I Can See Clearly Now

2020 is the beginning of a shining new decade.

It’s also descriptive of normal clear vision. With 20/20 vision, you don’t need glasses for reading or for seeing at a distance. This decade is an open invitation to look clearly at areas of your life where you would prefer to shine instead of hanging back and procrastinating.

In this first month of the new year and new decade, I’m going to focus on an area that many people find challenging: follow-up. It’s one area in which, long ago, I too was a procrastinator. I see some of my own people being challenged in this area and know that it is one of the most underrated causes of chaos and failure in business life.

Follow Up/Follow Through

I’m using follow-through and follow-up together as the same thing. No matter what you call it, following up or following through is important in all aspects of life and especially so in business. For starters, follow-up is not bound by a certain timeframe. Surely, if you tell a co-worker you are going to take action on a specific project or task, timeliness is important. But, in a sales situation, follow-up is something that doesn’t have an end date. It is on-going.

You quickly learn in business that it takes roughly 8–12 contacts with one person to make a solid connection or sale. And when you consider that the majority of people give up after 3 contacts, it’s easy to see why follow-up is an area that needs to be talked about consistently.

So, I suggest getting clear about how you are going to make follow-up a top priority this year. I’ll be writing more about it in this month’s article which will be posted a little later this month. In the meantime, here’s wishing you a Happy New Year filled with successful follow-ups.