Are Your Business Development Efforts Failing Without Follow-Up?

Consistent follow-up is one of the keys to effective business development. Without follow-up, you might as well not bother to market in the first place.

Studies have consistently shown the need to make numerous contacts with prospects if you are to convert them into clients. On average, you'll need to have 7-9 significant contacts with prospects before they will become clients. The chance of a prospect hiring you after only one contact is about 3%. Consider it this way: There's a 97% chance that just one lunch with a client will not turn into business. Unless lunch is really delicious, I would call that a waste of time!

Here's a list of the excuses that my clients have given me over the years for not following up--along with some suggestions on how to deal with them:

1. You waited too long to follow up and it's uncomfortable to do so now.
   Solution: Schedule time to follow up after any marketing activity. Plan on spending ten minutes to send a "nice to have met you" note after a business development lunch and several hours to follow up after attending a conference at which you are likely to meet clients, former clients and prospects. Also, consider that most of the people on that "wish I'd followed up sooner" list don't realize how long it's been since they last heard from you. In almost every case, touching base in a friendly, confident way will be welcomed. So, go for it--reactivate those dormant contacts--and then make sure to follow up with them (and others) regularly.
    
2. You don't remember whom you need to follow up with and when to do it.
   Solution: Develop a system--whether you schedule it on your Outlook calendar or use a paper-based calendar. List whom you are going to follow up with and on what date. For your "hottest" prospects, that contact should probably be once a month; for people who are less likely to produce business in the short term, once a quarter is usually frequent enough.
    
3. You are too busy.
   Solution: Calculate the potential value of a new client. See my article "Can You Really Afford to Avoid Business Development?" [http://tinyurl.com/dxko3b] to determine just how valuable a new client is. If you are too busy to follow up, I am going to save you a lot of time: Don't bother going to that marketing lunch or that networking event in the first place. An activity without follow-up is just a waste of your precious marketing time.
    
4. You don't want to be a pest.
   To avoid what I call the "stalker" problem, be sure that you add value in your follow-up. As long as you're being helpful, it's unlikely that people will view your follow-up as pestering.
   
   Think about your own experience: If someone is providing you with something of value--whether it's an interesting article, a new resource or an invitation to an event that you would like to attend--is your reaction "I really wish you would stop sending me this stuff"? Usually not--and that's probably how the person whom you are following up with will feel as well.
   
   Just make sure that you are adding value from the client's or prospect's perspective, not just from yours. Your analysis of a recent case might be valuable. Your firm's brochure probably won't be.
    
5. You don't know enough about the person to add value in your follow-up.
   Solution: The goal of every marketing interaction should be to discover at least one thing about that person that you can follow up with--whether it's a professional or personal interest. Is he or she an avid traveler or interested in the latest COBRA regulations? Make this a habit and your follow-up marketing will be much easier.

Rather than investing your marketing time in meeting more new people, commit to consistently staying in touch with those with whom you have already started the marketing process. You'll be delighted to see how much more effective your marketing will become.