The Visibility Strategy You’re Probably Avoiding

Ignoring follow up is just how we avoid turning

visibility into sales. What you want is visibility to become

sales, and your business needs you to close the loop.

This is the entrepreneur school podcast, where we believe you

can run a thriving business and still make your family a

priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or

early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO

while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is

Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who

started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR

girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life

is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this

show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business

owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you

grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life

that you want. Welcome to entrepreneur school.

All right. Welcome back. We are still in our summer strategy

snack series where I am sharing quick, actionable visibility

tips that don't require content or social media or constant

effort, but still move the needle. Now today's strategy, it

is simple and powerful, and most of us avoid it. We are talking

about follow up. Yes, I know the word can make you feel a little

awkward or pushy, but hear me out. Visibility isn't just about

getting seen once. It's a slow burn. And if you've been reading

the aktar series like I have, you know, slow burn can be worth

the wait, at least that's what I've been told. I didn't know

what this term meant until I started reading fiction novels

and romance and now this fantasy series, and, you know, check in

with me when you hear this episode if you have read that

series, because I am recording this in advance and I'm

currently really considering quitting books. They're not.

They're not doing it for me right now, but I keep being told

it's worth the wait. It's so worth it. So yes, that's the

comparison I'm going to draw for this week's episode, because

follow up is how you keep momentum going, whether it's

with a potential client who's halfway to a yes, or a

collaborator that you've already started a conversation with. Now

before we dive in, I want to remind you again about the free

resource I have for my podcast listeners, the 90 day visibility

sprint starter kits. This will help you build intentional

follow up into your strategy without dropping the ball. It

has a tracking system and all of your visibility plans built in

with an AI assistant to help you along the way. So make sure you

grab it. It's in the show notes.

Okay, let's get into it. So follow up is a visibility

strategy, which we may not have thought of, because visibility

is all about relationships, and that involves ongoing connection

and communication more than one time. The truth is people are

busy, right? So following up actually helps them circle back

and take action. It is a reminder of something that they

have committed to or have an open loop for right following up

isn't annoying, it's generous, professional and helpful. That's

the reframe that you need to take with this, which is the

challenging part. But the truth is, without follow up, your warm

leads or your golden collaboration opportunities can

just disappear. And the end game, I will remind you, for

visibility, is sales, right? It's not just about getting in

front of people or growing an audience. It's ultimately so

that you can make sales. And sales do not happen without

follow up. That is the truth of the matter.

So there's two types of follow up we're going to talk about in

this episode. One is with your potential clients, and the other

is with potential collaborators. So let's talk about the clients

first, because this is the one that feels the hardest. We fear

seeming pushy, right? We don't want somebody to feel like now

we've had this conversation, we've had a sales call or a

discovery call, and now we're just like, inundating them to

try and make a sale, no, and you can follow up without being

pushy as well, because if someone has. Shown interest, and

they've taken the time to have a conversation with you. They

expect you to follow up. I will give you an example, because I

have recently been considering hiring a personal trainer to

work out with my daughter and me at the same time, and I reached

out to her. I said, I want to do this, and I haven't heard much

back, which has also just caused me to forget and not take action

either. I could have already been doing these workouts, but

it's taking a lot more effort on my part to actually, you know,

find the link and buy the package and schedule the

sessions, and those are all friction points that are the

potential to cause someone to not buy in the end, right? Like

ultimately, I could just go on and forget about it all summer,

and then it doesn't happen at all. And that's because I'm

having to take the effort as the potential client rather than

getting the follow up that I would truly appreciate in this

situation.

