The classic approach to following up with prospective clients brings some challenges with it. You may picture yourself picking up the phone to ask them some version of, “Are you ready to hire me?” Or sending an email or text with the same question. If it’s a potential referral source you’re following up with, the question may become, “Got any referrals for me?” For many self-employed professionals, following up in this way isn’t much fun. In fact, it may feel disagreeable enough that you avoid it entirely.
On the other end of the exchange, our prospective clients and referral sources don’t look forward to this type of communication either. While on some occasions, calls and emails like these can be welcome reminders to take care of something that had slipped their mind, more often, they’re considered somewhat annoying interruptions in a busy day.
Is there a different approach to following up that might make both us business owners and our contacts more comfortable? I think the answer is yes.
When I first started marketing my own business, one of the first things I noticed was how difficult it was for me to call or email people and ask if they were ready to hire me. But, I do enjoy interacting with people in general. So what was it about these particular calls and emails I found so distasteful?
Being the analytical sort, I decided to identify exactly what it was about these calls and emails that I disliked and avoided. Here are the elements I identified:
- Asking for a sale or referral.
- Reaching out just to “say hello.”
- Making small talk about generic topics.
- Fearing rejection.
- Telling people how great I was.
- Contacting someone who had already said no.
- Feeling as if my outreach was an imposition.
Reviewing this list, it seemed to me that the secret to enjoyable follow-up (which would therefore actually get done) was to eliminate these elements that I didn’t like and replace them with ones I did. This reverse engineering didn’t happen overnight, but over time, I began to find more and more ways to follow up agreeably.
Here are the alternative approaches I discovered to make follow-up a pleasure instead of a chore:
1. Offering something instead of asking for anything.
Like many professional service providers, the process of giving advice, making connections, and sharing resources comes naturally to me. Instead of focusing on what I wanted to get from the person I was contacting, I switched my emphasis to what I could give them — whether or not they were going to pay me for it.
2. Reaching out with a specific, helpful purpose.
I’ve had many salespeople contact me just to “stay in touch,” and it always felt like a waste of my time. Instead of calling people just to chat, or emailing to ask how they’re doing, I would instead invite them to an industry event, introduce them to a new contact, or let them know about a book, blog post, or workshop they might find valuable.
3. Having meaningful conversations about what’s happening in peoples’ lives.
Making small talk about weather, sports, or entertainment news has never been one of my favorite pursuits. But hearing about the challenges and opportunities people are experiencing in their life, career, or business fascinates me. Those were the topics I began introducing whenever I was able to have a live conversation.
4. Avoiding rejection by staying away from selling.
Contacting someone to ask if they’re ready to hire me feels awkward and pushy, and I’m sure my prospective clients often feel the same. I’d much rather help people than sell to them. Unless I was contacting someone to follow up on a specific project or engagement under current discussion, I stopped asking for business and focused on having exchanges helpful to the other person.
5. Telling people how great my clients were.
While talking myself up feels uncomfortable, talking about my clients’ successes comes easily. I began describing my work by sharing my clients’ accomplishments instead of my own (honoring client confidentiality, of course). These success stories turned out to be much more effective than simply telling prospective clients and referral sources what I could do.
6. Letting go of sales that were too hard to close.
It’s important to be persistent and follow up multiple times with potential clients who don’t respond or say they’re not ready, but contacting someone who has actually said no can be pretty confronting. I realized that if I had a long enough follow-up list, I didn’t really need to contact those folks at all. I could spend my time instead with people who were more likely to be interested.
7. Designing a call or email that anyone would welcome.
If making contact just to push for business isn’t a good experience for either me or the person I’m contacting, why make it? I’d much rather spend my time in exchanges both sides can enjoy. I discovered that if I reached out to people in a spirit of friendliness and generosity, instead of acting like a salesperson, plenty of sales and referrals resulted without my asking for them directly.
Now, I’m not talking about using these principles as a way to avoid answering direct questions or provide needed clarity, when those are called for. If prospective clients ask about your ability to do a job, by all means, you should tell them about your skills and experience. If you’ve submitted a proposal, and are waiting for the client to tell you yes or no, asking whether they’re ready to act on it is completely appropriate and usually necessary.
But what I am suggesting is that you can design much more pleasurable, helpful, and relationship-oriented reasons to reach out to potential clients and referral sources, just once or many times throughout the year. And that can transform your follow-ups from a dreaded task into a welcome activity — for both you and the people you contact.
