The Art of Follow Up - Predictable Growth

training i'm going to provide you with everything you need to know to perform effective follow-up and so follow-up is critical to conversion and it's probably going to account for anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of all conversions that happen on all the campaigns that you're working on and so we follow up to either generate more qualified leads

and or generate more appointments depending on the type of campaign okay so after leads engage it is critical that we follow up with them to move them down the funnel and to generate that conversion so our approach to follow-up is simple right we want to always be abundant we want to always be playful we don't want to

be desperate we do not want to be needy right so we don't want to be like this freak show girl here you know we want to be like this guy right like let's get to know each other let's follow up let's have fun with this and not be desperate because there's no need for that right we're we're

going to be talking to so many leads throughout our campaigns you know there's there's no reason to be desperate and needy so in terms of follow-up there are several different stages and it's also important that you understand the priorities which we covered in another video where we said flip the funnel right we want to start with the

bottom of the funnel leads and focus there so the stages of follow-up are this so first is pending confirmation so this is the stage when a qualified prospect shows interest but hasn't confirmed a time and or contact information this also applies for reschedules and no shows and so these prospects should be tagged pending such as pending appointments

or something like that the next stage is pending conversion so this happens when a qualified prospect initially shows interest but hasn't responded after your initial response and so these are prospects tagged lead and then third is pending engagement this is when a qualified prospect has not replied yet or has replied but then goes cold and these are

also prospects that are tagged lead they're just a little bit colder so let's break down you know when in the process these stages occur okay so at the bottom here these are the pending confirmation uh this is the pending confirmation stage right so when we're trying to schedule an appointment that is the pen and confirmation follow-up okay

the next stage is the pending conversion follow-up this is when we've gotten a few initial responses but we're really looking to generate that conversion by generating the interest of the prospect and the lead and then at the top here is the last priority which is pending engagement so this is when you know we're waiting to get back

in touch with a lead or we haven't yet heard from them and so again just to stress the importance of this the follow-up prioritization we always want to start at the bottom of the funnel which are hot leads and those are pending confirmation follow-ups the second priority are warm leads and those are pending conversion follow-ups and then

third are cold leads which are pending engagement follow-ups and so a big part of follow-up is what's called omni-channel follow-up so what this means is if you're engaging with a lead and then all of a sudden they disappear you can't you don't hear from them or they get busy or whatever well you want to follow up with

that lead on as many channels as possible to get back on their radar and re engage that lead and finish that conversation to move them down the funnel okay and so omni channel is just a fancy word for saying multi-channel follow-up right so let's say for example we're talking to a lead on linkedin and they're interested they're

interested in setting up an appointment and then all of a sudden you don't hear from them right and so that's when we would want to implement an omni-channel follow-up process and so what that means is so you have them on linkedin let's find their email let's find their phone number let's find their facebook or instagram or whatever

else you can find and then follow up and send them a message on those channels letting them know hey john this is matt from linkedin we connected we were about to set up appointment i just wanted to get back in touch so we can finalize the details for that appointment right another example let's say you're talking to

a lead you don't yet get to the discussion of setting an appointment but they say yes i'm interested tell me more and then you don't hear from them again well that's when you want to implement omnichannel follow-up right so let's say you're talking on linkedin let's find their email let's find their facebook let's find their phone number

if possible and then contact them on those channels all right and so in another video we'll go through a live example of this but for now let me just kind of share at a high level the process for this so one way to do this is to search for the prospect's name on google in an attempt to

find their personal linkedin facebook instagram or email and then send them a message on all channels that you locate second search for their company name on google and or linkedin to find their personal linkedin and send them a request and message third you can scrape their email with linkedin for example we use a software called expandy where

it actually scrapes the prospect's sales navigator details and oftentimes pulls their email and it can also pull their phone number right and so what you want to try to do again especially for qualified prospects that maybe are just about to confirm an appointment or just about uh to show inch so show interest we want to scrape their

