Welcome back to the Boss Responses podcast . We are on day three with our guest co-host , Leslie Lang . Today we're talking about when you should follow up after you first reached out to a potential new client . This is one of those questions I see a lot and I see a lot of great answers on this one .
Jennifer Goforth G regory's blog and Ed Gandia , has talked about this on his podcast , so check both of those out as well . But today Leslie and I are going to give you our take on the situation . Let's go ahead and jump into today's question . If you're a freelancer , business owner or anyone who deals with clients , you're in the right place .
I'm your host , teresa Edmond . I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt , imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asks a question . I wasn't ready for . I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business .
Each week , my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights . Monday through Thursday , we answer your questions , and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-host embraced their role as the boss of their business . Welcome to Boss Responses . We're back for day three with Leslie and Leslie , I have a question for you today .
This is from a reader about queries and letters of introduction and I don't do a lot of those , so I'm hoping you can answer this question . It says I send a lot of queries or letters of introduction and I find that most of the time I get assignments because I follow up , not from that first contact .
What's your take on this and how important is the follow up ?
That is such a great question . I actually find the same thing I went . A lot of my work at this point is from referrals or it's ongoing work with companies I've worked with for a long time . But when it gets a little slower , I go back to the basics and that's sending out LOIs , letters of introduction , and I find the same thing .
Very , very often I don't hear anything back and I think a lot of people think , oh , that doesn't work , then why bother ? But then always follow up and I often get interest and work after one or even two follow ups and I don't understand why , but I've just come to accept that now is that's the way it works .
So I shoot out the first ones , I put a note in my calendar for maybe a week later and if I haven't heard anything back , what I do is I hit forward on that first email that I sent out and I write I'm just following up to make sure you received my email below , let me know if there's any freelance writing I can help you with , or something like that ,
and that is the one , and then , if I don't hear , I might do it again a month later or then a couple months later . I just keep going till the cows come home . I never stop and it works .
I don't know why it works .
It works though .
Do you think it's a matter of just being there hitting their inbox at the right time ? And they've already seen your name , so they're familiar with it ?
I think that's probably part of it . I think some of it is just as basic , as people are busy and they may be glanced at your first email and then it got buried . You know , I mean that happens to all of us , and so they feel a little guiltier after they see it two or three times and haven't responded to you .
Or maybe they were interested and meant to respond to you , but I think that's so important . If there's only one or two things you could teach a new freelance writer , it would be to keep following up , and that's when you hear back from people .
Well , and yeah , not only with queries and letters of introduction , but with your clients . If you send them an email and they don't respond back , they get busy . People are busy . Don't assume they're ignoring you . Don't assume they're not interested . Send a follow up . If I do a query or a letter of introduction , I have a stopping point .
I will send that first one and then I follow up about a week later , like you do , and then I'll follow up two weeks after that and then a month after that , and that one is usually my final one . And I send something funny . I send a . There's an old sales trick where you send an email that has three options . I haven't heard back from you .
I'm going to assume it's one of these three things , and one of them is just completely outlandish A dragon ate your computer , something like that . And then it's so funny , you've gotten busy and you haven't had a chance to respond yet . You're really not interested and that's totally okay . You put something like it in there .
Or three a dragon ate your computer and you couldn't follow up .
Whichever option it is , I just wanted to let you know this is the last time you'll hear from me and I've had a response to almost every single one of those , even if it was just , you're right , I was busy or no , we don't have any work right now , but do check back in six months and at least that keeps that relationship open . I love that response .
That's great . Yeah , that's great . I will . If I don't hear after the first two or three contacts , I will maybe go back after six months or something , because everything has changed by then and they're not gonna be remembered that I wrote before and they've got new projects and so anyway , yeah , I think following up is so important .
I highly highly recommend you have to do that to succeed in this business .
One tip I would also give is , if you're following up with someone or a company and you haven't followed up with them in like six months , check to make sure it's still the same person , because with all of the staffing changes , it's possibility that the person you're emailing is no longer even there and someone just never reads their inbox anymore .
So double check and make sure that you're emailing the right person .
Yeah , LinkedIn , check them on LinkedIn , I agree .
LinkedIn's great . All right , thank you , and we will be back for day four with Leslie tomorrow .