How long and frequent do you keep chasing opportunities until you give up?

[amityuk]

So I have a CRM I am using a lot more to track leads, opportunities etc. Its working well. Previously I would send people quotes and forget about it, hear nothing. So I have for some time been setting reminders to chase up quotes sent to people. Initially every few weeks.

The problem is people keep saying its still on hold, waiting for funding, not spoken to the team yet, etc etc. I have projects I have been chasing for about a year. I chase up less frequently as time goes on, I dont want to annoy my prospective customers, but I dont want to forget about them.

But also, this is taking up a lot of my time. I am tempted to just close these opportunities, set them as Lost. If they ever want to start them they can contact me and we can start again, but I have LOADS of Open opportunities in my CRM and reminders just taking up time.

So the question is... how long do you chase opportunities until you give up and close them, and how frequent do you chase them?

Thanks!

 

[Aspens Marketing and PR]

Sounds like you need to put a better process in place to qualify the database entries. Where someone stalls i.e. says they need to speak with others, not had funding etc then in my view this should have been picked up on initial call i.e. timescale and decision maker/non decision maker. The quote is only provided (thus saving you time) once you know budget, time scale, whether they can make a decision and if not them then who. Its not an opportunity until you have qualified it so this needs addressing as otherwise you burn time. You need letters/email at all the stages so you can put some of the reminding jobs on autopilot.

 

[amityuk]

I agree for SOME enquiries, but not most. The "speak to others" was an example of one excuse, and the decision maker can still be the one who wants to speak to the team (it mostly is the decision maker who asks us for quotes). This is beside the point though... many people enquire, want a new website, we have meetings, all looks promising, we send a quote and then some of them start stalling for various reasons. The point is, they had all intention of proceeding, but are stalling for one reason or another. They are not saying they wont proceed, but keeping it open. Some just keep saying they are really busy and not had time to pursue it. Whatever the reason, how long would one wait until closing it, and how often to chase it up?

 

[fisicx]

After the intial emails if I don't the deposit within a few days I move on and do something else. There's plenty of work out there so it's ususally not worth my time chasing up.

But I suppose it all depends on how large the prospect. If it was a £5K project I might put in a bit more effort.

 

[ThePublisher]

Don't know whether you can adapt what I do to your market/circumstances.

I chase for a while by phone or email, when things get to the point where I'm still not getting anywhere, I add people to my 'unconverted enquiries' email database. Once a month I email out a breezy newsletter of what's been going on, what's planned for this month, attach a link to my recent magazines and my rates. People will stay on this email list until they convert into a sale, which does happen, or until they tell me to stop emailing them. I've only put this in place this year as like you eventually I just made people 'dead' and I'm sure that if given a gentle prod every now and then, some of them would eventually have converted.

If suited to your industry, you could perhaps target these people with special offers (although I don't), inform them of new products/services/customer success stories etc. Not bombarding them continuously, but reminding them that you are still here.

 

[Explainaboom Videos]

Same as the above, I chase for a while - with phone calls and emails. From my experience, customers have reacted well to being 'chased' (for want of a better terms) - appreciating the keenness to do business. However, this may not apply to all.

However after a certain number of calls, I take a step back and simply add the client to the mailing list and send them an email every month.

 

[amityuk]

Yes some of my prospects have told me to keep chasing. These are the ones who say they are really busy so need reminders. So I still think of them as a good oppotrunity, it just goes on for AGES!

I really like the idea of just including these in a regular communication, so you still remind them you are there, but you are not being pushy. My main concern is just being too pushy chasing them all the time, there will come a point they will get annoyed and thats my concern.

What I decided to at the moment is just put them in an "On Hold" opportunity stage and stop the reminders to me to chase them up. I may go through this list once or twice a year perhaps so maybe not too pushy.

Perhaps there is no best frequency or time limit to chase people, and we just decide based on the prospect. At the moment I am generally chasing every 3 or so weeks, and after a few months may give up and put them in the Hold status.

Just to give a bit more info, I run a web development business, and projects range from several hundred for some minor maintenance work (e.g. make a website mobile friendly is a campaign we have now), to £5000 websites to £20,000 bespoke applications. So a lot of them would be fantastic projects for us, hence wanting to keep chasing but not annoy them!

 

[Simon.P]

I went on holiday with a friend who does B2B and he spent about half his time chasing people for money and leads when we were supposed to be in the sun with beer! One reason i only want to deal with Joe Public to be honest. What you selling then?

 

[beasty]

As the value moves from hundreds, to thousands to tens of thousands so does the process to close the order.

My dealings and value are quite diverse but approx

Hundreds TODAY to this week DAILY REMINDERS SET
Thousands This week to this month
I do not automate, I keep a sheet and deal with them as appropriate
Tens of Thousands, this month so this quarter.
I do not automate, same sheet as above

For me I know if i am giving more than this I am not being ruthless enough in my approach, the result is wasting time achieving nothing, if they cannot do the business in that period, they probably do not want to (Its a hard thing to accept often but a lot of people are too spineless to say no and give a weak response that ultimately wastes time)

Obviously it depends on your situation in any given week or month, but these are my guidelines
(I would not call them rules as you cannot be entirely rigid)

 

[David White]

Do you have any historical averages on how long it typically takes to close a sales and how much each sale is worth on average?

How long you should spend chasing usually depends on a lot of variables. But if I was to be completely honest, it sounds like the overall qualification of the opportunities might be where you need to look in order to get your answer.

 

[Richard White]

I agree with David that this is a qualification issue and that you should be clear about how to determine whether a prospect is worth your effort following up with or even meeting up with in the first place. I teach people to additionally qualify by buying motive. Unless there is a strong emotional reason to buy and/or change from their existing supplier then they probably will not.

I would look at your language. You are talking about chasing rather than 'following up' - you should be able to tell the difference between the two. Once you start chasing you are often wasting your time. However, following up, on the on the other hand, is a totally different matter.