The Follow Up Is Everything
There is one word that I can't stand - HUSTLE......
It seems to have become a massive buzz word in the world of leaders, business owners and entrepreneurs.
I firmly believe that if you set your team and your business up smartly and you have the right systems and processes in place - then you don't need to hustle. Your team is performing well, your clients love you and the work you do for them and your project pipeline is full.
But today I'm going to break my rule and talk about one area that does require an amount of hustle....
...and that is in the follow up!!
Most people think that a potential client will either love them or hate them after one coffee meeting. They think they'll either get work out of them straight away or it wasn’t meant to be.
But that’s absolute nonsense.
If you're a stats person (which most engineers are!) then the latest stats are that a new client will need on average 8 touch points from you before they will make a purchasing decision with you.
Now for some clients it will be more and for some clients it will be less - but's it’s DEFINITELY not 1!!
And this is where the follow up (the hustle) and mapping out your potential client journey is KEY.
Say you've engaged with a new potential client and you've organised a coffee or online meeting with them? What's something really simple that you can send them BEFORE you meet?? Something that is engaging or that will spark conversation and make the catch up more meaningful. It might be some information on a new interesting project you're working on, it might be information on an award you and your team have recently won - you get the idea.
Then once you've had the coffee or the catch up - don’t just sit back at your desk and start answering emails again.
Think about the client journey you'd like to take them on. What are the 3 or 4 next steps or touch points that you'd like to make with this potential client? It might be sending them an interesting article on something that you spoke about in your coffee, it might be a new design solution to a problem they mentioned in their catch up with you etc etc.
Spend 10mins before you get back into your day to day mapping out these next touch points - and then most importantly, book these next steps into your calendar!
Create a reminder / block out time in your calendar for every week or every two weeks and map out how you're going to engage with them. That way when you get busy with everyday things, the reminders will pop up with your next steps and actions and you can easily execute them and then get back to your day to day.
This way you're staying front of mind for them, you're regularly engaging with them over a period of time and you're giving yourself EVERY opportunity to turn them into the next client for you, your team and business.
Hope this helps.
Josh “Next Steps” Stone
PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:
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