how to follow up

If you’re young, you may not understand how important the follow up is; and doing what you say you’ll do is super important to getting places. It’s the one consistent thing you can do.

That doesn’t mean sending random emails after every interaction. In fact that’s annoying.

Companies with automated follow ups see 320% more revenue, and have 67% shorter sales cycles. Why it matters so much:

A tire kicker has intent. But they may not have motivation. Following up is another point - for them to get motivated and re-focus why they looked at something in the first place - if even to rule it off the list.
You can also take a cold lead that doesn’t understand a topic or product and convert them into an interested customer.
It also shows a level of personalisation or care about the customer that you can’t underestimate particularly if it’s customised to interest and lands correctly.

This section will take you through some principles on how to go about this from a concept point of view.

Let’s start with designing your smart follow up sequences.

Setting a foundation for strategic follow-ups

Random follow ups, that appear targetted probably do more damage than good.

Strategic follow ups succeed.

Now I’m writing this through a digital lens - but you can apply this to any interaction in life.

Here is how to think about it:

Understand the journey the buyer is on

You want to understand who the target is, and what their experience is from first being made aware of what your seeking to actually transacting to completion.
If you don’t understand the steps in that process you won’t be able to target people intelligently at the right point in the journey.

The next step is to engineer the first connection

How are you going to first reach out or communicate with the customer
In what form will that interaction look like
What is the escalation path to continue the conversation.
E.g. it may be a LinkedIn note, turned into a call, turned into a conversation

How you follow up AFTER the conversation is super important

Things to think about:

How are you going to follow up? In what modality in what format?
What are you going to say to continue that conversation?
What is the next action you want to propose to extend the relationship?
What value can you offer the client with no reciprocity? This is a really powerful technique. Just help people, and people are more likely to want to work with you.
Think about how you ‘sell’ the next step from an emotional and commitment perspective.

All of the stuff outlined here, you can use AI to help you with if you provide the right parameters of the situation. That’s why having and understanding of the end to end journey is so important. It’s the lattice from which to attach the follow up strategy.

The timing is important to:

You don’t want to send a follow up the DAY you spoke to the person. You may not even want to do it that week - but you also don’t want to leave it too long so it feels like your just working through a list getting back in touch.
The most important thing in the follow up, is getting the next meeting - and you should be adaptable to escalate/de-escalate the relationship - based on feedback from the client.
In life you may find a relationship goes from 0-100 overnight. Something you were struggling to close turns into a fire and the client wants you all the time.
You’ve also got to be careful not to over engage with the person, as it can get very annoying.
The length, formality, and content in notes is important to. The more natural and non-templated and personalised the better its likely to be.
Also don’t understimate the power of connecting parties in a complex ecosystem to get moving. You might be a sole ranger - but if you can connect them with others that can offer value that are aligned in intent that can also be really useful.
You may also want to add in some Urgency and Deadline tactics. For example need to do X by Y - as there’s a scarcity around the work your doing.

Having an eye for follow up triggers is super important to. You do to an extent have a set of tools in front of you can go after. Here are some good examples:

You can look to see if someone opens and reads your email. That’s a useful indicator of a level of engagement that may warrant some other interaction. If they dont view your email (and you can track this) - you might want to just leave that person alone.
Another good one is to passively look out for what someone is writing online. If they’re on LinkedIn talking about a topic or commenting on topics, or calling for help - they are primed to have a conversation with. They’re already engaged in that space.
This is why running your own social media is great. If people engage meaningfully - to your content, on the vector your discussing - you get an instant cursory connection you can talk to. It’s a fantastic way to prospect.
They might also just call you, email you, reach out, see you at a conference. That’s a good final point there. Going to conferences - even if you aren’t interested in the topic gives you heaps of opportunities to talk about opportunities. Go along. Hell go and speak at one. You’ll find out pretty quickly who will come out of the woodwork.

Like anything, tracking your interactions to decide whether a follow up is warranted or working has some science behind it

You may want to alter a follow up sequence depending on the psychology and FLAG that to the customer. Demonstrating that you’re adjusting your standard process for the customer is an awesome way to build a relationship
You might want to progressively personalise the sequence. The more they engage, the more you’ll respond in kind. Don’t leave them on a standard escalation curve. Reach out directly in plain language.
Watch their behaviour and response to your follow ups. If they are responsive and enthusiastic - do the same in return. If they dont respond promply or seem uninterested they probably are. Just be cautious in that situation.
You can also look specifically to intent. If they are showing signs they intend to do something, talk to them. Do the extra - to get them over the line. If you dont know what their intent is but they’re there, just ask them. They might tell you exactly what they want.
The velocity of engagement is important too. If you send something out and someone engages almost instantly - then try to come back to them as quickly as possible. Speed is a massive indicator of engagement.

Now let’s go through the ways you can create value in your content - that are more likely to get follow ups, and educate and build trust.

Follow up communication strategy types

Progressive education:

Helping a person build knowledge from basic to advanced over time
Spending the time to lift someones awareness, is valued by customers - and even if they don’t buy they might recommend you to someone else.

Problem-agitation-solution content:

Highlight a problem that is clearly a problem, then you can agitate the consequences and frame out a solution.
Or you could just say you have a solution to a problem - and then defer to the consequences avoided. If people can see this clearly they’ll see value if they care.

You can share an insight about a trend or insider knowledge or on a hot topic

Share trends and insider information.
Expertise builds authority, satisfying the credibility bias. People like this if it’s timely and relevant. You can use AI to look for these trends to and find the reports to share.

Share a case study of something analogous

Share success stories of similar clients.
Social proofs build trust - thus satisfying the trust heuristic.

Preempt objections

Address concerns before they arise.
The best way to do it is directly call it out and address it.

Expertise demonstration

Share content about something you know.
Exepertise signals confidence, satisfying the authority bias.

Behind the scenes content:

Share transparent, authentic insights.
Transparency builds connection, satisfying the authenticity bias.
This works incredibly well with young people.

Thought leadership content:

In a sea of cookie cutter corporate BS - publishing original ideas and insights is a good idea.
Haters of the content will drive engagement, and weazel out those that agree with you.
Innovation builds influence. Don’t listen to naysayers.

Demonstrate your social proofs

Include engagement with real people in your content
Peer success builds trust levering social proof

Media mentions

If you can feed content to media, and they run it - that’s a good thing. A halo effect.
Journalists are hungry for new stories.
Systemmatically hit them up and send them interesting stuff. You’d be shocked how easy it is to get published if it’s on point.

Conclusion:

Following up isn’t a sales technique, it’s a mindset.

At its most fundamental level its showing you give a damn, that your paying attention and your worthy of someones time.

You are not a major corporation. You can afford to take the time to follow up with people.

When done properly, it should feel spontaneous, natural, personal and helpful.

When done wrong, it’ll make you look like a scammer.

Figure out which relationships you wont to move along, and invest in the moments that nudge it forward. If you’re the one who does it, and others don’t you’ll win.

And remember, this isn’t just something you do to sell something to someone.

You never know when relationships will be useful in all sorts of ways. Take the time, and help other people make their own connections.