When people ask me the secret to my success the answer is easy: follow-up in business.
No joke.
It doesn’t matter what people ask me for help with, I will make sure to send them the answer or get them the response they need or connect them to the right person so they can move forward.
I used to be surprised that people would thank me for following up with them. Then I started to realize that people are REALLY bad at follow-up. Surprisingly bad.
I'd love to give you my money, but if you NEVER followed up with me? That’s a hard sale to fulfill. I don’t get it.
You’ve received all the buying signs from me and then ghosted. It’s frustrating and after a lot of conversations over my career – I’ve discovered this is a common problem. Why is it so common? People aren’t sure when to follow up, how often to follow up, or HOW to follow up.
3 Times, when Follow up, is Critical to Growing Your Business:
1. Follow-Up After Networking Events
I recommend that with any networking event you attend you schedule 15–30 minutes to DO the follow-up in business you said you'd do. Get those thank-you notes written, make those connections on social media, and get that coffee meeting scheduled (if you didn’t do it while you were in the room).
Don’t give people time to forget about you and move on to your competitor.
With networking events, I make it a goal to respond within one business day. I know that sounds nuts, but if you block out the follow-up time WHEN you schedule the networking event on your calendar, it might happen…
2. Following Up With Previous Clients
When a client and I wrap up work together, I typically add in a couple of reminders to my schedule to follow up and see how life without Yellow Dog Consulting is going.
Hopefully, we've created great systems and they’re going strong.
But maybe they need some help or additional accountability along the way. I’ve had clients respond both ways – “I’m awesome and that work was great” and the “Yeah, this isn’t going to happen without your help.”
You never know what’s going on in their business and life that your check-in might remind them of what they’re missing.
3. Monthly Follow-Up in Business
Yes. Monthly. How do you do that? Well, for me, it’s my monthly newsletter.
I use my newsletter as a follow-up tool. All of my clients and prospects are added to my newsletter. So even if we are done working together or they try to ghost me – I'll continue to remind them how great it'd be to work with me.
Your monthly newsletter is THE BEST follow-up tool you have.
Each month, your name arrives in their inbox, reminding them how awesome you are and that they are totally missing out by not hiring you. Should it be more frequent than monthly? Maybe, but monthly has worked for me for the past 9 years.
Follow-up is hard. You don’t know what to say, how to say it, or how much to follow-up with someone before “giving up.” That’s why I created my Kickass Follow-up Templates to Grow Your Business.
These templates answer all your questions and help you get an idea of HOW to say what you need to say so that people will respond.
I’ve also included a schedule so you know how often to follow up with folks. Need help with your follow-up or your newsletter? I’d love to chat!
