Episode 136: Why Following Up Is Your Secret Weapon for Business Growth (Without Being Salesy)

We all know that business isn’t just about the first hello — it’s about the follow-up. In this episode, we’re diving into why consistent, genuine follow-up is the secret weapon that fuels real growth. We’re stripping away the pressure and the fear of being “salesy” and showing you how to build lasting connections that lead to loyal clients and lasting partnerships.

Together, we’ll share actionable tips to help you confidently reach out, stay top of mind, and create meaningful relationships that support your mission and goals. If you’re ready to take charge, step into your power, and turn follow-ups into your fiercest business advantage — this episode is for you.

Let’s rise up, get strategic, and own the power of follow-up!

Top Takeaways:

• Why follow-up is the game-changer most businesses overlook
• How to follow up authentically without feeling pushy or “salesy”
• Simple strategies to stay top of mind with your prospects and clients
• Turning every follow-up into an opportunity for connection and trust
• How mastering follow-up can multiply your business growth and confidence

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Read the full transcript of this episode below:

 

Hi, I’m Lynn, and I’m Amanda. Welcome to the Pursuit of Badasserie, the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about something that I wish more people did in their businesses. We wish more people understood the importance of this one thing in getting and keeping clients, and that is the follow up.

Absolutely. Absolutely. The importance of follow up is for real people, and follow up does not mean going after and selling them.

Follow up doesn’t mean, you know, blasting them, but it can mean so many different things. Regardless, it’s situational, I would say.

But most people don’t follow up. And listen, Amanda and I come from a BNI background, as you know, if you’ve been listening to us or read one of our books, and it’s key when we would talk about in the chapter.

Thank you. So if you’re not familiar, like you go every week to the same chapter with the same people, with visitors, you ask for referrals, et cetera, and essentially what would happen is, is that people would get referrals and they would just kind of sit there, or like they would go to the networking meetings, but they wouldn’t follow up with the members.

And so they didn’t have as much of an experience or as result as what they could have had because they’re just kind of like going through the motions.

They could feel, some of them felt like they were gone. They didn’t need to. I mean, there were so many variations of why, but they left money on the table.

They didn’t continue to nurture relationships that could turn into friendships. It could turn into business that could turn into strategic alliances because they didn’t follow up.

But every, most networkers, or excuse me, most businesses, regardless if you’re in corporate or as a solopreneur, they don’t follow up.

And they need to. Oh my gosh, it is so important. When I. Think about even, even if you’re not thinking about the sheer money of things, think about your time.

Why would I go to a networking event just to collect a bunch of business cards that I will never use again, that I will never contact anybody again, that I will never get anything?

No wonder people feel like networking doesn’t work. If you show up thinking that people are just going to bow down to you and give you their money, that’s not how it works.

And even outside of networking, I know a lot of people I have talked with are afraid of the follow-up sounding too salesy, like, oh, if I follow up, they’re going to think I’m trying to sell them.

And I was like, well, you are trying to sell them. I’m not saying you’re not trying to do that.

And we’re not anti-following up to get the sale. That’s not what we’re saying. It’s just that if you have this feeling like you’re bothering people and I don’t want to be too salesy, I’m too, and I don’t want them to think that I’m this or I’m pushy.

You might be number one manifesting that. You might actually be being those. You might be those things. You might be too pushy.

You might be too salesy. And you’re not really creating any relationships, but you’re also leaving on the table the possibility for not just a sale, but a relationship that could lead to quadruple the sales.

Or, you know, I used to always tell people all of, I would say, 99% of my friends paid me first to hang out with them, and then they became friends because we built a relationship.

But really, it’s true. Most of my friends paid me to hang out, and then I became their friend. It wasn’t like I chose to just randomly hang out with them from a grocery store visit.

but those, if I had just written them off as like, I’m only going to connect with them when I want them to buy something from me, they wouldn’t be my friends to this day.

So because they were clients, they didn’t actually pay for her friendship. No, maybe that’ll be a new business. So no, that’s true.

