The Fortune Is In The Follow Up

 

Ever heard that the fortune is in the follow up? . 

In this episode, I break down the art of the follow up- making sure you’re doing enough to get the best results. 

You’ll discover how you can stand out from a crowd by doing what your competition is too lazy and too cheap to do.   

 And it’s much simpler than you have been led to believe. 

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Listen to the podcast here:

The Fortune Is In The Follow Up

Have you ever heard that the fortune is in the follow-up? At the same time, maybe you’ve struggled a little bit with having a client feel like I’m chasing them. I don’t want to be overly possessive or I don’t want a client to feel like I need them. I finished a training session with a couple of clients. We have this discussion of how do you follow-up with clients in a healthy way that doesn’t feel needy and also doesn’t feel like you’re chasing them? Do you struggle with this? What I want to do is I want to share a couple of insights I’ve discovered mostly because I don’t know if you’re like me having done this for many years, I have made a lot of mistakes of this.

You don't want a client to feel like you're overly possessive or needy. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

I’ve made mistakes where I certainly chased clients way too hard. Here’s what I found as well. I don’t know if you found this too. When you chase clients too hard, you push them away. You don’t attract them. If you’d like a way to attract more clients and compel more clients to work with you and not have to convince clients, then you’re going to love this simple three-step approach that we’ll use. Here are a couple of guidelines with this approach as well. Number one is don’t let email and don’t let technology get in the way of you making money.

Here’s something I did as a bad habit years ago. I would follow-up with a client, then I’d send out an email follow-up. I would sit and I would wait. I wouldn’t get a response. I’d start getting that energy build up to where I’d feel a little bit hostile because they hadn’t even taken the time to follow-up or respond to my communication. We can tell ourselves stories. A lesson I learned is don’t make that same mistake I did. Send the message, send the follow-up, but don’t rely on that follow-up. Go deeper. That’s your responsibility, my responsibility. I found it to work a whole lot better. What do you do?

 

Let’s say you have a conversation with a client, I always recommend sending a follow-up summary of that conversation when you can. Let’s say it’s to move forward working with you as a potential client. Send the summary and then the next action step. Let’s say that you don’t hear from them for 3, 4, 5, 6 days. You don’t want to feel like you’re chasing them. You don’t have to convince them to do business. That wouldn’t seem right. What’s fascinating about this is let’s say on day five, you send a follow-up message. Here’s a simple message. You take the previous message that you had sent and you put, “Bob, any thoughts on moving forward? Dan,” or your name. It’s that simple and low key.

It’s what you would say to somebody, let’s say a friend. It’s conversational. There’s no convincing. It’s compelling to create a response. Don’t rely on email communication. Pick up your phone and call somebody. Let’s say we’re calling Bob, “Bob, it’s Dan. I was just following up with you. I sent you a follow-up email on this as well. I wanted to check in with you. I hadn’t heard from you in a couple of days. I wanted to see if you had any thoughts on moving forward with us. Give me a ring. I look forward to speaking with you,” and go from there.

When you chase clients too hard, you push them away. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

You’ve got an email and you’ve supported it with phone follow-up. I have found that about 70%, 75% of the calls usually can lead to a voice message, so you would leave a voice message. If you have their cell number, you can send that as a text so you go deeper yet. These are three simple ways to not let technology get in the way, but support you and also not hide behind and tell ourselves stories as nobody responded. They’re not responding to me. Go a little bit deeper. People are busy. Are you busy?

I don’t know what your thoughts are on this, but I respect somebody who will follow through. Don’t you respect somebody who follows through with you? They’re hungrier. I love getting physical mail from people. I love getting a follow-up note or a follow-up card. Many people are too cheap and they’re too lazy. I mean that respectfully and with love. If you’ll not be cheap, not be lazy and do what 99% of people aren’t willing to do, you’ll separate yourself. That’s message one. What do you do next if you don’t hear from that person for another 3 to 7 days? You send another follow-up message.

 

This would be an example of the follow-up message that I might send to somebody. Let’s say it was a client acquisition opportunity. The third message, I would send something like, “Bob, had you given up on this? Dan.” Below it would be my previous two messages that I’d sent, the summary plus the one given any thoughts on moving forward. All to elicit the conversation. I don’t want to get into a back and forth thing in any email communication. I want to have a conversation. At least that’s from my experience, what has served me well.

