Small Business Owners: What You Ought to Know About Follow-Up to Prevent Your Business from Failing

Follow-up may seem to be a boring topic for discussion, but in my personal, career and business experience, I have benefited immensely by making a simple follow up call or email or letter. One simple follow up email has helped my clients achieve phenomenal results, generated thousands of dollars worth sales, and maintain good relationship.

What does follow up mean?

According to Thesaurus Follow-up is an activity that continues something that has already begun or that repeats something that has already been done. There are several reasons for a business owner to follow up. Here are some reasons: Follow up with his prospects to convert them as his clients Follow up with his clients with a survey to assess the quality of service. Follow up with his service providers like Virtual Assistants, Bookkeepers, Accountants, Business consultants for delivering prompt service Follow up with his buyers for payment of Invoices. Follow up with his employees for reports/results/accomplishment of a task. Following up may seem a boring task, but let me assure you fortune is in follow up.

Why should you follow up?

Sometimes the prospects may forget or they may be busy. By following up you are giving them an opportunity to revisit the chances becoming your client. Sometimes just a follow up phone call can lead you to sales worth thousands of dollars. By following up your customers with a survey, you can get a true picture of your product, services and ideas for improvement. A business owner can run his business efficiently and profitably only if his Service providers deliver services in time. Cash flow is the blood of a business. Hence if you offer credit to your buyers, you must follow up closely for prompt payment. Employees are considered as human assets. To ensure productivity, you must have systems to follow up for timely submission of reports.

How can you follow up?

Follow up can be done by an email, Instant messaging, letter, phone call or even a personal visit. There are automated systems that can make following up easy and effortless. You must always take steps to automate follow up process.

When to follow up?

You must be persistent and not a PEST. After the initial conversation, ask permission to follow up after a specified period of time. People respect your follow up and appreciate the gesture if done with permission. In my experience I have found follow up within 2-7 days seems reasonable.

Action Steps: Here are the two action steps you can take right now:

Let Go of the thought of coming across as a pushy person by Following up and allow yourself to feel that you are helping your customers/prospects/employees move them to action. Now that you have a good feeling about following up, identify two follow up tasks and make that call/send an email right away.