So here are some tips for following up. One, I would

suggest that within five days maximum of you sending a

proposal or a booking link or a sales you know, check out

whatever it is that you have as a method, or having a discovery

call with somebody five days, like, that's it Max like, before

the week ends, unless you had a call on a Friday, you know, make

it a quick touch point, because they'll remember having that

conversation with you. And another pro tip in your follow

up communication, do not end with let me know what you think,

because these six words kill conversions. You need to ask a

direct question like, are you ready to move forward? Do you

have any questions before joining? Is this something that

you're planning on starting this month or next, if it's something

that you know that doesn't have a deadline of an entry date when

you're starting it, the goal for you as the service provider is

clarity. You want to help your client come up with a yes, a no

or a not yet, and then you can continue to pursue that from

there. Reminder it's okay if somebody needs more time, at

least you know that right. And the only way to know that is to

ask to put that out there, because ignoring follow up is

just how we avoid turning visibility into sales? What you

want is visibility to become sales. And your business needs

you to close the loop. It needs you to check in. And sometimes

it's multiple times, sometimes somebody's ready to go after,

like, letting them soak for a couple days. And honestly, I

haven't had a conversation with you about, like, Discovery

calls, or how I like to do them, but I'm not a big fan of the you

know, take their credit card on the spot that I know that I have

been taught in the past by other people who who teach sales. I

like a I'm going to send you this conversation in Word format

that you can read. So the proposal, the offer, the what's

included. I like to give them that in an email after our

conversation, and sometimes a video, but I email them that,

and then I ask them to make the decision about how they want to

move forward, and give them the details about doing that. So

it's really important to have outlined your entire customer

journey and what that flow looks like, because this is where

sales are lost, right? If you just avoid having follow up

conversations after somebody reaches out or connects this is

what's killing your business. And I speak from personal

experience, I know that it's something that I put to the

bottom of my list, and then I'm like, Why haven't I messaged the

people that I've actually talked to about working with me?

Instead, I prioritize, you know, making a podcast or getting in

front of more people that I want to potentially have work with

me, and then at the end, like this is a huge gap. And so this

is why I'm pointing this out as a huge, important part of your

visibility strategy when it comes to sales.

And so then the other follow up audience would be collaboration

opportunities, right? So if you had a great coffee chat, and we

talked about coffee chats in last week's episode, so we can

go back to that one. If you want to hear like how I use those to

build relationships and find opportunities, then make sure.

After that chat, you are tracking what was discussed. You

know, did they mention a podcast or a bundle or something you can

apply for? Do they ask you for a bio or a headshot or filling out

a form, and what was the date that you needed to get that to

them? Because this isn't just about a pitch. This is about

being respectful of somebody's process, right? And this is why

I help my clients build the system for tracking visibility

and not just the outcome but the process of achieving the

opportunity, right? So I like to use a project management tool

like Trello for post chat to do's. So if I have to fill out a

form or book a podcast through a link, and I don't have time to

do that right away after the call, I need to track that. It's

a to do for me, right? And then also blocking time once a week

to check in and complete those next steps. So there's always a

column on my Trello board called in progress, where I've either

yet to apply for something that has a deadline that I'm aware

of, or I need to fill out some additional information for the

person who's in charge of the collaboration, and that has to

be tracked and managed, otherwise, you then earn a

reputation for being flaky, which is not what you want. So

you want to make people make it easy for people to work with

you, and so respecting their timelines and their system is a

huge part of that.

So following up the underutilized, avoided,

potentially purpose strategy that can actually land you

opportunities and make sales for your business. Follow up is how

you turn visibility into actual opportunities. So whether that's

securing a client or locking in a collaboration, it's really not

pushy, it's professional, and it's part of showing up for your

business and for the people who you want to support. And if

you're not already tracking these opportunities or building

follow up into your plan, make sure that you have grabbed the

90 day visibility sprint starter kit that will help you do that.

It's free, and you can get it in the show notes. So I want to

leave you with a challenge today, and that is to think

about who you need to follow up with right now, who has been on

your list for a while that you keep bumping to the next day or

the next week. And know that. You know I want you to send them

a follow up today. And if you really can't think of anyone,

you can email me. Email me. What do you want to talk to me about?

Do you have a question? Do you want to book a networking call?

Do we have a collaboration that we could be doing? I invite you

to do that. My email is kelly@ksco.ca I'm looking

forward to hearing from you. I'll talk to you next week on

the podcast. Bye for now.