The Art of Follow-Up

What's the most important marketing skill? You might be surprised at the answer.

It's not having a great marketing message, powerful marketing materials and a bullet-proof marketing plan. All of those are certainly important but not as important as...

***Follow-up***

In my teleclasses and talks, I joke how people are looking for a "killer marketing message" that will make people jump up and down with excitement when they hear it. Sorry, but that's as much of a myth as unicorns or a balanced national budget.

But people want to believe that myth, so they spend forever trying to perfect their message. Look, all your message can get you is some initial attention. That's all.

And virtually every single marketing action after that is follow-up.

When someone shows some interest in your services (when you deliver a decent, but not mythical, marketing message), you need to follow-up with some more information.

Once they've read that information, you need to follow-up to determine if there's a deeper interest. And if there's a deeper interest, then you need to follow-up to set up an appointment.

But it doesn't end there.

Once you have an appointment, you need to follow-up to confirm that appointment (yes, people flake out). And once you've had the appointment you need to follow-up with a proposal or to close the sale. Follow-up never ends.

Follow-Up Secrets

Here are some follow-up secrets I've learned over the years that are important to understand and master if you're going to attract more clients.

1. Know where you are in the game

When you follow-up with someone, the purpose is to move the prospect from one base in the marketing game to the next base. If you try to jump bases (or move too fast), you tend to get rejected by the prospect. If you move too slow with your follow-up, you loose the interest you've generated up to that point.

2. Don't move too fast

When you get someone's interest (say at a networking meeting) and then say you'd like to call back to talk with them, that's fine. But when you make that call and immediately try to set up an appointment, you'll likely get some resistance.

Remember, people want more familiarity and some information before they meet with you. So your follow-up system needs to build that in. One way to do this is with pre-written emails and links to articles or to your web sites.

3. Don't move too slow

If you give a talk and get cards from people who are interested in knowing more about your services, how soon should you follow-up? The very next day. For each day you don't follow-up, interest wanes. If you have only a few follow-ups, use the phone. If you have many, send an email to set up a time to talk in the upcoming week.

Stale follow-ups are just that. They've forgotten what interested them in the first place, so when you call back after several weeks it's like starting all over again.

4. Balance fast and slow

The key to effective follow-up is balancing the fast and the slow. Fast to get back to someone when they show interest; slow to get to know them. Fast to provide information requested; slow to discuss what this information means to their business. Fast to get a proposal in the mail; slow to discuss the details of that proposal.

5. Watch your assumptions

What if someone doesn't get back to you? You've followed up promptly and you don't hear back right away. What does this mean? Only one answer: Who knows? It could be anything.

But we are quick to jump to the conclusion that it's bad news. Not always. They might be very busy with a big priority or could even be out on vacation. So don't jump to conclusions. Just keep following up. Just watch that you don't sound desperate!

6. When to stop following-up

Let's say you have a prospect you've either met with or done a proposal for. You thought everything was going well, but they aren't returning your calls. Do you keep leaving messages or do you give up? What I recommend is leaving one last message that goes like this:

"Hi John, I've been trying to get back to you about the project but haven't heard from you for a couple weeks. I don't want to keep pestering you, so if I don't hear back from you, I'll assume you don't want to move ahead. I'll leave the ball in your court. Please call if you want to take the next steps, but this is the last message I'll be leaving. Hope to hear from you. My number is ..."

This approach works. If they actually are interested, they'll call you back. If they don't, well there's your answer. It's time to move on.

7. Create follow-up systems

To streamline your follow-up, create systems you can use over and over again. A follow-up system consists of specific steps you take each step of the way.

It might work something like this:

a) prospect learns about your service and visits web site
b) prospect fills out form on the web requesting more information
c) prospect receives an automated email from you with web link
d) you send out personalized email requesting an appointment
e) you follow-up by email until appointment is set
f) you meet with prospect by phone
g) after phone appointment you send agreement
h) after a few days you send another email
i) after a few more days you leave a phone message
j) prospect ultimately gets back to you with a yes or no

Once your follow-up system is designed and fine-tuned, you can use it reliably to turn many prospects into clients. This is exactly how I built my business. It didn't happen by chance.

I invite you to use it to build yours.

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The More Clients bottom line: The skill of follow-up is the glue that holds all of your marketing together. It's what bridges the gaps between initial connections, information, meetings and proposals. Make it a priority to master this skill as soon as possible.

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Got a follow-up story that won you a client? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Comments

[Pramod]

Thanks for the article.

I am Project Manager and follow up is an implicit part of my job. The article is from sales point of view. Here the follow up action can end in case the prospect does not respond after a few times.

However, in projects, the PM needs to keep following up with the stake holders and try and keep their interest levels high enough that they respond with their inputs. Following up ends only after all inputs from the stake holders are received and there is nothing more needed. Of course, following up ends but relationship needs still to be maintained.

Following up becomes a key task of the project manager for project success and eventually his success as well.

[Wade Fletcher]

Your advice was very informative Charlie, but I believe the topic was follow up, and not adapting to clients position in the sales cycle. Listening and responding to clients in the follow up process can be the next topic. Again, good info.

I just wanted to mention the invaluable tool of crm software that you can modify to your own follow up process. I'm not skilled enough to remember timely follow up on my own.

Wade

[Susan]

Having spent 20 years in sales, i know the importance of good follow up. The most succesful sales people know the best time to set follow up appointments is during your appointment (or call).

I would always ask prospects, 'How would you like me to follow up with you'? Let them choose the method, time and day. They'll usually say, 'It'll take me about a week to review your information, so why don't we talk next Friday?'

Never end a conversation or a meeting without determining the next step for proper follow up.

Too many reps get stuck emailing and calling because they didn't have a follow up system for their prospect.

Prospects are rarely offended that you want to follow up with them and are requesting their preferences and respecting their space.

Susan

[Charlie Lang]

Important topic, thanks Robert.

There is only one thing I need to disagree with and that is about your advise on slow/fast follow-up.

What I notice is that most people, for whom selling is an important part of their job, try to develop a 'sales process' which quite obviously includes follow-up. The more effective sellers tend to have a more effective sales process and yet, even most of the top sales people don't get beyond lead-conversion rates of 15-20%, i.e. they waste time on working with the remaining 80-85% of the prospects they don't close.

I found that the main reason for these sorts of conversion rates is the fact that they try to follow a sales process.

Now, before you think I've gone nuts, read on. The problem is that buyers don't follow sales processes but that they go about buying in their own way which might differ every time they buy, sometimes even if they buy the same product again.

That's because people's needs and wants change over time and so do their circumstances and often also their preferences.

Some people like to make quick decisions in buying certain things and become rather indecisive when buying something else. So buying patterns might change at any time.

Consequently, I have to disagree with the bit as to when to follow-up slowly and when fast because it really depends. I agree with Robert that the sequences he mentions tend (!) to require acceleration / slow-down, but these are just tendencies and there might be numerous exceptions when this might just be the wrong thing to do.

So what to do? I strongly believe in being sensitive at any time(!) of the preferences of the person we deal with and in noticing that our preferences may not be the same as our prospect's. For example, I love communicating by email, but I also am aware that some people hate it and much rather get a call. Some people want to minimize meetings with vendors while others first want to see your face before they even consider talking to you.

To make a long story short, I agree that what Robert describes are definitely major tendencies, but I'd recommend to be sensitive and notice when there are exceptions. There might be more than you think.

One thing I totally agree with Robert: Follow-up is crucial to success.