But they were my clients. They were my clients. So that’s how I made friends is eventually you invest in the relationship over just the financial side.

It could just have easily gone the other way where I only… And they never hit a level of new relationships, so they could just be some people who paid me like a hundred bucks a few years ago.

Like that’s what it could have been. But it’s creating the relationships. So it’s more than just following up to get the money.

It’s following up for a variety of reasons. But bottom line, people don’t do it enough. You don’t do it enough.

Yeah. And listen, you follow up bait. The way you follow up and what you say in the follow up is contingent upon how the conversation or how the interaction went.

Right. So if you guys were talking about sales and they’re like, oh, send me more information about your X, Y, Z, then that is what you’re doing.

And you’re moving that along. Right. So you’re essentially follow up is moving the dialogue and the relationship along, regardless of what direction it’s going.

If they were just really cool to hang out with and you want to nurture that, of course, you’re not going to send them stuff about your business, but maybe you just might say, Hey, Amanda, it was great to meet you last night.

Let’s grab a cup of coffee, especially for the high level people that you want to continue to build that relationship with, you really base that, that next, and we’re all for template follow ups, especially for like networking and stuff, but you personalize them a little bit, but essentially that’s more for the masses, but you, you definitely want to put in that next step, like don’t leave it on the table, make sure that you’re following up with prospects, with people that you meet with clients.

And I will say, you know, it’s interesting when we decided to do this particular topic, I remembered a pattern that I would get into.

So with clients or potential clients, whenever I had a big bid, a big project that I was going to bid on, I would procrastinate my follow up with them because I was in fear of maybe either getting the business and not being worthy enough, or I was in fear of them.

Not necessarily. necessarily. Tell them, you know, that wasn’t always a fear, but sometimes that would come up. I’m more fear of success oriented versus the fear of failure.

And, um, and this, so when we were talking about this, I was thinking about that and I was like, holy , like I can remember this so clearly.

And I found myself doing it sometimes now, like, oh, people, people want this. And I might take 24 hours to follow up, but I’m still following up with them.

But there are some times where I might hesitate or do it right away because of some stuff in my mind that I’m going through.

So I think it’s important to understand, like, if you’re having a block of following up, what that block comes from.

And I understand where mine came from. Sometimes there’s, there are times though that you want to put time between the follow ups, um, as well.

Uh, but you also don’t want to get into that old, like dating thing, like the boy call first or, you know, the ball in their court three days.

He’s past the past, like all that’s . So, but understanding why you might hesitate, why you never even thought of it, what your resistance is, is if it feels, you feel like you’re being annoying or you it’s salesy or you don’t know what to say, like then, okay, fix that part.

But follow-up is key. And by the way, follow-up also isn’t a one-time thing. It’s not wham, bam. It’s multiple follow-ups and follow-throughs.

How many times do you think it’s too many times to follow up? So, it depends on the dialogue between the us.

So, if I have, I can give you real-life examples. So, we were promoting an event and I was introduced to a few people for promoting our six-day event going to Manila.

And I was, I made contact with a couple of people, but I was introduced to a few. And there was one high-level woman that I was introduced to.

She actually, and she messaged back in the three-way intro. Okay, I’ll deal with Lynn outside of this. And I messaged her.

And I also had friended her on LinkedIn and sent her a message and she said, email me, right? So she had, she had responded twice, but very superficial.

I’ll, I’ll message Lynn outside of this and I will on LinkedIn, um, email me. I would say for her, because I messaged her, I LinkedIn her and I messaged her one more time.

So I’m a rule of three, if they’re not responsive and then I might let time pass and I might just like find something that, you know, maybe even if I don’t know them, maybe this particular person loves, um, flower arrangements and I see a flower expo happening or whatever.

And I might send them that and that it’s more of a nurturing follow up versus like, uh, uh, a follow up.

But I’d say if they’re not responding, the three. Is kind of my rule of thumb. Yeah. How about you?

I agree with the rule of three, and I will say, because this question gets asked a lot, my clients all go, how many times, too many times to follow up?

