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As an independent, you may not enjoy marketing, but you quickly learn that without it, your business is a bust. One aspect in particular provokes shudders and resistance—following up with former and potential clients. With a few simple steps, however, following up can become a powerful part of your marketing approach.
First, though, we need to drag these fears out into the light and take a closer look. I run a group for independent members of the San Francisco/IABC chapter, the Independent Communicators’ Roundtable, and at a recent lunch, our colleague Forrest Anderson led us in a discussion of some issues about following up. We quickly identified two main obstacles: the first was a fear of being a nuisance and the second was that following up properly is prohibitively time consuming.
Below are some tips and tricks to address these fears and help independents make the most of follow-up opportunities.
1. Following up is not the same as stalking.
Let’s get this out of the way right at the start. Following up is not personal; it’s business. You’re not approaching your contact as a supplicant but as a supplier, and the key is being relevant and respectful, and asking permission to keep in touch.
Once you’ve made contact, or at the end of a job, it is OK to ask, “Would you mind if I contacted you every couple of months to check in?” Hey presto, you no longer feel like a stalker. And if someone declines that leaves you more time to focus on other prospects who do express an interest.
2. You’re not a nuisance if you’re providing value.
This is where the follow-up really gets some teeth. Providing something of value to prospects demonstrates that you understand their business issues and you’re interested in helping them solve their problems—which is exactly what clients want to hear.
Remember, not everything has to be original—it only has to be of value to a client. Sometimes we become obsessed by the idea that we must have something new to say, but often our value lies in making connections or spotting how an approach used by someone else might work in a different situation. Building on other people’s great ideas to add value to your prospect’s business is a useful and relevant service to them.
3. Process is your friend.
So how do you go about providing value, on a regular basis, without it becoming a full-time job in itself? In order to reap the benefits, independents have to make following up just another part of their business and attend to it as regularly as we do our accounts. The key is to create support systems:
- Automate your search for relevant articles. There is no need to scour every publication every day for news and articles that clients could use. Group your prospects into distribution lists according to their business type or particular interests, then set up Google Alerts to notify you of relevant articles published around the world. Pick the ones that work best, set them aside, and once a month send out an e-mail to each distribution list with the most useful article and your analysis of its relevance to your prospect.
- Blog regularly on topics that are relevant to your prospects (those Google Alerts serve as useful topic prompts), include your blog address as part of your e-mail signature and encourage people to subscribe.
- Create a newsletter or bulletin and encourage clients and prospects to sign up.
4. Ad hoc is your friend too.
Social media tools enable us to make lots of incremental “touches” without having to freight one contact with too much importance. Providing useful information links or pertinent thoughts via Twitter can serve to keep you in view, as can comments on Facebook.
With LinkedIn, you can answer business-based questions that demonstrate your depth of knowledge and willingness to help out. You can also use the “What I’m doing” box to give a short summary of work that you’re doing. The update shows up on your contacts’ pages. If you make that a regular part of your week, it’s a frequent but unobtrusive reminder to your prospects that you’re part of their business world.
5. Following up is a long-term game.
Although instant gratification would be nice, it’s not common, and following up is one way to nurture those long-term relationships that yield work and referrals on a continuing basis.
For instance, if you have a contact inside a client company, stay in touch when they move on. Even if there seems to be little possibility of work from the new company, your contact may move again in the future or be asked for recommendations by colleagues from the old company.
Getting into the habit of staying in touch with people along the way, no matter what the circumstances, will serve your business well. No matter how busy you are, making the effort to send an e-mail or answer a client’s question on LinkedIn will repay the small amount of time it takes—and following up won’t seem so scary after all.
Alison Harrison is a writer and employee communication consultant in San Francisco. |
