For at least two months, I couldn’t hold face-to-face meetings with clients when the mandatory shutdowns began due to the COVID pandemic. That was a tough time for me as I was pregnant and scrambling to adjust and master virtual meetings and other digital applications. But I qualified for Court of the Table during that year for the first time, and an important factor in attaining that success was how I followed up with prospects.

The little details

My follow-up process has just three components. The first one is always have a list of pending prospects with just enough details about them. After meeting any prospect, I would open the notes app in my phone and type in their name and details like where I met them. Advisors contact so many prospects while doing our job, and sometimes I have forgotten that I met a particular person two weeks ago. By the time I do remember, reaching out to them by then would be too late. So, every day when I start work, I scroll through the notes on my phone and begin my follow-ups. This habit enabled me to remember every prospect I’ve met.

Take it to the text level

My second key for improving follow-up is to always send a text after the first meeting. A couple of hours after the meet, maybe while I’m on the train or bus, I text the prospect, thank them for sparing time to meet me, and then, most importantly, recap the whole meeting. For example, if we talked about income protection, I would say, “I hope you understand the importance of income protection as you are the sole breadwinner and your whole family depends on you.” I’ll end the text with a message like “Let me create a proposal for you, and I’ll see you next week. Have a great day!” The post-first-meeting text sparks the prospect to once again remember what we talked about, and I planted the idea in their mind that we will be meeting again next week.

Contact tracing

The last and most important follow-up task is stay in contact with your prospects until you meet for the second time. For example, assume you met a prospect on Monday and on Friday you follow up and ask if they’re available for a second meeting next Monday. You waited too long. Between Monday and Friday, the prospect has forgotten you and what you talked about, so the likelihood of that person wanting to meet with you is low.

What I would do is on Tuesday I would send him articles to read, like the importance of insurance or something related to what you talked about during the first contact. I would add a personal note like, “A good read on the importance of income protection.” There’s no sales pressure on the prospect, just an article. On Thursday, I send another piece of news, or maybe a link to my Instagram work account or my webpage. Once again, no pressure, and I’m not asking for a meeting yet. This is what I call a subtle follow-up. I’m sending them content to read and reinforcing the importance of what I proposed, which in this example is income protection. It could be for investments as well. So, the prospect keeps seeing my name, but I’m not coming off as aggressive.

Come Friday, I then do an obvious and direct follow-up. I’ll say, “Hey Mr. Prospect, I’ve completed the proposal that you requested. Would you be available to meet on Monday?” The probability of the prospect saying yes would be high because my name kept popping up in his WhatsApp the whole week. Ending with a direct follow-up is important because you cannot send subtle messages forever. Anyone would get bored of it after a while.

I hope these three pointers bring as much success for you as they have for me.

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