Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Follow Up Templates That Kick Ass!

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kick ass follow up templates to grow your businessAs you know, I love follow up. It’s one of my two favorite things to talk and blog about. I often tell people, there are thousands of dollars I don’t spend each year because no one followed up with me. That’s RIDICULOUS. So, I started to investigate. And I discovered people don’t follow up because they don’t know what to say.

My mind was blown. I really thought people didn’t follow up because they were disorganized and don’t like making money. Not so.

I talked with a few colleagues who have struggled to know what to say and based on those conversations and a lot of feedback, I created the Kick Ass Follow Up Templates to Grow Your Business.

In this 14 page Download you receive:

  • A plan for when to do your follow up
  • A spreadsheet to help you keep track of your follow up
  • How to use social media in your follow up
  • Template email to send your next great client
  • Template email to a prospective colleague or strategic partner
  • A template and plan for when you don’t get a response
  • Template to follow up and close the deal when that prospect goes MIA

I want small business owners like you to be successful and GROW. My templates are here to help you with this! Check it out and see if this might be helpful for you. Let me know what you think. And if you’d like to download it – use code YellowDogBlog to save $20 as a thank you for reading to the end of this post!

Pick One Thing and Own It

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Norm and his ballI was talking to someone the other day who heard me speak recently. They mentioned one thing I said that’s been working well for them. In my 2 hour presentation I obviously covered a TON of ideas and made a variety of recommendations. But their favorite recommendation and take away?

Pick One & OWN IT

During my presentation we talked about using social media as a follow up tool instead of a sales tool (more on that soon). I made recommendations for Twitter, LinkedIn and yes, even Facebook. But my recommendation was to start with one thing. Wherever you’re active, pick one and try it. Not just once, but a few times. Play around with it to see what works.

Overwhelm gets the best of all of us. When I present a 10 page task list to a client, they’re likely to ignore it. But if we walk through and prioritize it, that’s going to help to ease the overwhelm. Start with one thing.

I just started working with a client and they asked about Google and Facebook Ads. With all the OTHER marketing efforts we’re about to implement my recommendation was to wait and save the money right now. Let’s see how this work we’re doing together fits for their business first. If it brings them in business, great. If we need to add in Google ad words or Facebook ads, then we can try those out in the future (by them hiring a qualified person to manage it, because that’s way outside my scope).

When you go to a speaking engagement and like EVERYTHING the speaker says, start by implementing just one thing. Get that down, then add another one to the mix. I know this isn’t something new or crazy, you’ve heard it before. My challenge to you this week is to actually do it. One thing.

Let me know how it goes!

I Followed Up, Now It’s Your Turn

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Norm is Waiting for Your responseI got an email from a friend the other day:

If you ever need a topic, I think you should do a courtesy of business email. Close the loop. How to decline services. That kind of thing. I’ve had so many people just drop off the face of the planet lately for whatever reason. It’s so rude.

This is one of the more frustrating aspects of running a small business. I’ve followed up and done my part, why do you have to be so Pacific Northwest Passive Aggressive and ignore me? Plus, if you tell me no I probably won’t come around nagging you every couple of weeks which is driving you crazy. But what do you say?

Be HONEST

  1. “Thanks Elizabeth, we’ve found someone who’s a better fit for our needs right now. I appreciate your time.”
    • I’ve received this email before and I was totally fine with it. They wanted someone who also does stuff I don’t. I get it.
  2. “Thanks Elizabeth, after reviewing your proposal this isn’t in our budget right now.” You’re super expensive and I can’t believe anyone would ever hire you.
    • If budget is the issue know that they’ll probably respond with recommendations to make it work. But if you’re coming in at their lowest price point then they may realize you aren’t ready for them yet.
  3. “Thanks Elizabeth, I’ve looked at my goals and need to wait a few months before getting going. I’ll contact you when I’m ready”
    • Use this response if you mean it. If you get a proposal and realize it’s not in the budget, OR if something happens and your goals have changed and you truly do need to push this off, then say so. And either offer to follow up with them, or ask them to follow up with you in a few months. “If you want to check back in 3 months, that’d be great.” This also puts the responsibility on them – which is one of my favorite ways to get things off my plate and make people work to earn my money!

Be honest and straight forward. I don’t need your excuses. If it’s not in your budget right now, that’s okay. If after talking you realized you can do it yourself (or someone on your team can) that’s okay. If we didn’t hit it off and you aren’t sold on me, that’s okay. But as a business owner this falls into that treat others as you’d like to be treated category.