Best practice for follow up tasks

[gio_addo]

I need advice from sales management experts on best practice for dealing with follow up tasks.

Scenario:

1. You create a task eg "follow up Mr XX of Company YY for proposal".
2. You called but no answer

Questions:

• Do you check that task since you did the follow up albeit no results and create another follow up task? or
• Do you keep that task uncheck until you've actually gotten a result?

Thanks much appreciated.

[MFrankJohnson · Accepted solution]

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Q: If you follow-up with a contact by calling (but got no answer), do you check that task as having been 'completed' and create another follow up task - OR - keep that task unchecked until you've actually gotten a result??

Short A: Personal preference based on company policy.

Longer A:

Creating and completing tasks can be very helpful for tracking. However, there comes a point after which we simply need to trust that fully invested sales personnel will do the right thing.

Sounds like a great opportunity to simply push the due date forward and move on to the next task.

(see image)

NOTE: Using this method will artifically skew your task completion numbers DOWN.

Help answer your question? If so, remember to accept this solution today.

Best,
Frank

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www.MFrankJohnson.com

[gio_addo]

Great! Thanks for the tip.

We are just in the process of creating policy based on best practices.

Was thinking on one hand, we can measure how many negative follow ups needed to close deals. We can also use this as part of rule eg after 3 unanswered follow ups, move it to dormant.

On the other hand, we can simplify it by just moving the date.

What do you guys follow as company policy? I'm curious at what those with better expertise and experience than I have are practicing. Thanks.

[MFrankJohnson]

There are lots of ways to handle lead follow-up @gio_addo ...

Not sure how HubSpot does it internally, but we differentiate our follow-up based on 3 main factors for targeted leads ...
- initial level of interest (or sense of urgency)
- buyer's journey stage
- product/service offering

Example:
Follow-up would be totally different for a buyer ...
- whose purchase timeframe was 90-days
- who was in the consideration stage of the buyer's journey
- who was interested in HubSpot CRM customization

Versus a buyer ...
- whose purchase timeframe was 2-weeks
- who was in the decision stage of the buyer's journey
- was was interested in HubSpot onboarding

These two buyers have very different purchase trajectories that require different levels of engagement, types of content, and degrees of pre- and post- sales expertise that are often difficult to quantify in terms of 'best practices'. That being said, we find the following general guide very useful.
(see image)

Don't get me wrong, we love best practices and typically follow-up with leads the same day, within 10 days, and within 2 weeks. It's just that we sometimes find what's 'best practice' for one client's buyer's journey may end up being a 'worst practice' for another.

Just a thought. Always happy to help. Reach out anytime of we can be of assistance with HubSpot.

Best,
Frank

---

www.MFrankJohnson.com

[gio_addo]

These are excellent points and I'm learning a lot. I personally tend to lean towards higher automation for scaling purposes. If I can train dozens to hundred of sales people to follow a certain process, I lean towards being able to train more and willing to risk losing a bit more nuanced as exception costs. But then I don't know if my way is to best way, it's just my personality would lean towards more automation and scale. But you made excellent points.

From that perspective and from the perspective of having a consitent process when it comes to using this tool I'm still studying what is the best way to do this. Thanks and more tips are always appreciated!