Right on Dude! Follow Through and Follow Up: 2 Keys to Success

Kris Jenkins had it. Michael Jordan had it…many times over. Even Jeff Spicoli had it, if you consider Mr. Hand’s desire for Spicoli to merely show up for class, even if having pizza delivered to class wasn’t part of the deal.

What is “it”, you ask? Follow through, and its twin, follow up.

I’m not one to rant, though I will if given the opportunity. It depends on the topic. As you can see, I’m writing about two basic, yet shockingly absent, keys to…well just about anything: follow through and follow up. Ok, so this is about to shift into a rant. I do so unapologetically, as I believe you’ll agree that it’s rant-worthy.

Before I jump in with both feet, I should point out that none of what follows is fabricated for the sake of the post. I’m a storyteller, and love a good piece of fiction as much as the next person. That said, this post is, unfortunately, non-fiction masquerading as horror, grotesquely formed with a seemingly endless supply of appalling rubbish. Commence rant.

Obligatory Thor GIF via Giphy

 

Sorry Yoda: Only “Do”, Never “Do Not”

Raise your hand if you’ve heard the expression, “Do what you say you’re going to do”. Yeah, me too. And so has just about everyone else, from Generation Z to Baby Boomers. So, if we’ve all heard this and know it’s meaning, why is the action part – “do” – so glaringly lacking?

Follow through and follow up are two keys to success in both your both personal and professional lives. As a teenager, you proudly carried the flag of anti-tyranny rebellion, protesting any request (all of which were, like, totally unreasonable) from your parents. You learned what follow through means when you found yourself “unfairly” grounded. “I’ll never treat MY kids like that,” you growled as you skulked away to your room.

Fast forward to your adult life. Maybe you’ve married and produced some kids. Life gets busy, but not too busy to forgo disciplining your kids for whatever treasonous act they’ve committed (like leaving dishes on the dinner table). As you swing the hammer of discipline like Thor, and hear your hellion of a child shout, “I’ll never treat MY kids like that,” a feeling of déjà vu sweeps over. Wait, what’s that? Now I’m showing my kids what it means to follow through?

In your personal life, follow through means standing behind something you say. “If you don’t do your homework, you lose (insert device).” Few threats draw a line in the sand like that of taking away your kid’s device(s). It’s also the line that is challenged more than raptors testing the fences in Jurassic Park. Fail to follow through on this promise and you’ll end up with a T-Rex sized problem.

Always Be Closing (Following Up/Through)

Follow through and follow up in business and your professional life are two skills that, while not hard to do in reality, seem to be as fleeting as the evidence supporting the existence of the elusive Sasquatch. Sidebar: I keep an open mind…and let’s leave it at that. But I digress.

As Chris Farber once wrote, and something I strongly believe: EVERYONE in a company is in sales/business development. What about development or compliance, you say? Whether it’s building new functionality or managing risk and regulations, every team within a firm has a sales responsibility in that all ultimately serve clients. Fail to follow through on a client request, and whoosh, kiss that client (and likely others) goodbye. Flip side…deliver what they want and make them happy, and they’ll continue to buy your products or services.

Follow through and follow up are core competencies for successful business developers, across a wide range of roles, including corporate sales, account management, relationship management, and recruiting. Most sales take place at, or after the fifth contact with a prospect, so why not continue to follow up with your prospect until at least that point? If you tell your prospect you’ll provide something, you’d better follow through. Do it.

Filling the Gap

In the first sentence above, I mentioned recruiting. In many posts and updates I read on LinkedIn, and in conversation with colleagues, a common theme arises: a lack of follow-up from a recruiter. Someone I know well has been approached by dozens of recruiters. After an initial contact and perhaps an introductory call, only a handful followed up or followed through. The trail ran cold with no further contact whatsoever, despite follow-up by my friend. That’s no way to run a people-focused business.

Fair or not, this assessment is obvious, given the visibility of the recruiting profession. It’s a sales, business development, and relationship management role that sits in clear view, considering the number of people looking for new gigs. How hard is it to fire off a quick note to show someone they matter?

I follow up or follow through with whatever I’ve been asked to deliver, and I do so in a reasonable amount of time. What’s reasonable? Depends. One key to successful follow up and follow through: setting proper expectations. This is a topic for another post, but suffice it say: if you don’t manage expectations, you’ll find it tough to follow up or follow through timely.