I don’t think there is too many times to follow up. I’d agree. Again, the three is a great rule of thumb, like three times before you start in a short period, but I have people who fell into my CRM years ago, and I will circle back around to them.

Oh, yeah. Years. There’s no such thing as, until they tell me, like, until there’s a restraining order, they’re in.

don’t take it that far, but yes. I mean, it hasn’t gotten out of pace yet on that end anyway.

Listen, a no is a no now. It doesn’t mean a no is later, and that’s with a no, but even like the not engaging back, people get busy.

Like, I, sometimes, especially because I use WhatsApp all the time, like, I’ll look at a message, I think now you can make it on Reddit, but before you couldn’t.

And I forget that I didn’t, in my mind, I responded back. I’m super guilty of that. I’m so bad at that.

I do respond to some people here, some people there. Sorry that you’re not intellectually, emotionally, physically, psychologically, but physiologically, anyway, the point is, but when you think about how often you’re following up with somebody, I don’t believe that there is a limit to it.

And I’ll give an example, a very clear example in my mind. I had a, in my mind, granted, I had a client reach out and they said no to a service because they had a family emergency.

had a family thing going on. They’re like, you know, I really don’t have the capacity to do it. I can’t, I can’t meet with you.

And great, we’re done. Followed up again. And then she was pregnant and it was a difficult pregnancy and she was better.

And so that, again, another length of time. So at that point, a year had passed. She had had a family thing and then she got pregnant.

She had the baby. She was in the postpartum stuff. And my followups were mostly just like checking in to see how you’re doing.

Like, how’s the baby? Did you just add a a name? Like those kinds of things. Another year passed and she was out of the, you know, the newborn craziness.

And then she wanted to talk about the deal. So two full years had passed until she was ready to talk about it, but she was still in the loop of things.

I was still following up with her two years later. And then she became a client, an actual paying client two years later.

And it wasn’t pushy. I wasn’t calling her. You said like, isn’t your sibling dead yet? Like what’s, I mean, there was a lot of things that I could have done very wrong.

And there were a lot of conversations that I could have had that were, I could have guilted her and like, aren’t you done with the baby?

Like the baby’s six months now. Like, aren’t you done? Like there could have been a lot of things. I mean, the baby’s got a job now.

Just get, I mean, just the point is that there are a lot of very salesy things I could have approached her with to make her, to turn her off.

But again, it was a very light nurture. Thank you. I understood the situation of it, and it changed how I followed up with her.

wasn’t going to follow up with her, you know, in my normal seven days later kind of scenario when she had family issues that were very severe or that she had a difficult pregnancy.

That’s not the time to follow up or the occasion and the way I followed up changed. But the fact that I followed up did not change.

And that’s what we’re trying to say here is that you can change how frequently you do it. You can change the purpose of the follow up.

You can change all the things. But if I don’t follow up, you’re never going to get a yes. I mean, it’s going to be completely reactive.

I do want to make a couple points of what you just said. I love all of that. And Amanda is actually great.

And I used to do this with telemarketing and is like she kept note of like what was going on in her life.

And I’m a big advocate of that as well. Listen, telemarketing was not easy. think that is hard now. Like telemarketing was.

And I loved it. know But I would keep like a filing system, like a tickler system with three by five cards, was super old school, you did a spreadsheet, I loved it, the spreadsheet now, but she knows, but also her price point ticket items are higher than let’s say a massage therapist or an esthetician or somebody who doesn’t make as much money.

Now we’re not saying they can go into your CRM, which does the pulling up for you. Certain clients like my, my waxer, my threader actually will send me a message.

I love that she started this about, you know, when I’m due to say, hey, you’re due now on a WhatsApp message.

I love that. And it’s very simple. She’s because it’s nurturing, like people get busy, like the nurturing thing too.

But because you’re keeping record of like what’s happening, and she doesn’t get paid much, right? So but she’s still doing that.

The because you’re like putting that personal touch to it actually feels like they’re being seen, they’re being heard, and it adds value to the

So just kind of keep those two things into three things, actually, because you can use a CRM follow-up as well.

