How To Keep Prospects Engaged

How skilled are you at “keeping the pop can in the air?”

It’s an old sales expression but it rings true today. On average, most of your prospects are receiving 20-30 cold emails per day.

Guess how many they care about? Probably zero. 

But every once in a while, they’ll respond because of a catchy subject line, creative messaging, or simply good timing. If they happen to choose your email, you have to do everything in your power to keep them engaged over the next several days, weeks, and even months.

Here are two tactical ideas to keep prospects engaged (warning: you already know these things, you’re probably just forgetting to do them consistently)

1. Always end an interaction with a future commitment, no matter how minor it may be. Your objective is to pull the prospect in the boat with you - make sure they owe you something so they have to get back to you. The most simple example of this is asking for a referral and taking it a step further than “do you have their email address so I can reach out?” Instead, have the courage to ask them for a direct introduction to the referral. If they say no, you can fall back on an email or phone number. At least half the time, they’ll make the introduction and once they do that, they now have a vested interest in you watching you succeed since their name is attached to you.

2. Tell your prospects what you need from them. How many times have you wrapped up a call or meeting without clear next steps? Salespeople are perpetually guilty of unconsciously assuming us and our prospects are magically on the same page, so we fail to build clarity about your expectations from them. This is a really simple implementation. Something like: “Typically, next steps look like [step 1] and [step 2] - is there anything that might prevent these from getting done on your side?”

I know, I know - #2 feels really aggressive. But you need to be aggressive in today’s climate. Connecting with prospects is few and far between so your ability to capitalize on those moments is a huge key to your success. Besides, if they’re serious they’ll respect a direct approach and appreciate your leadership.

Challenge: try one of these out this week. I promise you won’t regret it.

Now, if you really want to take prospect engagement to a whole new level, you should look into using DeckLinks. Whether it’s for a quick personalized demo or full on presentation, DeckLinks allows you to create an experience for your prospects they won’t forget. No question about it.

Need proof? They put together an awesome promo video right here.

Until next time, folks ✌️