Each week, we’ll share one deal-winning idea to help you dial in your sales motion and scale faster.
You SUCK at following up. Yes, you.
No offense, but come on—I guarantee you’re not following up enough. And I can prove it.
We just ran an experiment on 15 small businesses to see how long it would take them to respond to our request for a demo.
We focused on businesses with inbound sales motions and less than 100 employees.
The results shocked us:
✅ 7 responded in the first 30 mins
⛔️ 1 responded 1 day later
⛔️ 1 responded 3 days later
❌ 6 never responded at all
Check it out:
Of the companies that responded to us, only five followed up more than once. FIVE?!!
One company called 9 times (good!) but never left a voicemail (bad!). We had to call them back just to figure out who they were.
This is not meant to throw shade at any of these companies. It’s meant to highlight a common deal killer for people who do sales at small businesses—fumbling the follow-up.
The good news: You have the power to fix it
Startups face all kinds of external threats: competitors, the market, algorithms, AI, and so on. It’s really, really fucking hard to get a business off the ground, to scale, and to thrive long-term.
But there’s one threat that is entirely within your power to control: Shitty follow-up.
You can automate follow-up using a million different sales platforms (including ours, by the way) or you could just pick up the damn phone and talk. Your competition can’t stop you from doing that. Only you can.
And yet, small businesses continue to drop the ball on what should be the easiest of layups: your inbound leads. These people are RAISING THEIR HANDS to talk to you!
How many follow-ups is too many?
Follow up until your lead tells you what they want to do next—whether that’s scheduling a demo or going with another provider. Call them, email them, and message them as many times as it takes.
Follow up with them for as long as you live and breathe.
Have your children and your children’s children continue following up with them after you die.
Follow up until the sun burns out and the electricity no longer exists for you to send that email.
Sales is results-driven communication. You must arrive at a result: yes or no. Silence is not a result.
Close founder and CEO Steli Efti once followed up with an investor 48 times before the guy agreed to a meeting. Turns out the investor was grateful for Steli’s persistence because he had just been too busy to reply.
Pictured: Steli Efti following up for the 48th time.
I know what you’re thinking: “But Desiree, not everyone is Steli Efti. 48 times is too many times! What if they get mad?”
What are they gonna do, tell you to fuck off? Let them!
At least when they tell you to fuck off, you will have arrived at a result. (It’s a “No,” by the way.)
There’s a very human reason why you don’t want to follow up relentlessly. You don’t want to seem annoying, you don’t want to face rejection—you don’t want to be uncomfortable.
But you have to play through the pain in order to win.
Relentless follow-up guarantees you more touches on a ball that’s already in your court.
The fortune is in the follow-up. Very few businesses do this well. Most only do the bare minimum—and some do nothing at all.
Trust me: You will cut through the noise if you can do better than that.
⚡️Get Dialed-In
Pick three people to reach out to. They should be high-value enough to make it worth your time to relentlessly follow up with them (a big lead, an investor, etc.). Do not stop following up with them until you arrive at a result: yes or no.
Reply to this email to let me know what happens.
Cheers,
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