• It’s time-consuming
• It can start a series of telephone tag or long email correspondence
• It may dig up potential issues that you don’t want to deal with; feels like you are becoming a complaint handling department
• Don’t want to bother people
• Don’t know the right amount of time to wait if you need an answer
• Would rather focus your efforts on getting more business if in a sales role, or fulfilling other more enjoyable business activities in general

TOUGH LOVE MOMENT – Suck it up!

Imagine if all of your competitors thought this way! You should be embracing follow-up and becoming your customer (or prospect’s) go to person!

Customers will respect you because your relationship with them is not complete after the purchase order number is given. They have put their hand up and said “treat me special“. Don’t take your current customers for granted and follow-up regularly.

• If you have quoted a prospect, be sure to follow-up. Don’t expect that they will magically call you and give their decision either way. It may only take a brief clarification to secure the business
• If you are following up to check on a previous issue, it may help prevent future issues
• If it is follow-up after a sale, it may take care of minor issues before they escalate in to bigger ones

One of my biggest pet peeves is when a project stalls with somebody in the organization, due to the fact that others have not responded to them. That is always unacceptable. If you need to follow-up frequently via email, phone, or in person, get the answers that you need to move things forward. Never use others as scape goats for things being held up by you.

Successful sales and business people do things that they do not like to do every day to continue to grow and achieve a cut above the rest.

If you are not ready to “get your hands dirty” the time to change is now. If you are already a master of the “circle of follow-up“, congratulations!