I think that those are super important. So tracking so you know what’s going on, the doing it and using that personal information or like reminding them of, and then also the third part, whatever I forget.

But I want to say about your example of having a smaller price point. That doesn’t make it less important because the lifetime value of a repeat customer, even if it’s a smaller amount.

So like Lynn, for example, it may, let’s just say for math, it’s only $5 she’s spending every month. But how many people is she referring who that person’s now picking up?

How many times during the year is she coming? So that $5 service may actually be worth $200. So you have to kind of think about the lifetime value of your client.

And that follow-up can be reframed in your brain because a lot of times you think like, oh, well, it’s only going to be worth like $20.

that’s like, actually Thank It’s not worth $20. It’s worth a lifetime value of that. So if that client on average stays three years, spending $100 a month every month for three years, it’s worth a lot more in your mind than just saying, oh, it’s a hundred bucks.

I could get that from somebody else. So thinking about your follow up and changing your mindset around why you’re following up with people can also help because, you know, it is work.

Yeah, but you can systemize and automate a lot of things. You don’t have to complicate it. Like I love, even with people who I do not know, never met, I’m pretty more active on LinkedIn than other things, but I, even through WhatsApp with acquaintances, I’ll leave them a voice note.

Hey, Amanda, I’ve been thinking about you. Like, like you crossed my mind. So if she’s not in my immediate need to follow up, I’m still, every once in a while, we’ll dip into some some of the old contacts that I want to continue to nurture and different things like that.

Like you can do a quick voice note. You can automate things where you’re. There are CRMs that will actually do that for you.

Send out cards was brilliant. It is, not was, a brilliant business model where it’s really big in the U.S.

and some other countries where you can pre-program to have a personalized card be sent out on certain dates, right?

So it’s staying in their mind. It’s staying, and I can tell you if you put in a follow-up, if you actually work a follow-up and follow-through system in your business, you will absolutely surpass your competitors because so many people don’t do it and they don’t do it right.

If they do do it, they don’t do it consistently. And just these little nuggets that we’re giving you can absolutely make you stand out heads and tails above everybody else.

That’s what entails. And, you know, I think about one of the other aspects is we don’t want you to be reactive.

So we talk a lot about being proactive versus being reactive. And when it comes to things like even your advertising in your, your, or you’re asking for leads, like it’s

Great to get a lead, you know, I’ve seen a lot of companies where I can get you 100 leads in the next 30, I can get 500 leads, great, and if you don’t have a system set up to handle and follow up with those leads, it’s a waste of money, because having somebody’s email and phone number and their name means jack squat if you never contact them, never reach out, you don’t know, and I mean, I just, I’ve been seeing quite a few of these come up on like my Facebook, be like, I’ll get you 100 new leads here, like, great, how did you get them?

Are the worm leads? What was the context of getting those leads? Is it just 100 random emails? Because I could look that up right now.

I could pull back to the class of 2009. I mean, there are AI things that will give you. Yeah, there’s AI things that will give you email.

So what is the context behind that? And then what’s your follow up? if you don’t have, what’s the context of that?

And then what’s your follow up? What’s the purpose of that next step? Because 100 leads means absolutely nothing. If you don’t do something.

We’ve given you lots of little nuggets about following up and some things that we use as well, like keeping track of who they are, automating, systemizing it, making sure that you’re following up.

And listen, I’ve given the story a few times. I remember when we went to sell their house in Hawaii and I went to three different real estate agents.

I ended up showing it with two. One was a friend and one was a business associate. I respected her.

The other one I think fell through. I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. Um, but I was pretty sad. probably giving it to my friend, et cetera, et cetera.

And after I showed them both the house about three months later, I got a thank you card from the one who’s business associate.

No, nothing from my friend. She just assumed she, she assumed. And it really stuck with me, and that is a thank you card, but it’s also a follow-up and a follow-through.

We ended up selling the house through her because to me, that was just the extra little touch that I felt like we needed.