details and try to get their email and phone number so that we can contact them there okay and so the the final thing that we want to do when it comes to omni-channel follow-up is whether you are connecting on linkedin email text or other channels always add context by referencing the following which is one where you originally

connected with the prospect and two reference the colleague that they spoke with okay and so what this means is let's say i'm talking to susie who is a prospect she's very qualified and we are about to finalize an appointment so what we want to do is we want to perform these four different steps to gather as much

information as we can on susie and then reach out but while we reach out to her as part of those messages we want to say hey susie this is matt from linkedin we were speaking uh we were talking about setting up an appointment and i just wanted to get back in touch so that we could get you

on the calendar right um and sometimes what's going to happen is prospects are going to talk to one of our one of our business development reps and so it may not be that business development rep that is going to be reaching out on email or text or something like that and so in that case what we want

to do is say hey susie you were speaking with my colleague matt on linkedin and matt told me to get in touch with you and just finalize your details so we can get you on the calendar right so again you always want to provide context and reference the other channels that you are speaking to that prospect on

so that they instantly know okay right that's that's right i was talking to susie or sorry i was talking to matt on linkedin i remember right you know we don't want to just be random people reaching out saying hey let's get on the calendar we have to again add that context and so that's the high level omni

channel follow-up process in another training we'll actually do a live example but for now uh it's just important that you understand how to do this it's pretty straightforward right you know we're basically doing a little bit of stocking um but you know it's all good because we can really help these people and that's why we're doing this

so that's omnichannel follow-up um the next piece here are the actual tactics of follow-up all right so let me move over um so there's five different tactics in order of urgency right so number one being the most urgent you know this would apply to pending confirmations where you know let's say we already have contact details and we

just need to confirm a time for an appointment and just get that invite out you know that's a high level of urgency and so that's going to be what we call a check-in and so a check-in is just a friendly message to check in with a prospect after a recent conversation in order to move the prospect to

the next stage of the funnel okay now all of these tactics are going to have uh templates that we're going to provide to you and so you don't have to worry about you know how to do this or what to write you know we're going to give you a lot of this so that you can just kind

of copy paste and personalize in order to share this with prospects all right so the first one is check in the second one is a direct comment and so what this is is when you tag the prospect in a comment on a relevant piece of content reminding them of an unfinished conversation so let's say i'm talking to

prospect named suzy on linkedin and then i don't hear from her and we were about to book an appointment so what i would do is i would go into susie's profile i would find some content that maybe she shared or something like that and i would just tag susie and say hey susie i just left you a

message in your inbox get back to me when you can right that's a direct comment okay um and that's a great way to just again get back on the radar send another notification that the prospect can see so that you know that they're trying to reach out right third is a value share so this is a lot

more of a passive tactic but this is really just sharing a relevant valuable piece of content such as a case study or training with a prospect to stay top of mind so this is great for you know a few weeks after maybe talking to a prospect you just share a piece of content you say hey susie i

was thinking of you i wanted to share this case study because this prospect is very similar to you and i just thought this would be useful right you know the value share is is not about generating a response or booking an appointment it's really just to add value and to let the prospects know that you're there you

care about them you're thinking about them and this is really really powerful all right and then the fourth tactic is a social engagement and so this is just going to a prospect's profile and viewing their profile endorsing them for skills um you know commenting on their posts liking their posts or it's you know going to their recent

activities such as articles or posts and just engaging with that content right and and the purpose of this is to just get back on that prospect's radar right you know this is not this is similarly it's it's not a high urgent it's not a highly urgent tactic it's really just to get back on the radar and stay

top of mind with prospects and then the fifth tactic is the indirect comment right and so instead of a direct comment where in the direct comment you're saying hey susie this is matt i left you a message get back to me as soon as you can the indirect comment is just commenting on susie's post or activity and

