020: How to Follow Up Without Feeling Awkward (And Actually Get the Client)

Here's the deal. People are in different phases of their buying journey all the time. Some are ready now. Others are watching, waiting and warming up, and that's why I believe in follow up forever. Or sometimes I just call it follow through because I never wanna be that annoying. Hey, you want it now? Hey, how about now?

This is your opening. Please take it. Right? The follow through is my mindset when it comes to the need to follow up forever. I have people ask me all the time, Renee, how many times do I follow up? Forever until they buy or say goodbye, right? BUY or BYE. Now, let me tell you about a client of mine because this is really the best way to tell you this story, to kind of exemplify this, right?

Like I love theories and I love strategies, and I know you get it, but for me to really embody it, I need to hear a situation. I need to hear some context. So here's some context for you. This one client of mine, she is so brilliant. She runs corporate marketing workshops and also happens to be married to an editor.

So it's really, I mean, it's super casual. No sales pitch. It's just fun. But this is. A part of the bridge that she and I built because she had proximity, consistently gets proximity with players, big businesses, big decision makers that she could never get in the room with otherwise, but she's in the room because of her corporate marketing workshops.

So these. Quarterly ish book club nights. She invites people that she meets through her corporate workshops. Some of these people are employees of those companies. Others are middle managers at those companies. Uh, many are executives at these big brands and, they're pretty amazing. But this.

So we made it super easy. Anybody who gets invited. Can read any book or at least have read a book at some point, and everyone brings the book they wanna share while they sip or snack, and there's laugh together. It's, it's really fun. It's all virtual, it's all on Zoom. So it's super low tech. There are no rules.

They're, they just bring a, any, any book. I mean, these could be beach reads, total smut, nonfiction business books. Or a children's book. One person had a, had brought a, a new-ish kind of children's book that they said their toddler made them read 75 times that month. So it was the only book they could even think of.

Why? Because she stayed in the conversation long after the initial work was over. This is huge and it's been a huge turning point for her because she was always stuck waiting for them to make the next move. Does this feel familiar? Right. I mean, they had paid her to do the thing that she's great at. She introduced herself, she, they understood.

I mean, it was beautiful, but it still didn't turn the dial. The calls to get continued support around implementing what she taught at the workshop Still. Weren't coming in. She was waiting for them. And guess what? They were waiting for her. They were waiting for her to follow up. I'll tell you what, when we started doing this, the biggest response we got from people was, oh, I didn't think you had time.

I didn't think you were allowed to offer that to me, or, oh, I didn't think you were willing to do that for us. And these are like big brands with massive budgets, and so you can see how it, it's sometimes you just need that extra place to have a different conversation for a minute to bring back up the things that are most important for your business.

So it's an easy invite for anyone that she met. It's a connection to her, a love of reading, and even the fact that her husband was co-hosting these with her was making it so personal and created such a living room feel. It became something she really enjoyed inviting her context to, and she enjoyed.

I mean, on these book club nights, she doesn't even mention what she does. not a traditional book club and it's not a traditional networking experience, but she does and listen in friends. Have a book recommendation list that she does share the link to. It's basically a Google sheet. I mean, it couldn't be simpler.

She has everybody fill it out with their name, their email, their LinkedIn profile, because that's how she communicates with people. If, if she's on any social media, it's LinkedIn. And that has been the perfect bridge to rekindle the conversation about work. So she's. Bringing it back up later. So now she's established common ground again, and together we use that as a jumping off point to have those specific next step conversations with the people.

Best part, when they see your name. It has good memories attached to it. Remember the Disney story I shared on Monday's episode? If not, go back and listen to it. Those results, those feelings, when they see your emails or a DM from you or a post that you share, they actually pay attention. So what's your action step today?

And so she was like on a mission to. Get those steps in right. Work out more. So what she did, she created a remote walking club. I thought this was brilliant. She did this on her own. I didn't even advise her to do it, but when I saw what she was doing, I knew we could do something amazing with it and make it even better than, than the initial idea.

And that's other part, you reserve the right to always make this better. So here's what they do. Remote walking club. She invites. Anybody, anytime, no commitment. It's not paid. She just basically invites them and they all join one channel and they've changed where they talk at different times. I know that that's evolved.

Like I know it started out maybe on Facebook Messenger, and then I think it grew to maybe a FaceTime, like, uh, I know like you have on your iPhone. it's once a week. It's one morning a week. And she's on the East coast, so it's wicked early. If you live in California and they just talk while they get their steps in.

So that's one idea. Another client who does not have a podcast, and I used to do this, so this is something that I did give her the idea for, she hosts a monthly podcast. Listeners, virtual meetup. This is something that I did do back when I first started my business because I know the value of having a place where you can talk to people ongoing and have that reason to reach out.

So this is the same idea as the no rules policy for the non-traditional book club that my other client, I was. and it's great. It works out fantastic. What podcast have you listened to? Which ones do you recommend? She creates a list and then she, together we leverage that as a reason to rekindle the conversation.

For work. So she needs to have ready-made food in that freezer during the week, otherwise, you know, pizza again. And she want, you know, she really values and loves cooking, but she really values that, you know, the healthy meals, she needs them in there. So it's, it's a chore. She's gotta do it Anyway, so she hosts these batch cooking parties with these seasonal recipes. If you've ever done batch cooking parties, like I have done them in person, I did not run them. I was a part of it. It was really great. My freezer never looked so good. We never ate so healthy, but check us out. She, he's doing it anyway. Guess how many clients that did batch cooking with her?

So she said she's gotten directly from this. Six people to buy websites for her who have attended these batch cooking parties. So she meets people somewhere, somehow, some way, right? Sometimes she's on a summit and she invites other summit people. Sometimes she's on somebody else's email list and she's like, I really love your content.

Hey, I totally unrelated to work. But a total mom thing, I'm doing this batch cooking party. Do you want, do you want the link to come? You know, usually me and a couple other moms, we just get together, we cook for a couple hours, you know, once every few months and just fill our freezers. Do you wanna be a part of it?

Point is, is that you can do this too. You can follow up forever without being annoying or salesy or pushy. And whether it's things you gotta do anyway, or things you just love to do, or whether it's your version of a date night with your editor husband, like my other client, you can do this. So repeat after me.

Every single person I connect with is one of the three C's. They are potential clients, connectors and collaborators. And even if they don't buy now, they can refer you. They can feature you. They can simply become a new friend in your corner of the business world. Who doesn't need more of those, right? It takes a village.

We're in this together. There's no pressure, just lots and lots of possibilities. All right. See you on Monday. Have a great weekend.