People are afraid to follow-up.
That sucks for people because, as Steli Efti pointed out in my conversation with him that’s included with Raise Your Clients From The Dead!, ‘follow-up is where fortunes are made.’
Steli Efti and I sat down and talked through effective follow-up systems, principles, and best practices, drawing on Steli’s extensive experience as a sales leader and Close.io founder.
You’ll get the full transcript (human-powered) and the 35-minute video recording when you purchase of Raise Your Clients From The Dead.
Here are a few excerpts from the conversation:
Why we’re afraid to follow-up
The reason why we don’t like to follow up when somebody’s silent or doesn’t respond to our message is that we assume silence equals rejection, right? We assume that this person is giving us the silent treatment and that means they don’t… we’re not worthy of response, they don’t like us, they are annoyed by us. And what we do is we take that rejection quite personal, and we decide that we don’t want to keep going back to that well of rejection and get more of it. And we are afraid of being annoying. We are afraid of being needy. We are afraid of socially creating an awkward status.
Your responsibility when it comes to follow-up
I see it as my responsibility to keep reaching out, manage this relationship until you had a chance to catch up with whatever you were doing, and you can give me a response one way or another.
How long you should follow-up
I will follow up with you forever, indefinitely, until I get a response. Yes is good. No is good. Anything is good. But I won’t accept nothing, especially if we had a good conversation, especially if there was interest there.
Steli’s advice on follow-up is world-class, and the interview is full of insights into sales and follow-up systems and best practices.
If you’re willing to take the actions — sending follow-up emails on proposals, following up on conversations, following up with past clients — you will generate more leads, close more projects, and make more revenue.
Ready to bring your old client relationships back to life by leveraging the power of follow-up? You’ll want to dive in and listen/read the full interview, and you can snag your copy with your purchase of the necromantic Raise Your Clients From The Dead.
Excelsior!
Kai
