The sales cycle is as much about customer service as is the actual production cycle. Every business owner wants to make certain they are handling sales calls as professionally and efficiently as possible. Though, from time to time it happens... we get busy running the day-to-day of our business and begin to lose track of the leads we generated earlier in the year. Now's the time to revisit those leads as there's a good chance your prospect never took any action. Let me give you an example.

Say you are the owner of an automotive repair business. At the time your customer picks up their car, your Service Advisor should be trying to get him or her to schedule a follow-up appointment to deal with issues that were identified during the routine maintenance or repair. First, if that's not part of your standard operating practice, it should be a policy that is instituted right away.

For sake of this example, however, let's assume, your Service Advisor has tried but the customer has decided to hold off. Now is a good time to start giving those customers a call to remind them of the much-needed service. You can give them a special offer as an incentive to get the work done now. You won't get everyone to schedule an appointment, but even if it's a handful, that's more than you had before you made the calls.

There are certain types of practices that prohibit you from following up with leads, like law firms and medical practitioners. All other businesses should be implementing some type of strategy to revisit those leads that may have gotten lost in the daily activities. You can be creative as you'd like. The point is to just do it.

In the future, and before you get to this point, implement procedures to prevent this from happening. Everyone who takes inbound calls or greets a new prospect should know how they found out about your business. Keeping track of this information on a simple form will help you identify which marketing strategies  are working for your business and what's attracting your target market . Once a prospect calls or comes into your business, assign one person to follow-up within 24 hours. Set standard policies and make sure they are being followed.

Don't know where to begin? We can help set up scripts and standard operating procedures for your sales cycle.

 Anne Lazo is the owner of Eagle Soars Consulting. We are a full-service marketing and training company that has been serving small business owners for almost a decade.