpful Content

During your good sales call, you hopefully collected a little information about what a prospect is looking for or what problems he or she is facing. Follow up by sending useful articles that could help your prospect with current problems in the industry. This shows that you’re really thinking about how to help.

Send Congratulations

If you see a prospect or his or her company portrayed positively in the news or online, send a note saying you were pleased to see and read about them. To find this kind of information, set up a Google Alert based on the company’s or individual’s name.

Make a Referral or Recommendation

Let’s say that during your good sales call, a prospect tells you that he’s having a hard time finding good employees. You know a fantastic HR consulting firm. Go ahead and refer your prospect to the consulting firm. You make the prospect happy. You make the consulting firm happy. And they’re both happy with you. Win-win-win!

Send a Birthday Card

If you happen to have found out your prospect’s birthday, go ahead and send a birthday card as a follow up. Everyone likes birthday cards. Keep track of information like birthday cards in contact software.

With a repertoire of follow-up strategies like this, you’ll increase the breadth and depth of your pool of prospects, and in time, you’ll also increase your sales. Prospects will come to know you as someone who cares for them as individuals and takes the time to make sure their needs are met, and this is the kind of reputation that will establish your success in the sales industry.