The Importance of Follow Up

• Kapil Kapur (Fingertips Intelligence)
• Wednesday 13 June 2012

In the last few years, one of the most common things that I have heard is how important it is that you follow up every opportunity. For example:

• If somebody gives you a referral then make sure you follow up as soon as possible
• If you are introduced to somebody then make sure you have an initial conversation
• If somebody offers you some help then make sure that you at least explore what is on offer

These points might seem to be common sense, but you would be surprised how often I hear that people have failed to follow up. I know a number of individuals who complain that they don’t get enough return on their investment from networking and they are invariably the ones who fail to follow up.

By failing to follow up, you actually lose on potentially four separate accounts:-

• You will fail to earn any money from the immediate referral
• The person who gave you the referral will probably not give you any more chances
• The person who you would have done the work for may have other people that he can refer you to – and so if you don’t do the initial job then you won’t get the follow on work
• Your reputation of not following up will spread – and other people will not give you work

The Long term effects of Bad / Good Follow Up

I know two marketing people – they are offering the same range of services – within 5 miles of each other. One is making serious money and has an enviable reputation in his field. The other is probably brighter and presents himself exceptionally well – but his business is struggling. The reason is that the second person has an extremely bad reputation in that he never followed up any opportunity that he was given. Indeed most people don’t even think about him when looking for referrals. Quite simply in the field of networking, reputation spreads – and bad reputation spreads like wildfire.

It can often pay to have a database (even an excel spreadsheet will suffice) to help you with your follow up. This ensures that you won’t forget.

Following Up on Referrals

When given an opportunity, then you have to be realistic about following up. If the opportunity is to fix a burst pipe then you need to follow up straight away. However if it is for a new website for somebody then a day or so will be sufficient. Note that people judge you on your following up skills – especially if they are looking for alternative suppliers. If you are slow to follow up, then they believe you won’t want the business.

Following Up on Introductions

Likewise if you are being introduced to somebody follow up within a couple of days. This week I had a perfect reminder as to why this is absolutely necessary. An old client of mine introduced me to an neighbour of his called Mark – who was also in IT. Looking at his website, he seemed like that I would be the competition and hence he would never refer to me.

Out of politeness to my client, I dropped him a line – stating that I was a Filemaker developer and was he up for a coffee ? He replied stating that he was exceptionally busy and to contact him later in the year. I must admit his response did not exactly please me.

However a few days later, he sent through another e-mail – which did rather surprise me. However he had been asked by one of his contacts if he knew any Filemaker developers. Luckily my e-mail was fresh in his mind and he passed on my details. Just imagine if I hasn’t followed up the introduction then I could have missed a perfectly good opportunity.

Following Up on Ideas

Actually this is probably the hardest one to follow up on. You can spend your whole day talking to people and coming up with ideas. It is very easy to come up with ideas – but the more time you spend discussing them, the less time you have to implement them.

Also when somebody gives you an idea, are they doing it for themselves rather than to benefit you ? Over the years I had a number of people who have said that I should get into particular technologies – often it was because it suited them. I felt (and generally I think I am right) it is better to focus on one avenue rather than having several projects on the go.

Sometimes the idea might be great but the timing not perfect. A number of people suggested to me that I should move from spreadsheets into Filemaker solutions. However, I was focused on growing my first venture www.simplyspreadsheets.co.uk. It took me a couple of years to see how by switching to databases and Filemaker that I could grow my business even further.

www.fingertips-intelligence.co.uk

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