Fantastic reminder and thank you for so clearly putting into words an uncomfy phenomenon I've experienced. The clients I chased down and nudged along ended up being the most difficult clients to maintain momentum with.
The clients who say YES, NOW, are the ones who are undeniably motivated and truly a pleasure to work with.
Wow! I needed to read this. I spend some much time updating my spreadsheet and constructing follow up emails. I love the idea of accepting "no or not right now" and moving forward to someone else. Thank you for sharing.
I'd had to disagree...Volume is essential, but there's a ton of gold in follow-up. Over the course of 20 years, I've landed many new clients and hundreds of thousands in work from follow-ups and projects that happened months, even years later. In fact, 2 weeks ago, I landed a $17K report from a prospect that I first emailed in 2023! The thing is, at least in my line of work (content strategy and ghostwriting for mid-market and Fortune 500 tech companies), it can take 3, 6, 12, 15 months for things to fall in place. Even when a marketing director posts a project, stuff happens, and things get delayed. It's quite common. The writers who move on are forgotten. But the one who pops in once a month with a quick email, tip, note, or ebook stays top of mind. I'm not saying you shouldn't look for new work; you should keep dumping stuff into your pipeline every week. But don't leave all those opportunities hanging. It doesn't have to be hard. I've set everything up in Hubspot, so follow-up is super easy with a whole playbook of customized canned responses, lead magnets, etc. It's semi-automated. I can go through and follow up on 100 prospects in an hour. I generally follow up once a month for 3 months, then move to quarterly, then annual. I track to see who opens my emails, too. And the bigger your list grows, the more opportunities you have to mine. I would not be where I am right now without relentless and consistent follow-up.
Fantastic reminder and thank you for so clearly putting into words an uncomfy phenomenon I've experienced. The clients I chased down and nudged along ended up being the most difficult clients to maintain momentum with.
The clients who say YES, NOW, are the ones who are undeniably motivated and truly a pleasure to work with.
Definitely -- it's hard to convince anyone to do anything, just focus on the ones that do.
Wow! I needed to read this. I spend some much time updating my spreadsheet and constructing follow up emails. I love the idea of accepting "no or not right now" and moving forward to someone else. Thank you for sharing.
I’m glad it helped :)
Kyle, I couldn't agree more!
As someone who is prepping to get more into pitching, this is exactly the advice I didn't know I needed to hear. Thanks so much for sharing this!
I'd had to disagree...Volume is essential, but there's a ton of gold in follow-up. Over the course of 20 years, I've landed many new clients and hundreds of thousands in work from follow-ups and projects that happened months, even years later. In fact, 2 weeks ago, I landed a $17K report from a prospect that I first emailed in 2023! The thing is, at least in my line of work (content strategy and ghostwriting for mid-market and Fortune 500 tech companies), it can take 3, 6, 12, 15 months for things to fall in place. Even when a marketing director posts a project, stuff happens, and things get delayed. It's quite common. The writers who move on are forgotten. But the one who pops in once a month with a quick email, tip, note, or ebook stays top of mind. I'm not saying you shouldn't look for new work; you should keep dumping stuff into your pipeline every week. But don't leave all those opportunities hanging. It doesn't have to be hard. I've set everything up in Hubspot, so follow-up is super easy with a whole playbook of customized canned responses, lead magnets, etc. It's semi-automated. I can go through and follow up on 100 prospects in an hour. I generally follow up once a month for 3 months, then move to quarterly, then annual. I track to see who opens my emails, too. And the bigger your list grows, the more opportunities you have to mine. I would not be where I am right now without relentless and consistent follow-up.