Why Following Up Is Hurting Your Business

Traditional follow-ups often come across as self-serving and create resistance. 

I’ll share trust-based languaging techniques that replace follow-ups with collaborative conversations. 

You’ll learn how to keep the momentum going without chasing or pressuring your prospects.

In this month’s Stump The Guru show, I will challenge a common practice: following up.

I've made it my life’s mission to create the clarity that is missing in the traditional sales process, through decades of working with thousands of business owners all over the world, refining Trust-Based Selling into a true art form:

· Stop "chasing" ghosts (leads that never call you back!)
· Make the sale in ONE conversation, without pressure
· Stop selling, create deep trust instead

I’ve taken my mission one step further and created a livestream show called “Stump The Guru’” -- where you get the opportunity to jump on live and ask me your toughest sales questions that you’d love an answer for.

Get Ari's latest best-selling book "Trust In A Split Second!" for FREE along with a Complimentary Lead & Sales Growth Consultation (Value $995.00) at http://www.UnlockTheGame.com/FreeConsult, and join him as a guest on his podcast "Stump The Guru" and get your chance to ask Ari one-on-one questions, fill in the form to be clickable to this link: https://links.arigalper.com/widget/form/rh5YanDqzZqPHVBCKlKG

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to Stump the Guru podcast with your host, Ari Galpa, the world's number one authority on trust-based selling and the creator of Unlock the Game. This monthly podcast will bring you guests from virtually every industry unrehearsed to try and stump Ari with their most difficult sales challenges. This podcast is for business owners, financial advisors, entrepreneurs, and sales executives. The guests on this show have only one goal in mind to stump Ari. And Ari has one goal in mind: to overturn the notion of selling as we know it today by building trust between buyers and sellers.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Hope you're doing well. We have our tip of most of our followers who listen to these call uh these sessions or watch these sessions religiously every single month. Thank you so much for showing up today. If you're live, then you can see me live at the arigalper.com forward slash live page. Um, if you don't know who we are, we focus on trust-based selling. We've been focused on this for the last 25 years. Uh, it's been our niche, and we have mastered the art of not chasing uh leads, uh, not having to do uh free consulting, uh free education, all those things that we just do as normal things, but we should not be doing. Um and this this this session that we have once a month is really for people to jump on live, ask me a question unprepared, to have me give provide some provide them some insights to help them move their sales process forward without friction. Uh, and if you're not part of our community yet, you should join. There's uh free access at regalper.com forward slash free. Also, you can download the app on the screen there. It says regalper.com forward slash app. Um, but we have a large growing community of trust-based business owners, the only one in the world that focuses on the idea of trust. And we do plan on building out a global network of business owners around this concept. We have active members in the community every day posting success stories, tips, ideas. Uh, there's different levels you can join, um, levels with working with me uh and different levels below that. So I would encourage you if you're not if you're listening now and not a member, you can join at ralper.com forward slash free to enter our world. Um, and then we'll take it from there. So welcome everyone, and uh, we are gonna get started. And let me just kind of theme today. So the theme is this idea that following up with people is hurting your business. And I'm gonna talk about that because I just did a uh a talk to a group of CEOs yesterday, and they were kind of not boasting, but saying very they're very proud of their follow-up system. And they even use the word nurturing as if like chasing leads is a nurturing process. Nurturing feels very warm and cozy, but it's not when you're calling somebody to follow up with them or email them again and text them again after the first few meetings and they're ignoring you. That is not nurturing, that is breaking trust and burning trust. And for so many years, we've been taught that a follow-up system is required uh to chase people down to finally get to them to say yes. Um, and that used to work on a pre-COVID when people were comfortable with a follow-up call, an email call, and they were actually available and they wrote you back. But if you have a CRM system or if you think your opportunity is sitting inside your follow-up process, you're in for a rude awakening. Now you might get a few people who might come back to you, but the most will ignore you because the minute you start following up with somebody, they feel like they're being chased and you're lowering your positioning. Uh, and so your goal is to compress your sales cycle. So in the first meeting, they trust you enough to schedule with you on your calendar for a next step. If your process has not allowed them to do that and they're saying, Do you want to think about it? I'm not ready yet. And then you say, No problem, I'll follow up with you, or send you a quote, you're you have a hole in your sales funnel. And it gets bigger every single day because of technology. People are being overwhelmed with multiple contacts coming inbound. And if anything, they're shutting things down. And the last thing you want to do is trying to win this war in the inbox. So, your goal is to learn what I call