There's something called the forgetting curve that neuroscientists have discovered. If you’re a sales or marketing leader it's impacting your prospects right now and possibly causing a really big problem for your sales team. I'm going to share with you what the forgetting curve is and how to fix it, so your sales team is more effective.
WHAT IS THE FORGETTING CURVE?
As a sales marketing professional you're up against something really difficult and that's the forgetting curve in the human brain. You see, there's been a study out there that says, "80% of everything that somebody had experienced in a training or a meeting they forget within 24 hours." And if you look at the forgetting curve, you're going to see that over a short period of time, almost everything that the prospect has experienced has vanished from reality.
HOW DO YOU COMBAT THE FORGETTING CURVE?
We've talked about this before. It's really difficult for sales momentum to continue with the modern buyer. One of the reasons is, you get a lot of content going to the modern buyer on a daily basis, and they're consuming crazy amounts of email. But the other thing that we're up against, that's quite literal, is the human brains forgetting curve. So, what can you do as a salesperson to try and offset this?
1. SEND A FOLLOW-UP MESSAGE WITHIN 24 HOURS
It's proven that within 3 or 6 hours the brain is already starting to forget. So, ideally you would do what normal salespeople do and within 24 hours you're going to send a follow-up message to that prospect. There are 7 ways that you can send stimulating messages within windows of time. These will make sure that your prospect is actually remembering and recalling the information that's being stored in their long-term memory bank and they can act on that information. Here are a couple of them.
Go to ClientPoint.net to get help sending follow-up messages now.
2. SEND CONTENT THAT TAKES A LEAST 30 SECONDS TO CONSUME
You want material that you send to your prospect, after a sales meeting, to take at least 30 seconds of time for that prospects brain to consume. If it's less than 30 seconds the retention goes down quite a bit. If it's 30 seconds or more it stimulates enough of the brain, using something called a halo effect, that they actually start to recall more information from that meeting and offsets the forgetting curve.
This because the way the brain stores information is based on a use-it-or-lose-it principle. A lot of times you put a marketing ad up or you have a sales conversation and your prospect is consuming the information. But cognitively, they might not even think about it again until that next sales call or until that next marketing message hits their inbox a week or a month later. And with that use-it-or-lose-it principle if the brain has not used that new information from a salesperson within 24 hours, it's probably gone.
There are multiple studies that show that if there's an intervention, where you send something after a sales meeting within 24 hours and somebody spends 30 seconds or more on it, then they're recalling more of that sales meeting. And when they're recalling more of that sales meeting, they're recalling more emotion. They're recalling more of the positive benefits they were seeing. And they're recalling more of that positive feeling they had with the salesperson about your company.
3. THE MORE EMOTIONAL, THE BETTER
The next principle that I'm going to share is, the more emotional the better. You see, the brain optimizes for emotion. So, if there's something emotional the brain is going to flag that as important. And within that follow-up process, if you send something that's emotional and engaging and it takes over 30 seconds to process, it's quite powerful.
Schedule a Demo with ClientPoint to learn how to start applying this now.
4. FOLLOW-UP AT LEAST EVERY FOUR DAYS
An easy way to keep a cadence going so your prospects brain has a chance to remember the information that you're sharing with them is to follow-up at least every four days. You want to send some sort of a video, message, or case study that's compelling. It should take 30 or more seconds to consume, and it should be emotional. Then after about three sequences of every four business days you want to go to once every three weeks.
Now there’s no way that, as a sales or marketing professional, you can make sure that your prospects retain 100% of the information. But you can dramatically reduce the forgetting curve in your sales process by using these techniques on a regular basis. And if your prospect and their brain can remember rapidly what it is that they love about your product or service it shortens the sales cycles dramatically.
TOP 3 BENEFITS TO YOUR SALES TEAM
- They're going to be happier because they don't have to repeat themselves every week or every other day.
- They’re going to make more money, they're going to have shorter sales cycles, and they're going to be more excited.
- Your buyers are going to be more relieved because they can get help faster.
So eliminate the forgetting curve in your sales process. This is not just on the sales team, you need marketing involved, you need sales leadership involved, and you need the sales team involved to make sure that you're operating in a way that is compassionate to the brain of your modern buyers.
If you'd like our help with helping your sales team to make sure that they're eliminating the forgetting curve from their sales process, Schedule a Demo, we'd love to share with you exactly how ClientPoint can help.
