Good follow up practices can make your business thrive vs make your business die. It sounds harsh, but it’s kinda true.
In this article, I’m going to talk about following up, why you want to do it, and how to do it!
And I’ll give you my #1 best follow up hack!
Why follow up?
It sounds like a no-brainer, but not everyone does!
- One thing that happens when you follow up: the recipient knows that you are still there.
- The recipient knows that you are still interested.
- The recipient knows that you are on top of things.
- And you don’t let things fall through the cracks.
Why don’t they respond?
You’re right, they don’t all respond. It sucks! You pour your heart out to a potential new client, you tell them what’s so good about you and why they need you and they don’t even reply. I admit, it sucks.
They’re busy! They need your help – probably because they are busy!
This is exactly why you need to follow up!
When to follow up
Is there a specific time frame you should follow? I usually follow up 5-7 days later, just depending on the day of the week that I sent the initial email.
For example, if I send them my initial email on Monday, I might follow up as early as Friday, so they can go into the weekend thinking about me! Or the following Monday at the latest.
If I send my initial email pitch on Wednesday, I might follow up as soon as the next Monday.
Either way, put it on your calendar or on your pitch tracker and when it says to follow up – just do it!
What do you say in a follow-up?
I follow up with something like this:
Have you made a decision yet? If you chose to go with someone else, could you provide feedback so I can make improvements if needed? Thanks for your time and good luck to you!
That is literally, exactly what my follow up email would say! Very simple and to the point. If they didn’t have time to reply to my first email, why would I want to overburden them with another long-ish email?
Can you force them to reply?
Unfortunately, no. There’s nothing you can do to force someone to reply. But you never know – they may be so overwhelmed that they haven’t even decided yet, and your follow up could be just what they need to make a decision!
I actually got a client this way back earlier in my virtual assisting career!
What else can you do?
Is there anything else you can do to aid in your follow up efforts?
Actually, there is!
I use something called Get Notify. It’s a free read-email notification. Check it out at www.getnotify.com.
Ok, so using GetNotify is two-fold.
- When you see that the recipient has opened your email, then at least you know it got to them and they opened it. Yay!
- But it tells you more – if you see they’ve opened it several times, that could give you an indication that they wanted to read and reread your email!I think that multiple opens is a good sign!
Something you can do when you see they’ve opened your email is to call them. I’m not big on phone calls until they are an established client, so I don’t do it exactly this way, but it may be a tactic you could use.
This is it – my #1 best follow up hack
Picture this: your prospect opens your email. Then all of a sudden they get a call from you! Some will feel like it’s fate, or serendipity, that you called just as they were looking at your email!
But be careful! DON’T say, “I saw you opened my email”. You don’t want to sound like a creepy stalker! Lol
DO say, “I emailed you last week and I just wanted to follow up and see if you have any questions.” WOW!
Back when I was doing outside sales, this sort of tactic would work well when sending a proposal to a current customer. If they’re looking at my email, they might be ready to talk to me right now.
Same goes for pitching a new client. If they’re looking at my email, they may be ready to talk to me or hear more about me. If I think I left anything out of my email, I have used their opening an email as an opportunity to reply and add any relevant info that I feel I missed.
It’s like I’m answering potential questions they may have before they even respond. Just remember to keep it short. It’s perfect to say what I said above, “Just following up to see if you have any questions.”
Summary
While you can make a consistent process for yourself, you can’t control the prospect variable. But following up never hurt anyone. I promise. And if someone says, “your follow-up kinda annoyed me (or replace that with the word that sets you off)” – trust me, you don’t want to work with that person!
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