Do: follow through and follow up. Don’t: be a Sasquatch.

 

 

Hope: In Business and Life, Finding The Light

Image by multimedia.dn.no

“There comes a time in every man’s life when man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.”

– Lou Mannheim (said to Bud Fox), in the movie Wall Street

In my last post, I wrote about why I believe in UFOs. Science-fueled arguments aside, the real point of the post was the powerful nature of belief. This human-only construct is how we’ve accomplished so much in our brief time on the planet. Belief underpins almost everything we do, from observing religion to rooting for our favorite sports teams. The latter could easily be confused as delusions of grandeur. Any Philadelphia Eagles fans out there know this all too well. Even so, as powerful as belief is, there’s something else with even greater juice. Hope.

Hope is the fuel for the vehicle we call belief. When we’re full of hope, we move forward in any direction we choose, believing that whatever we set out to accomplish, we will. Hope allows us to believe that we’ll become or do what we want, from finishing school to being a great role model and parent. It gives us limitless belief, which is critical in overcoming the inevitable Everest-like obstacles life tends to toss in our path. Instead of giving up, we look for ways over, through or around an obstacle.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter

Image by someecards

Without hope, the vehicle either comes to a rest, or never moves. How many times have we heard the expression, “This is hopeless”? I’m willing to bet that in almost every one of those situations, things weren’t truly hopeless. Even Aron Ralston, the hiker and subject of the true story depicted in the movie 127 Hours, never truly lost hope. His tale is harrowing and horrific, but never hopeless.

Losing hope can feel a lot like what Hal Holbrook’s character describes to Charlie Sheen. It’s like careening toward the abyss without the ability to tap the breaks. When we look into the abyss, it’s our indefatigable human spirit, our never say die will, that pulls us back and hardens our resolve.

Adversity reveals and strengthens character. Still, there are times when we need help to find hope through the clouds of despair. Supportive people in our lives can provide that critical tether to help keep us out of the abyss long enough to rebuild hope.

Building Hope

Image by Warner Bros

In gamer terms, hope is the ultimate health unit. A little hope goes a long way to restoring belief. Belief moves us to action. By the way, hope is not: “Man, I hope I win the lottery” or “I hope the Eagles beat Dallas”. Those represent a wish. It’s another four-letter word, but doesn’t punch at anywhere near the level of hope, which is the undisputed heavyweight champion.

So what does hope look like? Hope helps us to build our own fortress of solitude when things seem to be crashing down around us and challenging our beliefs. It keeps us going when we might otherwise give up. There are countless quotes that about hope, including Winston Churchill’s famous, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

My personal favorite: “It’s darkest before the dawn.” This tells me, or anyone dealing with challenging circumstances, that when things appear the bleakest, brighter times are just ahead. I like the visual of leaving the darkness behind and moving toward the hope-restoring light of a new day.

Hope is our ally in life. We feel its power in all we do, whether we realize it or not. It shapes our dreams, anchors our beliefs and guides our actions and decision-making. It’s not “The Force”, but it’s damn close.

I “hope” you enjoyed this post or found some meaning in it.

How To Use Email To Hit the Mark

Don’t Fail at Email!

Email is a vital marketing tool for attracting new clients while keeping in contact with current clients. However, many companies overlook important structure and content items, with often disappointing, if not disastrous results.

The following items, when used in email marketing campaigns, can render the email useless, and frequently divert your important email to the junk mail folder. Some of these are content-related, and can be just as damaging. Do any, or all of these, and you’re well on your way to a successful fail mail campaign!

1. Attachments

Unless you’re emailing to people/companies with whom you’ve had a previous dialogue, sending emails with attachments is an effective way to go directly to the junk mail folder.

2. Pictures

Not to be confused with HTML imagery; emails with .jpeg, .png, and other image formats often find the spam folder with impressive speed.

3. Lame Subject Line

Since email is often the first introduction of your firm to a prospective client, why use a boring, stale and unattractive subject line? Lame subject line equals rapid-fire deletion.

4. Too Much Content

Ever receive an email and open it, only to be greeted by content whose length rivals CVS receipts? While grunting, “Ugh” in exasperation, you click to delete the email with a brutal efficiency.

How far did you read, if at all?

5. Too Little Content

Sending an email with barely more than a subject line is like to telling your prospective client, “I’m too lazy to bother with giving you enough information to help you find out more about us, but you should buy anyway.”

