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The sales process · After the order

Nobody in the company owns the question of when a customer is due to buy again.

Repeat and reorder means knowing when an existing customer is due to buy again, and ringing them before they get round to thinking about it. It is a date beside every customer, a reason to call, and one person answerable for the list. GullySales builds that list into the sales week.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

A customer adviser and business owner review a product guide together

In one paragraph

Repeat and reorder means knowing when an existing customer is due to buy again, and ringing them before they get round to thinking about it. It is a date beside every customer, a reason to call, and one person answerable for the list. GullySales builds that list into the sales week.

Every firm can name the person responsible for new enquiries. Very few can name the person responsible for the customers who already bought. The second order belongs to everyone, so it belongs to nobody, and it goes to whoever rings first.

Cost per order is one of the numbers recorded before any work starts here. A new enquiry has an advertisement or a week of calling behind it. A reorder has a phone call behind it, and that needs no percentage attached to be true.

The handover after the last order decides whether this call is welcome. If delivery went badly and nobody rang, the reorder call is an embarrassment. If it went well, you are ringing somebody already pleased with you.

A customer who has decided to stop will not announce it. She simply does not ring in the month she always rings, and your enquiry book looks normal, because it counts arrivals and not absences. The last step in this stage is for the ones who already went quiet. Notice them here, while it is one missed month.

Where this sits

Stage 9 of 10, after the order. Handing the customer to whoever delivers, then earning the second order and the referral.

The stage before
Sales closure
The stage after
Running the process

If you want this done for you

Sell more to the customer you already have before spending more to find a new one.

Read the upselling and cross-selling page

The work

What this step is actually like.

  • “Consumables, renewals and one-off purchases”

    What you sell decides where the date comes from. A consumable has a rate: a workshop in Peenya that took twenty litres in March is due around June, and your driver knows this better than your spreadsheet. A renewal has an expiry printed on the contract, so the only question is who rings sixty days before it. A capital purchase follows the customer's own plans, so you ask at the end of the job what is coming next year.

  • “The call is about their business, not your stock”

    Do you need anything is not a sales call. It hands the customer the work of remembering. Ring with something of theirs: the second unit they opened, the shutdown they take every April, the tender they mentioned in February. Ask what they are running this quarter. The order comes up by itself, and when it does not you have learned something.

  • “One person, one list, one morning a week”

    The list belongs to a named person, and in a small firm that is the owner. Accounts holds the data and will not chase anybody, so the list cannot live there. Half a morning a week covers it: see who is due, ring four of them, write down what happened. Skip a fortnight and the dates are no longer true. Skip a quarter and the sheet is history.

  • “Where reordering quietly fails”

    It fails when the date sits in a person rather than a sheet, and that person is on leave in the week the customer is due. It fails when everyone chases the one big account and nobody watches the forty small ones. The third way is a call from somebody who was not there for the last job.

What we do

What you end up with.

The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.

  1. The due list

    One sheet, one row per customer. What they buy, the date of the last order, the quantity, the date they are next due, who rings, and what happened when they did. Sort it by the due date.

    Result: Every Monday you can see which customers are due this week, by name.

  2. The reason to ring

    One line per customer that is not checking whether you need anything. Their shutdown week. The new machine they installed in Bommasandra. The branch that has opened and carries no stock yet.

    Result: Nobody has to invent a reason once the phone is ringing.

  3. The absence check

    Once a month, list the customers who bought in this month last year and have not bought this year. One filter on the same sheet. Four names is four calls, and they are the most useful of the month.

    Result: You hear about a lost customer within a month rather than within a year.

  4. The standing answer on price

    Write down what a reorder is worth before anybody offers anything. Where the second order is routinely cheaper than the first, you have taught customers to wait for the call. Settle it once, in writing.

    Result: The second order is priced by the owner, not by whoever is on the phone.

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 7, after the sale. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2 · you are here

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
How do we work out when a customer is due?
Take their last three orders and look at the gaps. For a consumable the pattern shows by the third, and where it does not, ask the customer at the end of the job. Record it as a date, not as a feeling.
Should this sit with sales or with accounts?
With the person who will actually ring, which in a small firm is the owner. Accounts can produce the list from the ledger in an afternoon, and that is the right use of them. Chasing is not a finance job.
What do we say when they tell us they do not need anything yet?
Ask when they will, and put that date in the sheet before you hang up. A no with a date attached is worth more than a yes you have chased for a month. Then send nothing until the date arrives.
Can we ask for a referral on the same call?
Yes, and it is the best place for it, as long as the last job went well. Ask about their business first, settle the reorder, then make the introduction a separate sentence at the end. Asking for both in one breath makes both sound rehearsed.
How much does it cost?
There is no price list, because the work differs by business. The fee is scoped after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and put in writing before anything starts. For sales work it is mostly our time, with production only where scripts, decks or CRM setup need it.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
Fixes to reply time and follow-up are the quickest to show, because the enquiries already exist. Process, CRM and training changes show as the team uses them. Each one is tracked against the baseline.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
To start, last month's enquiries in any format and time with whoever handles them. After that, access to the accounts the work touches, such as the website, Google Business Profile or CRM.
What if we are not happy with the work?
Tell us and the plan changes. Everything is reported against the baseline, so a number that is not moving is visible to both sides. The term is in your written scope, and the refund and cancellation policy sets out the rest.

Where to go next

The work that carries this step further.

Services

The rest of after the order

Or read the whole sales process in order.

Your next practical step

Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.

Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.

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