Follow Ups Are A Must: How to Follow Up Without Being Annoying or Pushy

I think for a lot of us, we either don't think about following up at all, or it's really haphazard, or we think that it's completely annoying to the other person. And so we avoid or just flat out don't bother following up with leads for our business.

We have been conditioned to fear selling because there's so many bad examples of selling and horrible examples of follow up gone wrong. I want to show you a way of how you can do it that doesn't feel weird and gross, that honors you and honors the other person.

There are some major reasons why I feel that follow ups are absolutely super duper crucial to your business success. 

You’ve probably heard the saying “The fortune is in the follow up.” In this post, we’ll explore what that means, why follow up matters, and what it can look like to follow up in a non-gross way.

We’re All Busy. Reminders are Welcome.

A lot of the time, I feel super busy: my work, my home, parenting, all of that stuff. And I'm sure you probably feel the same way. 

So I really appreciate when there is something I’m interested in, and I get a reminder. 

Maybe things just got a little bit hectic and I totally spaced out on some event coming up or a sale or whatever it is. 

And the reminder just has me saying, “Oh my gosh, I'm so glad! I'm so thankful! Like, thank you for telling me. Yes, I was interested. I'm totally going to jump on it.” 

I don't want to miss out on something that I was hoping to take advantage of. 

So that’s something that’s super important to remember if you’re hesitating to follow up with someone because you’re afraid you’re annoying them. You probably aren’t! They might be interested and just forgot!

You're leaving money on the table

So I'm going to use a real life example.

I'm going to have a discovery call with a woman who was referred to me by somebody else I've worked with. She'd reached out to me through my website. 

So I was like, “Oh my gosh, great. Here's my scheduling link.” 

I sent the email and didn't hear back. I was like, “She obviously wanted to talk to me, right? She was referred, so she's a warm lead already. So she must have just been busy.”

So I reached out to check in, and said, “Hey, I just wanted to follow up, you know, I didn't know if you got busy, or if you didn't see this, or whatever. But if you want to book a call, here's the link again. I would love to chat with you and see if we'd be a good fit.”

 So she replied back. And she was like, “Oh, I don't know how but I didn't even see the other email!” So we’re talking and both super excited about it.

But here’s the thing:

I could have told myself all sorts of stories that would not have been helpful. Things like: “She hates me. She decided against it. She hired somebody else, etc”. Anything I could have said to myself to talk myself out of reaching back out to her. 

And lo and behold, she just truly hadn't seen the email. 

I try to tell myself this story instead: 

I'm the expert in what I do. I am the expert in how people can work with me, and how that process begins is usually with a discovery call. And so it is on me to make sure that I'm doing my due diligence to reach back out just to make sure that the communication is still happening between us.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Now, let's say I've had a discovery call, and somebody just wasn't sure about working with me yet, whether for pricing or timing. 

I just make a note and then I add it to my follow up sequence. 

There are all kinds of reasons folks end up on this list: maybe it's summer, kids are home, they don't have the bandwidth; or maybe they are traveling a lot and would miss out on coaching calls.

What a lot of people do incorrectly is they start telling themselves the stories. 

“They actually don't want to work with me. They're just lying. They don't want to hurt my feelings. They are just saying they are really busy over the summer. “ 

Maybe! But what if that’s inaccurate? And then it gets to the end of the summer and you don't reach back out? 

They might end up telling their own stories! 

“Oh, she didn't reach back out. She's probably busy, not taking new clients. I won't work with her, cuz I'm sure if she wants to work with me, she should reach out.” And they will just kind of go on their merry way!

That's a missed opportunity for both people. 

How to Follow Up Without Being Annoying

Start simple with Trello, an Excel spreadsheet, or a notebook. 

Track the people who you have interacted with. 

And if you have a call scheduler like Calendly or Acuity, you can go back through and look at people you talked to in the last like six months. 