the one-call sale, uh, which we have inside our community in our coaching program. You can learn about that, where we coach folks on how to build enough trust with somebody in one single meeting so they get a commitment to a next step on their calendar. Uh, and if the if the person is not qualified or not serious about their problem, you just let them go or drop them into a system you don't have to worry about them anymore. Let the automation go on its own. But you're they're lost if they're gone from the first meeting in most cases, unless they're on your calendar. So you have to ask yourself, what can you do to avoid the follow-up process? Now, here's some tips for you if you are in the follow-up process and you haven't transitioned yet to our world. Okay. So, what you can do, first of all, is one, we're never use the word follow-up ever again as of today. That is a bad word to use. Why? Because when you call somebody and say, I'm calling a follow-up, that sends a message, you're trying to move them forward. Follow-up is a sales word. You should not be using language in the language that is not trust-based. So here's what you say instead. I'm giving you a call to see if you have any feedback on our previous conversation, any feedback on our last meeting, any feedback on our previous conversation, any feedback on proposal or the plan. Feedback is going away from the sale, it's going back to the problem. Don't use any phrases like touching base, follow-up, or what's the other one people always use? Um, let's connect, or um circle back. I don't know. These are all classic 1980s phrases that just turn people off and clearly designate you as a quote, the negative salesperson stereotype. Your perception and authority and self-image should be of a doctor who's helping a patient, not a salesperson chasing a lead. Okay, that is a mindset shift. And in this day and age of commoditization, where you're being shopped against somebody else, if you're using the traditional sales process uh that I'm talking about today, and you're just doing what everyone else does, chasing more leads, playing the numbers game, you will get zero connection in most cases because that model is of selling has been commoditized in itself. So you have to differentiate, you have to change your approach. You have to, yes, I hate to use the word, you have to learn a different way of thinking. I know AI is replaced learning because you have all your answers there, but as human beings, the only way to win this game against AI and trust is for us as humans, guess what? To learn how to get builder better trust building with other humans. Okay. That's the missing gap, I believe, between the AI world and the human world, which is our ability to learn how to build trust with other humans, not with AI. Okay. So that's the missing component. I wrote a book about this, by the way. Um it's called uh The Rise of AI and the Decline of Trust. Okay, so this is an important gap that is a skill set everybody in business, every business owner should be learning like right now, uh, before installing their AI systems, to learn how to build trust in their sales process and their business, to become what I call a trust-based business. And this is not a priority for you, and you need to make it a priority for yourself as fast as possible. Um, so there's some insights for you, some thoughts to think about, some food for thought uh as we open up the lines here to see who's around to ask a question for me. And um we'll kind of just dive in and we'll use this trust-based approach uh as a perspective to try and solve as many problems as possible. So if you're interested in direct consulting or coaching with us, just get my free book at the trustbook.com and you can simply order the book. It goes in the mail to you physically, and there's an opportunity to schedule a time with either myself or one of my coaches to work with you or have a chat with you about your situation. Um, those are for folks who want to solve the problem quickly. If you want to learn your way through this, then join our community at regalper.com forward slash free and get involved. There's different levels that you can get involved with, but just getting inside our world in itself, in our ecosystem, through osmosis, hopefully you'll be able to understand and learn that this is the way for success in the future for if you're selling something. Uh, but if you're selling the old with the old model, you're feeling the pain right now. I'm sure you are. Uh, most folks are who come our way. So, on that note, Steve, uh, how are we looking back there?

SPEAKER_04 8:53

All righty, we're looking good. I would just like to first apologize to the city of Cleveland for what happened to you last night. As a city, you have failed, and New York is gonna dominate you in this basketball series. I just had to say it, you know. I don't have my orange because I gave it to my kids' principal. But we've got Matt Dillingham. I'm gonna bring Matt on. He's laughing already. I hope he's a Knicks fan. Man, I hope you're not from Cleveland, Matt. No, I'm in Virginia.

SPEAKER_05 9:16

I don't follow basketball. I'm more soccer in UFC.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

So all right, so you're not uh you have no horse in it, and but but you watched that you watched that seven-second beatdown of of Gina and Ronda then over the weekend.

SPEAKER_05 9:26

But boy, I watched a replay. I was pretty good. I was like, well, that didn't last that long.

SPEAKER_04 9:30

I was like, all right, but hey, it was if just one sneeze and you missed the entire fight. Pretty much, pretty much. All right, so uh since you haven't been on before, if you could let everybody know who you are, a little bit about yourself and your business, and then your question for Ari.

