Ryan Dohrn argues salespeople spend 8 hours landing new deals but neglect existing clients. Renewing a customer has a 60-70% success rate versus 5-25% for new business. Simple gestures like handwritten thank-you notes and birthday cards cost almost nothing and pay off far more than chasing strangers.
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here, your Global Sales Coach. Hope you're having a good week out there in sales land. I just got a couple contracts in. Pretty excited about that. Rolling into the new year with all kinds of great stuff straight ahead. All right, our tip for today. Are you working as hard to keep the business as you did to get the business? For the most part, I would say the folks that I coach and work with, the answer is no. Well, let's think about this for a second. If it takes you 4 or 5 hours, which is probably low, to get a meeting with somebody, another 4 or 5 hours, which is probably low, to close the deal, that's 8 total hours. After you make that sale, do you spend 8 hours not in customer service now, 8 hours in retention-based activities, thanking that client, writing handwritten thank you notes, send them a $5 Starbucks card, remember when their birthday is, things like that? Do you spend A serious amount of time? For the most part, I find the answer is not really, or you're waiting on your company to do it. Remember, friends, you are 60 to 70% more likely to renew or to retain a client. You're only about 5, 10, 15, maybe 20, 25% likely to sell somebody brand new unless you're out there discounting, which I'm hoping you're not doing. So think about it, friends. It's easier to retain customers than to get new ones. So what is your client retention strategy? I share with you some of my ideas, and I'd encourage you to get out there and really own the retention piece of your sales process. Don't forget, if this job was easy, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're, we're a little crazy. I get it. But we really are the chosen few. We found this great career in sales. that'll feed our families for a lifetime. All right, friends, we'll see you next week. And if I can be of help to you training your team, speaking at your sales conference, reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. D-O-H-R-N. All right, see you next week.