There are a lot of ways to be right. There’s no one way. If you are looking for a way to not feel like you’re chasing clients or communicate with your potential clients in a cool casual, conversational, friendly way you might like or maybe love this approach. You don’t just stop with the email communication. You pick up the phone and reconnect on that same message, “Bob, it’s Dan. I was just following up. I hadn’t heard from you. I’m just curious. Had you given up on our initial conversation from a couple of weeks ago?” Let’s say we’re talking with him live, I would ask that. That is something real that you would have a conversation about. If I got a voicemail, I would leave that kind of voicemail message.

Pick up the phone and call somebody. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

Can you see how simple this is? Let’s not stop there. That’s message number two. Message number three might be something to create a little bit of an urgency play. Don’t lose the message through the messenger. It’s going to be hard to get the context of this because I’m just role-playing. This could be an example. Let’s say my fourth message to Bob would be, “Bob, I was following up from our conversation a couple of weeks back. I hadn’t heard from you. I hope everything is okay.” Would you say that to a friend? Yes, you would. Ideally, if you’re looking to connect with a client, wouldn’t you want to have a feeling of trust and respect?

You might check in on somebody because people get busy, they have issues that come up. We have to move beyond ourselves. Here’s another great thing. People buy and do things for their reasons, don’t they? I don’t know about you, but in my early years of business, I forgot this. In fact, I was pretty naive. I was all about my reasons, but I’ve discovered that people buy for their reasons. They do all the things for their reasons. Let’s give them the ability to do things for their reason and give them the out, “I hope everything is okay. I was checking in. I’ve had you on our follow-up list. As promised, I’d sent over the details. I wanted to check in one last time to see if you wanted to move forward. If not, no worries. Let me know either way. I would love to still extend you X, Y and Z.”

 

You might even say, “This will be my final message before X, Y and Z.” Part of this depends on context. That’s the email version of it. Pick up the phone. Don’t let email get in the way of you making money. Have you or your team followed up? If I’d call Bob, “Bob, this is Dan. I was just following up. I’ve sent you a couple of follow-up messages. I was a little concerned. I hadn’t heard from you. It seemed like we had a good conversation. It seemed like you were genuinely interested. I’ve had you out our leaders’ follow-up list. However, we’re winding down our special. If I don’t hear from you in the next 48 hours, we may have to pull that off the list here, pull it off the table. I’d hate to see that happen. If you’re not interested, no worries. Let me know. Sometimes things can come up. Reach back. Give me a buzz.”

That would be a version of a message I could leave to support that email. If you sent out the initial summary, “Are you still interested?” message, if you sent out the, “Have you given up on this?” and then you sent this final urgency message, both supporting it by an actual voice or a phone call video and/or email, can you see how that you would help compress timeframes and also do the things that most people aren’t willing to do? What do you think about that? I hope that you will take action with this because we have some versions of scripting or outlines we’ve created with our teams over the years that these work like clockwork.

The little things matter, especially when it comes to following up. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

The reality is they’ll work for you if you use them. I see many people only do sales online. They only follow up online. They only send email messages. Messages get lost in the mail, especially in email. I don’t know about you, but I get over 1,000 emails a day. If you’re working with a client or a potential client that’s getting bombarded with 20 to 1,000 emails, is there a chance that your one email may never get to them? We sit on the other end and we assume, “They got it. They read it. They’re interested.”

The fortune is in the follow-up. I encourage you, go deeper with your follow-up. Do the things that most people aren’t willing to do and you’ll get things most people won’t be able to get. You’ll get more connections. You’ll get to work with higher profile people. You’ll be respected. You’ll become a trusted expert, a trusted authority because you do the little things that matter, especially when it comes to following up. Can you take action with this? Can you run with this simple idea? I certainly hope so.

I challenge you to apply what you’ve learned. If you want to get more insights like this, you can go to our show, GrowthToFreedom.com. We’ve got over 200 hours of insights, wisdom, strategies, not only from the things we’re doing, but we bring a lot of guest experts to share their insights and strategies too from the top minds in the world. You can go to that website. Enjoy your day, seize the day, make it a great week. Remember, you’re one breakthrough away to get into that next level. We’ll see you soon.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• https://www.facebook.com/dankuschellpage/videos/134790277626564/