And mind you, we were going through a divorce, and there were things happening, so there was a lot more kind of life-lifing at that point, and so it just meant a lot.

And so, obviously, you want to follow up right away, but even if you don’t have the time, and we often say when you go to a networking event or have some kind of event or anything, you want to schedule in time that next day to be able to follow up with everybody.

If it’s on LinkedIn, depending on how casual or how professional it is, you want to be following up right away and just saying, hey, it was nice to meet you, so that timing is important.

But at any time, even a year later, like, hey, like, Amanda, I know I dropped the ball, but I’ve just been thinking about you, and I just want to touch base.

Again, it’s not selling. It’s following through, it’s following up. Now, ideally, we want to do it before. One other point, too, before we end up closing, because I know we’ve been rambling a while, is don’t assume and don’t project, that’s the word.

Don’t project. Like, just follow up. Don’t assume, don’t project, just follow up, and you’ll be surprised what will happen.

Don’t assume that they don’t want to talk to you. Don’t assume that they don’t have connections that can help you.

You never know what they know. You never know what they’re willing to do. I mean, obviously go into things and relationships and kind of like a movement with a purpose and it’s not one sided.

It’s not all about you. But yeah, you want to make sure that you’re not assuming and projecting as well.

I’m going to say one more thing for the overachievers who are listening today. Please write down when you followed up with them.

And I say this because, in my mind, so much time has passed between the last time I spoke with somebody.

I think that months have passed, when really I’ll look at my spreadsheet and like, oh, I actually talked to her 32 hours ago.

I’ve had to call her out on this a few times. Yeah. I assume because I am on hyperspeed, that that’s the time I’m going to I don’t If you are an overestimate receiver and you tend to move very quickly, and I both do, but I’m much worse than Lynn is at this, don’t over, I don’t assume, well, just don’t, don’t be crazy like me, okay?

Just please write down because you don’t want to assume that somebody is late at getting the information back to you.

Like, oh my God, it’s been forever. This person has been so late getting this information to me. And then you realize it’s only been six hours and you’re the crazy one.

Okay? Or time zones, it’s been so long. They haven’t gotten back to me but they’ve been asleep the last 12 hours.

It’s okay. We’ve had this conversation many times. Many times. It’s funny. It’s almost like you’re in a time warp.

I am in a time warp. It’s hilarious but I love I could do that choreography by the way. The point is please please please check to make sure that you’re not surprised.

And simplifying it like we were talking about her spreadsheet I now I use more of a spreadsheet but I also how I follow up like I we should not rely on our memory as much either.

And that is a bad habit of mine. Like I have always had a really good memory. It’s not, you know, as we age, it’s not the same, but, um, but also you can put it into your calendar.

So really important dates. Like I put it into my calendar as a notification on my Google calendar. Cause we live by our Google calendars.

We love Google, Google. want to sponsor us. Um, so yeah, put it into your calendar. time. Don’t overcomplicate it.

Just start implementing a follow-up and follow-through system in your business and it will pay off. Believe me, 100%. That’s insane.

All right. So if you like this podcast, please hit that like button, hit the subscribe button and share it with your network.

Like this is super important. This should be a part of your business operations from the very get-go. All right.

And if you haven’t been doing it, today’s a great day to start. Yes. It’s never too late to follow up with somebody.

If you think that it is too late, think about anybody. you’re a long lost friend called you up after 10 years and said, you know, I’ve been thinking about where have you been in the last 10 years?

Would you be sad about that? Probably not. No. So think of it that way. When you, again, don’t assume they don’t want to hear from you.

Follow up. Today’s a good day to do it. Absolutely. And start to create a system that you can duplicate and follow the one, two, three.

to make it easy for you and then you can pass it on to one of your employees to help you with eventually or someone who takes over your position but share this with your community we want to know how are you using to follow up like there’s plenty of tools and gadgets out there too that you can automate and customize with but please leave in the notes shoot us a dm what are you using to follow up and kind of what’s your rule of thumb.

yeah I definitely want to see we want to see what what are you guys doing that’s working and what’s not working yeah till next time get after it.