Don’t be shy about following up
Audio version below
This morning I was speaking with a fellow independent communicator about the theme of following up. Sometimes we indies fall into the trap of responding to a request for a refer to, and then forgetting all about it. You get busy. Stuff happens.
In my experience, clients appreciate your following up, for a couple of reasons:
- Your quotation may have gone off beam. This happened to me this afternoon. I had sent a proposal on March 25. The prospect phoned today, March 31, to say she had just found it in her junk folder. If I had followed up, she would have been alerted to the presence of my precious message among offers for malehood enhancement.
- The client may truly want to go yet to be on the project, but is bogged down with other priorities. So, your follow-up call helps her to stay on track with her project.
My favourite way to follow up is by phone. These days, email is so ubiquitous that a phone call stands out. And if your first email got trapped in Spam Land, what makes you believe that your follow-up note won’t suffer the same fate? In the call, I don’t want to badger the person by saying what might be on my mind: “Hey, have you read the proposal that I spent six hours on? Huh, didja?
No, as a replacement for I say something like: “I was wondering if you’ve had a opportunity to look at my proposal for your podcast project. April is looking pretty busy, and I wanted to be sure to set up your sleeve time for you.” In this way, you’re seen as helpful, not pushy. And of course, in your heart of hearts, you do want to function as an vital resource for your client, right?
So please don’t be worried to follow up. Even when you’re busy.
Here’s an audio version of this post. Note, if you want to download it, click on the “down” arrow in the player.