saying suzy i love this this is a great piece of content i really appreciate this um sharing this with my network you know just just adding value right not really looking for anything in return okay and so when combined you know these are really really powerful tactics uh that can work on any channel right you know this

is not specific to linkedin or facebook or email you know this can work on a variety of channels and that again is why we perform that omni channel follow-up so that you know the more channels that we're connected to the prospect the better because then we have more opportunities to stay on their radar get in front of

them stay top of mind and again just move them down the funnel all right and so depending on the stage remember the three stages pending confirmation pending conversion and pending engagement as you can see here depending on the stage we have different approaches for how to actually implement this follow-up okay so there's two things here so there's

the timeline after the latest engagement and then there's the tactic associated with that timeline okay so pending confirmation again that's high priority so we really want to make sure that we do everything we can to finalize that booking and confirm that appointment all right so if uh let's say i'm talking to susie and i haven't heard from

her so what i want to do is within 12 hours i want to share a direct comment and then i want to send a check in message okay and again all of these tactics are omnichannel right so you know let's say for susie i googled her and i found her facebook and i found her email so when

we say direct comment plus check in we're going to reach out to her on all of those channels okay you know we don't want to overdo it but we just want to send a very short simple message and say hey susie this is matt i want to get back in touch so we can get you on the

calendar right so after 12 hours we're going to send that first direct comment and check in okay after 24 hours we're going to do perform some social engagement which is just liking susie's content liking her posts and also send another check in and then within 48 hours we want to share a direct comment and another check-in and

then finally one week later just one and fourth and final check-in okay and then if you haven't heard from the prospect at this point then we're going to move them to the previous pending conversion stage and so then they would go from a hot lead to a warm lead because obviously they're either not interested or they're not

available or they're on vacation or something like that all right so that is the pending confirmation follow-up process so the pending conversion follow-up process this is more about getting on the radar staying top of mind adding some value it's less about getting in direct contact and actually scheduling an appointment right so for this after 24 hours we

want to perform some social engagement and just send a check in after 48 hours we want to share we want to do a value share um we want to do a value share and then an indirect comment and again these are both indirect passive tactics that are not really you know designed to generate an appointment or a

conversation it's really just to stay on the radar and make sure the prospect knows that you know we're thinking about them and we're getting you know we're we're looking to get uh on their radar right after 72 hours we are going to do a social engagement and then a check-in after a week a direct comment plus a

value share and then after two weeks social engagement plus check-in right so after two weeks without a response then we would move this lead into the cold leads bucket and then we would implement the pending engagement to follow up so this happens after two weeks of no engagement and this is really just about staying top of mind

so every two weeks every month every two months and three months we're going to do social engagement value share social engagement check in and just kind of alternate between those and then after three months without a response we're going to send a breakup email and just say look is this relevant is you know i've been trying to

reach you for a while just let me know i don't want to waste your time don't waste my time let me know your status right so that's how we approach follow-up you know again these these are subject to change slightly you know we're going to test these out although we have proven this in in a number of

campaigns but again we want to test this out um you know test out different channels test out different methods test out different timelines and tactics but this is a really sound you know foundation for our follow-up process all right so let's just recap real quick again when it comes to follow-up we want to maintain an abundant playful

personality never be desperate or needy we always want to prioritize the hot leads which are pending confirmation we want to secondly prioritize the warm leads which are pending conversion and then the last priority are cold leads which are pending engagement and so the hot leads are obviously down here where we want to set and confirm appointments the

warm leads our pen and conversion which is really pending interest and then up here we have the cold bleeds all right and so we always want to perform omni-channel follow-up so we want to get really good at this and and get into the habit of this in another training video i'll show you i'll share exactly how to

do this and then depending on the follow-up stage and the tactic and the timeline since the last engagement you know we're just going to follow up with a different tactic depending on you know depending on this sequence all right so i hope this was helpful i hope this prepares you for some follow-up because again 80 of your

conversions are going to happen in the follow-up right so catch you in another video thanks for tuning in