Figure out a follow up procedure that works for you and them to reach back out. 

For me, I go through my list once a week and see if it's time for me to follow up with anyone. 

How you do this and what timeframe you use will depend on your business.

Let's say you have a discovery call with someone, and then at the end of that call, you send them either an email recap or a proposal or something.

Then in the email you say, “Okay, if I don't hear back from you in 48 hours, then, I'll make sure to reach out.” 

You’re letting them know what to expect. 

And they might need some time to sit down and think about it and reach back out with questions or whatever it is.

They’ll either be ready or not. And they’ll let you know what they need.

Sometimes, I’ve seen folks ask for the ability to start four to six weeks from that first reach out. 

The nature of your business and your own personal schedule is going to dictate what you say here. Maybe you won’t schedule without a deposit or something like that. That will be business dependent.

You can ask, “Can I follow up in three weeks? And see where things are?” 

Chances are they'll probably say yes. And so then you're putting it on your calendar for three weeks from now, making sure that you are following up with them then. 

Now let's say it's more ambiguous. 

Let’s say they're like, “I just don't really know, I'm really unsure. I don't know if I can spend the money, etc.”  

Let them know that you’ll follow up in a set number of days. Maybe then you check in at the 90 day mark. Or 6 months. 

This is not to say that you do this dance forever. But it's helpful to have a plan and have patience in that plan.

It Takes Time. Don’t Give Up.

I've seen this in my own business, with people hiring me. And I've seen it with me buying from other businesses. 

It was many, many months later that they finally were like, “Okay, I'm ready to work with you.” 

Because the population I work with tends to be highly ambitious women, and highly ambitious women love to think that we need to do everything by ourselves. Ha! So sometimes it takes that person continually offering support to help us shift out of that mode.

I get it. I have tried to make things happen on my own. 

And then we get to this point six or nine months, or 12 months down the road, where we're like, “I tried it and I can't. I'm not happy. I'm still super frustrated. So forget it. Now I’m ready to reach back out to this person and possibly work with them or hire somebody!” 

So if you're there and present to them when their pain point has grown, when you are there to be like, “Hey, I'm here, I'm here for you. I've got you.” -- it's like a breath of fresh air to realize we don’t have to be alone. 

In my previous business, a good friend of mine had connected me to the woman who became my business mentor. 

But for almost two years, I was in her free Facebook group, in her orbit, watching her work. 

It was only when I switched to consulting that I knew I wanted her as my business coach. And it was like, boom, boom, boom, done. I'm in. Clarity call. Invoice. Let’s go.

But if she was sitting there for those two years saying, “I have all these people in here. But they're not converting...what am I doing wrong?” she might not have been around long enough for me to hire her. 

You never know who's watching you right now, who is watching from afar, and then when they're ready, they are going to hire you.

We can't give up on others so easily.

The statistics are there. 

Over the last ten years, the number of touch points someone needs to buy has gone up. And it fluctuates all the time.

If you're someone in your business where you are reaching out and making direct connections, follow ups are essential for your business.

Here are the steps:

• Track the people that you connect with.

• Figure out a follow up system that works for you and your business.

• Convey that to the other person. Let them know when and how you'll follow up.

• And then be sure to follow up on that timeline. 

Don’t give up on people. Let them know it's a two way street. You never know! The person that you talk to this week, you might hope so badly that they hire you, and they might not now, but they might next month or in three months or six months or a year.

And remember: You're not being pushy. 

Being pushy is when you will not let it go, and are freaking relentless. That is being annoying and pushy and people don't like that. 

What is not annoying and pushy is checking in with people from time to time to say, “Hey, I'm still here. How are things? Do you need anything? If so, let me know.”

I would love to hear if you already have some sort of follow up system -- let me know in the comments!

Or if you’ve ever had a time where if somebody would have followed up with you, you would have said yes! But then you ended up not taking advantage because you just got busy.

Free Guide to Follow Ups

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