SPEAKER_05 9:44

I've been on before, it's been a minute, but uh my name is Matt Dillingham. I'm the owner of uh Intuitive Advising, and we offer credit repair, business credit, and coaching.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

So that's who I am. Got it. Okay, so fill me in on your kind of so you do coaching on how to repair people's credit, is that right? And a service around that?

SPEAKER_05 10:03

It's it's more so to fix the root cause of what got you there in the first place on the personal side and go for business, but that's different. So as I joke, as I joke, the credit repair is the gateway drug into the coaching aspect, if you're right.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Yeah, all right, the pre and post, got it.

SPEAKER_05 10:20

Yeah, um, so I met with a prospect um at a I was a vendor at a baby expo two weeks ago, and she gave I she she expressed interest in credit repair, I have her number and followed her, follow up with her the following, the week following, and she said, Hey, give now's like a time, contact me the 19th. That was yesterday. Said reach out to yesterday. She said, Now follow me next week. And I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna do this again in game. So what would be a good thing to say, like, look, just you know, just to just end it and say, I'm gonna let you be. If you need me, I'm gonna move on from here.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

So all right, first of all, let's let's go back to the beginning and figure out how you got here.

SPEAKER_05 11:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Okay, then we'll we'll we'll see what we can do on the back end of this thing. Yes. So let me get this right. You met her at a show of some sort. She assumed you were at a booth of some sort, right? Yes, came up to the booth. She came to the booth, you had a quick chat, she said, I'm interested in this, and you said and you probably collected her details, I assume, and then you said to her, uh great, I'll follow up with you and and and we'll talk then. Is that something like that?

SPEAKER_05 11:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

Okay. So my question is for you is how come you didn't schedule her on your calendar at the booth?

SPEAKER_05 11:38

Did not cross my mind.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Okay. This is the source of your problem.

SPEAKER_05 11:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Right. So you're so you're so conditioned to assume a lead and the next step is the next follow-up. That's that's how you've been wired. See, you're your your so your brain goes, Oh, great, I got a lead. Awesome. I'll follow up with them. See, for you, that's your conditioning as a normal behavior. See, for us, that's that's abnormal. You should never do that.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

You have them at the first conversation, they're in the most interested. That was the moment of the peak when their their brain was focused on the problem and they wanted to help. That was the exact moment you, as the doctor, she would schedule them on your calendar. So you might say, she says, You, yeah, I'm interested in this coaching, and I'd like to talk about it. You say, No problem, no problem. Well, why don't we schedule a time right now? On our I got my calendar right here, my laptop, and let's schedule a time, and then you can bring along your situation, your challenges, and I can kind of diagnose what's going on and give you some. Here's the key word insights, not information, some insights on how to help you with this. Would that be okay if you should leave? Would that would you be open to that? Now, obviously, if they're legit, they're not gonna say no. Correct. She sounded like she was legit, yes, but your process did not allow her the schedule on your calendar. She dropped in the black hole, and now you got stuck chasing her. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Yes. So, what I'm trying to say is you have one moment of everyone who's listening to this has one moment of time when your lead or prospect is the most focused on the problem, and that is the first meeting or the first contact, first conversation. So, in your case, the first conversation was at the booth. In a lot of other people's cases, it's on a zoom call wherever it starts. That's the moment it all has to happen. So frick's number one schedule them on the spot so there is no more follow-up at all in your world. Follow-up like goes away forever. Okay, and then you you work off what I call a calendar relationship with these clients or these people. You work by appointment only. That's like your model, like a doctor. You work, you can say it. Yeah, I only work by appointment only. I just I just don't follow people. I'm sorry, I don't think people I'm kind of like doctor, you know. I I only work because I'm busy and I work by appointment. I'm gonna give you some languaging here and permission for you to break out of your boxer and in the sales mode or anything to say to people, you know what? And when you do that with people, they respect that, right? They go, wow, he's not gonna chase me. Yeah, that's okay. I'm I'm game. Let's let's give this a try. Because nobody wants to be chased, right? Nobody, and you can say it to people, you can say, I just don't chase folks. I'm sorry, it's not what I do. I am a trust builder, and we work by probably the only people who're serious. So if you want to work with have some insight, so anyways, that's how you solve the problem for not having ever again. All right, got it. Thank you. Here's what you can do with her on the back end, if anything, is I would send her what I call the apology email. Are you aware of that?

