This may sound like a gross exaggeration, but I assure you it is not. In my 40-plus years in business I’ve learned the vast majority of people don’t follow up on their commitments, at least not on a timely basis. Being successful isn’t all that hard. It’s about doing what you say you will do, when you say you will do it. Sounds simple, huh? It is. So why don’t most people do it? My guess is that they lack a follow-up system.
What system do I use? I live by the Tasks functionality in Microsoft Outlook. Every single commitment I make goes in Outlook with a start date and a due date. If you do this you will never forget to follow up with anyone. Whenever I send an email that needs to be followed up on, I bcc myself and then I put that email in Tasks, select the follow-up date, and then I can forget about it. It will pop up when I need to follow up.
I do this for not just business tasks but for my personal tasks as well. I have birthdays, anniversaries and other notable days in Tasks. That way I never forget to send a birthday or anniversary wishes, order football tickets, send flowers and complete other personal tasks.
In the business world, whenever I email a customer, a supplier, a banker and so on, I make sure to put the proper information into Tasks if follow up is required. I don’t think people purposely don’t respond; it’s just that the volume of email that busy people get makes it very hard to manage, so a lot of time they just ignore or delete emails that aren’t a high priority for them.
I also have found a lot of people don’t even use folders in Outlook. I was showing a person who used to report to me how to use Tasks in Outlook and was shocked to find out he didn’t have even one Outlook folder. He had over 15,000 emails in his inbox. I’m told he is in the majority, not the minority. So if most people you email are like this, your email ends up deeper down in their inbox, and unless you send a follow-up email, your original email will never see the light of day again.
If you are contacting someone for the first time, don’t expect to get a reply to your first email. I think a lot of people purposely delete your first email to see if you are a pro or an amateur. Sometimes it takes three or more follow-up emails before I get a response. I
think successful people recognize you’re a pro when you repeatedly, but professionally, follow up every week or so, not every day or so.
There is a thin line between being persistent versus being a pest. Many don’t know where to draw that line, and when they don’t, I just designate their email address as “junk” and future emails just go directly to my junk folder.
When you have mastered a follow-up system, you will see that you will be more successful in your business and personal endeavors.
Jim Sobeck is CEO of New South Construction Supply, a building products distributor based in Greenville with 11 locations in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. He is the author of “The Real Business 101: Lessons From the Trenches.” newsouthsupply.com.
