Tea with the Queen

[00:00:00] EMMA (2): If you're scared of sounding salesy, you're probably leaving money on the table and leaving good clients stuck in indecision. Follow-up isn't chasing. It's closing the loopwith someone who showed interestand then got busy.
[00:00:16] And I want to start with something I've noticed while organizing Day with the Queen. So many lessons. There are a lot of moving parts when you put on an for 140, 150 people. There are suppliers, venues, sponsors, printing, AV, activations, coffee, food.
[00:00:32] Oh my goodness, all the bits and pieces that go into creating an incredible experience, and the details make the difference.
[00:00:40] Which means I've had a lot of conversations with suppliers. And do you know what has really surprised me? I can count on one hand the number of suppliers who have actually followed me up.
[00:00:54] One hand. I have had conversations with people. I've asked for information. I've had proposals sent through. And then Crickets. And here's the thing, I was busy. I wasn't necessarily uninterested. I wasn't saying no And I wasn't choosing somebody else. I was running my business, coaching clients, traveling, organizing a few events at one time, doing all the things that the Emma McQueen business does.
[00:01:28] And I reckon this is where we get follow-up completely wrong. Because if you have had a conversation with me and you send me a proposal, I don't think it's my job to chase you. You're the business owner. It's your job to follow me up, don't you think? This might be controversial. If I have a conversation with a potential client and then I send them a proposal, I consider the follow-up my responsibility.
[00:01:54] I don't sit there thinking, "Well, they have my proposal. If they want it badly enough, they'll come back to [00:02:00] me." No way. They are busy people, and they also have businesses to run. They have clients. They have families. They have at least 84 tabs open in their brain. My job is to make it easy for them to make a decision, don't you reckon?
[00:02:17] And I actually have a very simple little system for this. At the bottom of every emailed proposal that I send, I include one sentence that says something along the lines of, "If I haven't heard anything from you
[00:02:33] within a week,
[00:02:34] I shall
[00:02:35] follow you up." That's it. That sentence does two things. Firstly, number one, it tells them I'm gonna follow up, so when I appear in their inbox seven days later, nobody's sitting there thinking, "Ugh, that's Emma being pushy."
[00:02:50] No. I, I told them I was coming. But more importantly, it puts me on the hook. I have said I'm going to follow up, so then I need to put it in my diary for the following week. Follow up with Sarah. Done. Simple and easy. No wondering when I should contact them. No sitting there refreshing my inbox. No internal debate about whether I'm being annoying or not.
[00:03:18] P.S. never annoying. No relying on my memory. I've told them what I'm going to do, and I've put it in my diary, and then I do it, and that is business development. Following up is not pushy. I reckon this is one of those places where business owners massively overthink things. People will do all the hard work.
[00:03:43] They'll go to the networking event. They'll have the coffee. they'll make the call. They'll send the proposal. They'll tell someone about their offer, and they'll have a fantastic conversation with someone who says " This sounds amazing. [00:04:00] I'm really interested. Send me the details." " I just need to have a think."
[00:04:06] And instead of following up, the business owner sits there thinking, " I don't wanna be annoying." Hate that. " I don't wanna look desperate. I don't wanna be salesy." why am I even saying that? "I don't wanna be pushy." Meanwhile, the potential client
[00:04:22] might simply just be busy
[00:04:23] just like I was.
[00:04:24] So I need you to hear this really clearly. Following up is not pushy. Badgering someone who has clearly said no is pushy. Ignoring someone's boundaries is pushy. Messaging someone 14 times when they never show any interest in what you do is pushy. But following up on a conversation that the two of you have, like, already had, that's not pushy.
[00:04:52] That's doing your job as the CEO, and sometimes it's simply good manners. So stop making silence mean something. This is one of the biggest mistakes we make in business. Someone doesn't respond, and we immediately create an entire story about it. " They're not interested." Really? " They thought it was too expensive."
[00:05:15] Really? " They've changed their mind." Really? " They don't like me." I don't think so. "They probably went somewhere else." Maybe. Maybe 'cause you didn't follow up, or maybe they're organizing an event for 150 women, and your proposal is sitting somewhere underneath an email about coffee carts. Maybe their kid got sick.
[00:05:38] Maybe they've-- they opened your email while standing in the supermarket line. Hmm, not from experience. Maybe they thought, "I absolutely need to reply to that," and then 47 other things happened, jumped into their brain, and they're doing the juggle. Silence is not a no. Silence is silence. Stop filling in the blanks for people.
[00:05:56] Your job is to make the next move easy. [00:06:00] This is where I think follow-up goes wrong. People think follow-up kind of means, " Have you made a decision yet?" Maybe. That can feel a little bit uncomfortable because you are effectively standing there tapping your foot, waiting for an answer. Instead, think about follow-up as continuing the conversation.