SPEAKER_05 15:02

Yeah, it's in your book.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

That I yeah, yeah, it's what I'm there. You go. Okay, so one of my books there, but I'll all for the audience who's listening or watching, I'll I'll provide the context. So clearly, you chasing her is not working because somehow she feels pursued by you, right? You're you're putting energy on her, and she's saying, I don't want to be pursued. So we have to reverse it and send her a message, which could be true, and and following your sword and say, you know, hi Julie, it's you know, whatever here. And uh, I'm just I'm just writing you not here's the key phrase, not to move things forward. And their brain goes, Oh, they're gonna stop chasing me now. Uh, I'm just writing you to to apologize because maybe I didn't provide you with what you needed when we met the show. I should have offered you the opportunity to have a chat then. I should have maybe uh I should have given you more some information then. Maybe maybe maybe I did something wrong. You blame yourself, right? Not them because clearly you did something wrong, you're just being honest with her, and you just say, Look, I'm just writing you for some feedback. That's the key word. For some feedback for how I could have I could have improved or done a better job when I met you to build better more trust. I love your thoughts and feedback. That's how people improve in the future. Would you be open to that? Dot dot dot. That that's the email that goes out. Okay, that humanizes you. It gets you out of the sales stereotype that people hate to get out of from a show like that being chased. And you might get to the truth. When I used to do live events seminars, I used to have all the attendees bring their laptops with them, and at lunchtime, they had I had them all send this one email out to all the people they're chasing. We got back for lunch, they opened the laptop, it was so many responses in their inbox, like within 15 minutes. And you know what they usually said? They usually said, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 17:07

It's not you, it's the real issue, what's going on? I I sent it, I sent a text to a couple people, an email. I got one person responding to found out what happened. I went, Oh wow, I had no idea. It's like, thank you, but it does work.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

So yeah, yeah. Your goal is the truth, my friend, not the sale.

SPEAKER_05 17:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

So focus on that trust building, okay? We'll do. All right, be well. All right, thank you. Okay, no worries. So we're back here uh with the uh stump the guru show. And as you're hearing, uh, there's a lot of folks who are uh still in that loop, that continuous loop of having a contact, maybe conversation, then following up and chasing, and now stuck in a black hole. And just so you know, every day that goes by, those leads get colder and colder and colder and colder, and the odds of converted them go lower and lower and lower and lower. That's what I call the path of most resistance. Your job is to compress that sales cycle, bring it forward, and not, I know it sounds kind of strange, not do any sales activities that connect you to the stereotype of selling. Selling itself has been commoditized as we know it. And if you find yourself falling into those behavior patterns, um, like doing free consulting, educating people, relationship building up front without trust building, a rapport that can appear to be fake, um, you're you're in trouble. Uh, and you have to you have to upgrade your skills get skill set skill set to learn how to build trust with people and not sell the people. If trust is a different concept and different skill set is not being taught anywhere. No universities teach this, uh, no courses outside our walls teach this in our way. And so I'd encourage you to reach out and ask for help. Don't be afraid because you have to shift to where the market's at right now, and that is a we're not a commoditized market, and everyone's being shocked. And if you're just selling like everybody else, you know that leads. All right, Steve. So uh who else is back there today?