Let me know the next time you find a prospect or client that accepts this ‘offer’.

6. Weak Content

When it comes to communication, content is king. Make sure that it’s the best it can be! Perhaps you’ve got the right amount of content, but the content itself lacks the sizzle that attracts people. Without a compelling message, prospects won’t see value in your company’s products or services.

Use strong, powerful words…like verbs. Typically, the point of an email is to solicit some sort of positive response. Having a call to action with verbs does just that. It puts prospective buyers in the frame of mind of using your product and elicits an emotional response to using your product.

A Volvo dealer might close an email to prospective buyers with the following call to action.

“Grip the wheel. Sink into the soft leather seats. Experience the exhilarating sensation that only comes from driving a new Volvo. Test drive yours by the end of the week, and get $500 cash back toward your purchase!”

7. Lack of Links

Posting links in your email campaign is a simple, yet effective way to drive traffic to your company’s website. It’s also far more Google-friendly. Depending on the length of your email, you should have 3-5 different links (not five links that all go to the same landing page). One hint – make sure that your website content is compelling too!

Email is a critical form of communication for companies of all sizes. Some use it mostly for interacting with clients; others use it to drive new business. Either way, following these simple guidelines increases the likelihood that your important emails reach the target audience and deliver the right message. With one chance to make a good first impression, why wouldn’t you make the extra effort?

Welcome to Our Blog!

 

 

 

As a writing and marketing company, we recognize that communication is the most important part of what we do. It’s how we build brands, deliver news and provide ongoing, meaningful content for our clients. Sure, communication begins with effective writing, but it takes many forms. Blogging is one such form. This is our blog, and we invite you to step in and look around.

With our blog, we hope to convey useful ideas, thought-provoking topics and relevant information about writing, marketing, business strategy and leadership, all infused with a sense of humor. Occasionally, we’ll drift from our regular themes to discuss topics that might seem as if they come out of left field. Why? You never know what will spark a conversation, and besides, like you, we have interests beyond the day-to-day. We might blog about sports, travel or whatever strikes our fancy.

Mark Twain once wrote, “Write without pay until someone offers to pay.” Writers can relate to Twain, particularly those who’ve toiled away at dead-end jobs while attempting to scratch out a living writing. For years, while working tirelessly (and often, I felt, mindlessly) in the financial services industry, I looked for, and snatched up any job-related writing opportunity that arose. The type of writing mattered little. I enjoyed the writing process, as well as the break from the daily monotony. Technically speaking, I was paid to write. That’s how I saw it, even though I’m sure each company viewed my writing proclivity as just another way to squeeze more out of me without having to pay me anything beyond my salary.

At some point in our lives (usually when we have to start paying for stuff), the realization hits home that we need to get serious about making money. “Put your dreams aside, son,” we’re told, “it’s time to get serious about your career.” Armed with that enthusiasm-crushing advice, we march off to some button-pushing, lever-pulling job that is neither inspiring nor fulfilling. I know, because I’m describing myself. If you’re not doing what you feel passionate about, you’ll continue to feel the call of something different…something better. For me, I felt the call of writing.

Throughout my career, I’ve found that, with respect to writing, people fall into one of three buckets. These are merely my observations, but they’ve proven accurate.

1. People Who Can’t Write

This group represents people for whom writing is an unbearable chore, as they tend to have neither the desire nor the ability. The English language is extraordinarily complicated, so it’s hardly surprising that grammar, spelling and style can flummox people.

2. People Who Can Write, But Don’t (or Don’t Want To)

In this group are people who have the talent and ability to write, but avoid it wherever possible. They find it to be a grueling task, akin to having teeth pulled. Though people in this group understand the importance and value of well-written communication, they’re often focused on other high-value tasks.

3. People Who Can Write and Do

Like any other writer, I fall into this bucket. You love writing, and can do it all day. It’s not a chore or task, at least in the sense of enjoyment. Sure, the occasional writer’s block pops up, however it’s not an insurmountable challenge. Not every assignment offers heart-pumping excitement; it’s the act of writing that fuels us.

We’ve had clients from each bucket (though mostly the first two), and each offers its own unique experience. Though shortened forms of communication are valued today (e.g. Twitter and text language), businesses can’t afford to have mistakes in their marketing materials, website content, blogs or sales proposals. One small grammar or style miscue can make all the difference between landing a big deal and seeing the competition win the business.

So, with all this said, how important is writing to you and your business?