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The Hidden Power of the Sales Candidate Follow Up Letter

  
  
  
  

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.

You receive follow up letters from your sales candidates all the time, right?  And you probably make notes in their files that they sent those nice follow up letters and you might even rank them higher as a result.

When I'm helping clients recruit I get those letters too.  But I'm certain that what you see is very different from what I see because I look at two additional data points when those follow up letters arrive.

First, there is the 3-minute phone interview I just conducted.  How did the candidate score on that?

Second, there is the sales assessment they took and more specifically, any weaknesses they may possess.

I rarely, if ever, receive a follow up letter from a candidate that I had planned to advance to the next step - the face-to-face interview - of the recruiting process.  But I do receive a number of those follow up letters from the candidates that made it as far as they'll ever make it in my process.  Most of those candidates have Need for Approval as a weakness on their assessment.  They need to be liked and they are hoping that the follow up letter will accomplish what their 3-minute phone interview didn't.  The other possibility is that they know they sucked on the phone and they're trying to make up for it.

Yesterday, it just so happened that I got a follow-up letter from a candidate that lacked some specific experience we were looking for, but his letter made the difference.  A rarity.  It doesn't change a thing for me because I still correlate follow-up letters with the candidates who rely on their relationships rather than their skills, and their emails rather than their ability to influence and change minds.

Did you get a follow up letter today?  I'll bet the person you got it from wasn't particularly memorable.



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Posted by Dave Kurlan on Mon, Nov 15, 2010 @ 09:34 AM

COMMENTS

Very interesting, had never drawn this correlation before when hiring sales people. I have noticed that follow up letters from other positions such as operations and/or analysts, etc. actually have made a difference since these people have tended not to be as strong expressing themself in person, but were able to do so more effectively in writing.

posted on Monday, November 15, 2010 at 11:01 AM by Tim

Most of the time I agree with just about everything you write. This time, not so much. As a former Exec Recruiter, Career Coach and now head of sales process for an enterprise software company, I've witnessed success with a different approach. A sales candidate should conduct the interview process in the same way that he/she would conduct a sales process. When a salesperson has a substantive conversation with a prospect, it should be recapped in a letter that includes the business issues that were revealed in that conversation; our capabilities that address those challenges; and the agreed to next steps which should include commitments from the prospect, not just the sales person. That follow up letter is an important tool for maintaining control of the sales process and also provides the prospect a simple means to do internal selling, by forwarding the letter to related parties. SO bringing it back to the sales candidate, I want to know that they can write a sentence, that they are selling themselves similar to how they would sell our product, and that they do not consider this type of correspondence dreaded administrative paperwork that is optional and a waste of time. If the letter says nothing more than "thank you so much for your time," then your point could have some merit, but a letter that moves the interview process forward and/or recaps the strength of the fit, it is a powerful indicator of how they will sell, and it does not necessarily mean that they rely entirely on relationship selling. Furthermore, there is rarely a candidate that speaks to only one person, so if I want to hire someone and need to convince others, that letter can help me with my internal selling, with less effort than if no letter was sent. I encourage people to be memorable in their conversations as well as in their correspondence. If they send no follow up letter at all, I would subtract points. Other than that I agree wholeheartedly with your message.

posted on Monday, November 15, 2010 at 11:22 AM by Cathryn

Dave - I've sat through a number of your seminars and have had some 1"1 coaching with you ... and something doesn't seem right. 
 
 
 
Would you extend this logic to the sales process ... that is ... as a Sales Manager, should I discourage sales people from following up with clients in writing since it will demonstrate a weakness? I'm thinking that a letter / e-mail / communication is yet another way to persist and stay in the visual field of the client.

posted on Monday, November 15, 2010 at 5:07 PM by Roger Morelli

Roger and Cathryn,  
 
Thanks for weighing in! 
 
You might both be missing my point. I am not suggesting that salespeople stop following up. It is a good thing! 
 
My only point here was that there is a correlation between the sales candidates (for positions) who follow up with those who tend to be the weakest candidates. 
 
Nothing more, nothing less. And you can't measure this unless you have data to go along with the follow up letters. Instincts, conversations and interviews give you impressions, but not data.

posted on Monday, November 15, 2010 at 8:45 PM by Dave Kurlan

Have to disagree as well. As a hiring manager those do not follow up are removed from my consideration. 
 
Persistence, professionalism and never taking no for an answer are all key ingredients for sales success and those that do not follow up on an interview are showing how they will behave in the job.

posted on Monday, November 22, 2010 at 4:52 AM by Travis

@Travis, 
 
Thank you so much for your comment. This is the EXACT example that I was writing about! Follow up emails/calls are not synonymous with sales success! My point in this article is that the follow up letter/email/call is a faulty data point! 
 
Most who follow up are weak - their follow up letter being an attempt to right the ship - while many of the strongest salespeople feel they did just fine in the interview. To write them off because you didn't get a follow up letter is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Some of them deserve no further consideration because they aren't great candidates. But some are and you don't succeed in sales by writing emails.

posted on Monday, November 22, 2010 at 7:28 AM by Dave Kurlan

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