[00:06:21] You're helping them make their next move. It might simply be, "Hey, Sarah, popping this back to the top of your inbox. How are you feeling about what we discussed?" Or, " Hey, Sarah, I was thinking about our conversation and wanted to check in. Is this still something you'd like to move forward with?" Or my favorite w-when someone needed some time, "Hey, Sarah, when you spoke, you mentioned you wanted a little time just to think.
[00:06:49] Just checking back in as I promised. Where did you land? I'd love to know where you landed." Because I'm not assuming the answer is yes. They can say yes, and they can also say no. They can also say not yet. All three are useful because clarity is useful And please follow up more than once. This might be obvious, but I think this makes people uncomfortable.
[00:07:13] One follow-up is not enough. If someone has genuinely expressed interest, I'm absolutely comfortable following up multiple times. This is why follow-up is built into our business development sprint. Three reach outs, two follow-ups, one post. Three, two, one. Simple. Every single day. Why? Because there is money sitting in your follow-up.
[00:07:38] That's actually where the opportunities are, sitting in your follow-up, so you're leaving money on the table. There are conversations sitting there waiting to be restarted, waiting to be continued, and so many women are constantly looking for new leads when they haven't properly followed up the leads they already have.
[00:07:58] So before you go looking [00:08:00] for another hundred people, go back through your messages, go through your emails, go through your CRM, go through your calendar. Look at the proposals you've already sent. Look at the people who said, "Not right now." Look at the people who said, " Come back to me in September." Hello, it's September.
[00:08:19] Follow them up. A few scripts to steal after sending a proposal. Number one, " Hey, Sarah. Popping this back to the top of your inbox. Did you get a chance to have a look?" If you want to uncover what's stopping them, " Hey, Sarah, just circling back on the proposal. Is there anything holding you back that I can help you with or clarify?"
[00:08:41] If they've told you they just needed some time, "Hey, Sarah..." I don't know who Sarah is. " Hey, Sarah. When you spoke, you mentioned, uh, you wanted a little time to think. Just checking back in as promised. Where did you land?" After meeting someone at an event, " Loved meeting you yesterday. I really enjoyed our conversation about," insert the thing.
[00:09:02] "Would love to keep the conversation going." If someone told you to come back later, " Hey, Sarah," poor Sarah, "You told me to come back to you in September. Here I am. How are things looking at your end?" That is it, ladies. And eventually, when you want to close the loop " Hey, Sarah, I don't want to keep filling your inbox, so I'm going to close the loop on this one for now.
[00:09:24] If the timing changes, you know where to find me." Simple and relatively easy. Human even. No weird sales, no weird language required. Follow-up should just feel like you Please don't take these scripts and suddenly start to sound like a robot. That would suck. Follow-up should sound like you. For me, it's light and breezy.
[00:09:48] That's just who I am. And that's why I always say we humanize the front, we systematize the back. The business, the message is human. The reminder in your [00:10:00] diary or CRM, that's system. You need both, because relying on yourself to magically remember that poor old Sarah said, "Come back to me next Thursday," especially if you're in menopause, just saying, while you're running an entire business, is a bit ridiculous.
[00:10:14] Put it somewhere. Put it somewhere. Your challenge, here's what I want you to do after this episode. Immediately find 10 people you have already had a conversation with. Not 10 cold leads,
[00:10:28] 10 people who have expressed interest in what you do
[00:10:32] someone you should have sent a proposal to, someone who said, "Later," someone you met at an event who had some interest, someone who asked for some information, someone who's gone a little bit quiet.
[00:10:46] And please, please, for the love of chocolate, follow them up. Don't write an essay. Don't apologize for contacting them. And please don't start with, " Sorry to bother you." You're not bothering them. You're running a business. Send the message. Ask the question. Make the next step easy, then let them decide, because there's a very big difference between following up and chasing.
[00:11:14] Following up says, " I said I would come back to you, so here I am." Chasing says, " I need you to give me the answer I want," because I feel desperate. One is professional, the other is pushy. And perhaps the simplest way to stop feeling pushy is to do what I would do. Tell people you're going to follow them up, put yourself on the hook, put it in the diary, and then follow through.
[00:11:42] Simple and easy. And before you go, here's the question I would love you to think about How much money is currently sitting in conversations you started but never finished? Not because people said no, but because you stopped asking. [00:12:00] Go back through your pipeline. Send your two follow-ups today, and then do it again tomorrow, and maybe the next day.
[00:12:08] Because sometimes the sale isn't sitting in your next new lead. Sometimes it's sitting in your follow-up. I'll see you next week
[00:12:16]