I’m sure you’ve heard the following adage about following up:
“You must follow-up at least 5 to 8 times before someone makes a buying decision.”
This piece of advice is littered on every sales article your favorite CRM pumps out to rank high on Google. And for good reason: It’s true that the vast majority of sales happen from following up, not the initial call or meeting. In fact, around 80% of sales result from following up.
But there’s a right way and a wrong way to follow-up.
Because following up, by its very nature, is a needy activity.
And nothing scares away potential customers like reeking of desperation, which is what most follow up messages sound like.
Take, for example, a recent interaction my client and I had with an agency. After listening to their sales pitch, we searched for competitors. After listening to their pitch, we decided that now isn’t the best time to entertain this offer. But we were still interested, it just wasn’t the right time.
We even told some of these agencies that we’d reconsider the opportunity in the new year, as in 2025.
Well, they didn’t care about our timeline. Needy red flag numero uno.
Instead of honoring our request and making a note in their CRM to follow up in 2025, they’ve continued to hound us via email, via phone, via new, cheaper offers, and via any other piece of data they can get about us. I suspect a carrier pigeon is on its way to my office window. Needy red flag number dos.
It all reeks of desperation.
It makes it feel that if we don’t give this agency our business, they will cease to exist.
And one agency in particular left such a bad taste in my mouth, I’m sure we will never even consider their offer again—no matter how many times they follow up or make us feel like we’re the reason their business is tanking.
Yes, follow-up is important. Yes, it’s true that 80% of sales come from the follow-up. But following up is never so important that it’s okay to act like an incel endlessly DMing a cute girl thinking that the next message will finally be the one that gets her to respond.
There’s no more important trait to cultivate as a business owner, salesperson, or marketer than being anti-needy.
So, how do you balance following up with being anti-needy?
There are several ways:
1. Have other business lined up so that your entire business doesn’t depend on this one deal. Nothing will make you needier whether you realize it or not.
2. Listen to your leads. If they say they’ll be ready to entertain your offer in a month or two, don’t annoy them with emoji response follow-ups, discounts on your offer, or anything else that makes you look like a needy incel.
3. Ask them to join your email list.
This last one is mayhap the best way to discreetly follow-up. When someone joins your email list, then they’ve given you permission to use all the persuasive tools in your toolbelt. This lets you persuade them without coming across as needy. By telling stories, by twisting the knife in their pain points, by offering them time-sensitive promotions, and the list goes on.
This is even more powerful when applied to cold outreach. Not only do they take a baby step towards becoming a customer, but they also move themselves from a cold lead to a warm lead. And a warm lead can become hot when you know how to write persuasive and entertaining emails.
Moral of the story?
Nothing beheads more sales than neediness. In fact, being anti-needy is more important than following up.
Need help turning cold-ish warm leads into red hot leads through email? Hit reply, and let’s chat.
John
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