In my forty years of experience as a business owner and coach, I can tell you that the entrepreneurs who achieve the greatest success are those who regularly pause to make sure they are on track to reaching their goals. We must celebrate our successes and identify our areas for improvement.

Last week, we discussed the importance of setting SMART goals for the year ahead.  Today, we’re going to focus on an aspect of achieving success that is just as important as the initial goal-setting phase—although it gets less attention—and that is following through on the measurable and consistent action steps necessary to achieve your goals.

Whether you’re learning to swing a golf club, baseball bat, or tennis racquet, coaches always emphasize the importance of follow-through. It’s not just hitting the ball that matters, but how you continue your swing once contact is made.

The same thing applies in networking, sales, and almost any professional situation. Without purposeful follow-through on your actions and interactions with others, you won’t be able to reach your professional potential.

“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through — then follow through.” Eddie Rickenbacker

Follow-through means being proactive and keeping your word as you work to achieve your goals. Often we feel we’ve completed a task because the action plan is in progress, but we underemphasize how powerful it is to continue developing, tracking, and monitoring operations and relationships even after the plan is in action.

All top salespeople are masters at follow-through. Lack of follow-through is the primary element missing when sales are not keeping pace with leads generated. You may have hundreds of leads with a great deal of potential, but unless you follow through and actively engage these leads, they will not turn into sales.

As Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan state in Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, “Follow-through is the cornerstone of execution, and every leader who’s good at executing follows through religiously. Following through ensures that people are doing the things they committed to do, according to the agreed timetable.”

Ways to Excel at Follow-Through

• Seek to improve. No matter what you do or at what stage of your career you are currently in, there are ways you can improve your performance when it comes to follow-through. Doing so will up your game more broadly, as clients and others you interact with see you as an increasingly polished professional.
• Keep your word. When you say you’ll do something, be reliable in meeting your commitment, whether to a client, supervisor, customer, or direct-report. If you can’t deliver it, don’t promise it.
• Stand out. Timely follow-up can mean the difference between landing or losing a client or sale. Reconnect with people soon after meeting them—whether they ask you to or not—and they will be more likely to remember you, increasing the likelihood they will eventually buy from you.
• Make a system. Create a follow-up system that can be automatically put in place so that you don’t miss the boat. For instance, when a prospect expresses an interest in hearing more, schedule follow-up calls into your calendar immediately, making note of how your prospect wants to be communicated with (i.e., via email versus by phone), and following up in a timely, respectful manner. That shows your prospect that you are a trustworthy professional.
• Show appreciation. Send a thank you note after you provide a complimentary sales call. This will make you stand out from the competition, inviting an ongoing relationship to develop. A short thank you note gives you a great excuse to add anything you forgot to say during the call, or to highlight your main points again.
• Keep it up with existing clients. Following through after sales have been made is a smart strategy, as well as the right thing to do. Getting business from new customers costs significantly more than securing additional business from existing customers. It also gives you the opportunity to seek feedback you can apply across the board. Last but not least, it presents you with the chance to ask for referrals.
• Be a giver. The holidays are a perfect time to invest time, money, and effort into helping individuals in your community and giving generously to your clients, employees, referral partners, and service providers. Whether you write handwritten notes, send holiday gifts, or get your network involved in a service project, taking the extra step demonstrates that you are a person of quality and you truly care about your professional relationships.

In sports, you have to focus on practicing your follow-through as you perfect your swings, and business is no different. Continue to practice or develop a new habit to follow through on a consistent basis. As with your sports swings, the practice will make follow-through become more automatic, and you will find yourself more capable to meet your goals and achieve success.

At Celeste Giordano Coaching, I teach my clients the importance of follow up in building a Legacy Business. If you’d like to double your revenue next year while creating a lifestyle that allows you to spend time doing the things you love with the people you love most, contact me today.

Celeste Giordano’s mission is to help business owners develop the skills, knowledge and attitude necessary to “DoublePlus™” their income and become effective and inspirational leaders in their fields. Whether it’s taking your successful business to the next level or starting a new venture, she will teach you the exact skills and strategies you need to enroll more quality prospects, build a rock-solid team, and break through obstacles to achieve real profit and lasting success. Celeste is a professional business growth specialist, a master sales strategist, and dynamic speaker with more than 40 years experience in direct sales and managing high-performing teams.

To learn more about Celeste, click here.

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