SPEAKER_04 19:18

Alrighty. So we have people back here that aren't gonna be coming on after talking to them. Some are not ready, some just don't, you know, it's all good. But I'm gonna bring Sam on because hey Sam, how are you, buddy?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Hey Steve, hey um you and I right hey Ari, good to see you again.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Yeah, you too.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Hey, I got a bit of an exercise that I'm gonna encourage all of you as the business owners to do. And this is straight fresh off something I experienced with a client recently. Had a client, much like what you're saying, engaged in a lot of follow-up, a lot of processing. And I said to the client, I said, How much time do you spend doing all the follow-ups? Tell me about it, right? And he went through and told me all about it, not to mention all the dead calls, all the people that don't respond, let alone the conversations he has, all the time that's involved around that. And then I said to him, think carefully about your business and tell me how many actual sales do you get from all that activity? And he thought about it, and he thought, uh, you know what? Next to nothing. Very is it really rarely happens. So when you look at that equation, the sale, yeah, look, you're gonna get some occasionally, of course, things happen, right? I mean, that's you know, that's just numbers, but when you think about the return that you get from a sale compared to all of that activity multiplied by your salespeople consistently all day, every day, it's it's a pretty unbalanced equation. And and when he saw that, he realized that because time's your most valuable asset, time is where you get the most amount of return. He's now diverted that to better lead generation activities to target his qualified people, more targeting, less like a funnel and more like a cylinder, and is enjoying not only greater success, but a lot more peace of mind and a lot more, a lot less bandwidth on things that go nowhere. So I just you know, listening to you talk about that, I thought that's a good exercise for everybody to just be honest with yourself and have a think.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Well, here's the thing, Sam. Everyone, every business owner is wired to view their sales process as a funnel. Where it's wide at the top, narrows to the middle, and narrows the bottom. So the top of their doing is putting as much as they can at the top social media, podcasts, leads, whatever. And then they spend all their time and money in the middle of this process chasing, qualifying. Following up. Now at the bottom, a few marbles might come out, right? Like I did hear someone say to me, Well, Ari, after two years, I finally got the sale, so it's worth chasing somebody. Well, after two years, you've lost probably 90% of what you could have made if you would focus on not the chasing process, but the trust-based process. And I think I think you're right. I think it's a hidden, expensive cost to have a business owner or sales team spend any time at all in a chasing process trying to get a hold of people, as if that's the norm. See, the the irony of the whole thing is most heads of sales or business owners assume a sales team's job, their time should be spent pursuing leads. No, their job should be spent face to face or on Zoom or on Teams converting leads to an as a new client, not chasing them. And replacing the chasing process with AI or some CRM system does not solve the problem either. There should be no chasing. You need to introduce your team and yourself to the concept of what I call the one call sale compressing cycle. I don't mean a sign contract, I mean a commitment on the first meeting to a next step in your process. So they stay on your counter, not off your counter. But I appreciate that exercise. I think it's important that everybody finally admit to themselves that the middle of the funnel piece, chasing opportunities is the worst place to be because that's where all your time, expense, and money is lost.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the other illusion that people have is they have a conversation and they think, oh, what a great conversation, but they didn't, they didn't get they didn't get the sale, they didn't go on the calendar, they didn't go the next step, they didn't commit to your process, they fall off, and people think to themselves, but that's okay. I'm gonna go, they're gonna enter my nurturing system, as you said. Oh, we've got a we've got a process to handle all the follow-ups, and they give themselves this illusion of relief, thinking, oh, it's okay still. Guess what? It's not okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

All right, it's it's yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. And Sam, I guess someone else coming in now. Let's catch one more guest, and then I appreciate you stopping by. Thank you, Sam. I know you're missing. All right. So Steve, we have one more photo person back there.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

Yep, I'm gonna bring Ryan on. Ryan just popped in. Hey Ryan, how are you today? Oh, your mic's not on.

SPEAKER_06 24:25

Yeah, the sounds there we go. I'm getting some echo. I'm not quite sure how to.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

No problem. So uh yeah, so maybe Ryan, let us know kind of what you do and and what your challenge might be. Sure.

SPEAKER_06 24:38

I'm a financial advisor, financial planner, and I have the opportunity to work with uh Christian denomination of pastors, and uh I've we we have a an association.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Can you come a little bit closer to the mic? It's kind of cutting out, I'm not sure why.

unknown 24:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

If you were watching it live at arigalper.com slash live and then entered StreamYard, you want to close the live window from Ari Galper because you'll have that playing at the same time that you're live here in the studio. Oh that should yeah, that should help fix things.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Yeah, that's right. That'd be a tech issue if you have both windows open. So just close the Ari Live um screen and then you're you'll be inside uh the the show, so to speak. There we go. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 25:26

Nice. I was getting some echo uh so I work with a group of pastors, and so I've had several conversations recently where people leading denominations where they ask us to uh come in and help uh work with their uh individuals in their churches or their pastors because they're an underserved area. And uh, I've had several conversations recently where they have said, oh, this is great, we we really need you, uh we need to set something up and schedule a meeting, but uh you know, the meeting for whatever reason doesn't happen. And now I feel like I'm chasing them to get them back on the calendar and uh trying to figure out how to best uh phrase this uh to uh to get the best response. Uh and you know, I've sent a couple messages over the past couple days, and and these are people that said, we are so glad to connect with you and we really need your your help. So uh I've been listening to you off and on for a year or so and read a couple books and uh was just looking forward to to being on this call today to ask some questions.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

I appreciate you coming on, I really do. So let me let me go back a couple of steps. So you had a physical meeting with them? Is that the the pastor in charge, or or what how what was the last conversation you had with them?

SPEAKER_06 26:38

It was about uh two weeks ago. We had a meeting with two different uh one was a bishop, one was the uh the finance director for a group of churches. Gotcha. And uh so we have a guaranteed issue policy for for you know the association and then uh group benefits plans for pastors that they really don't have anything. No, that's great.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

And and and it was left with the idea that we schedule uh a you presenting. Is that what what the next step was to present something?

SPEAKER_06 27:08

Yeah, we we left with we've scheduled a follow-up meeting. Well, we scheduled a meeting to to discuss, you know, okay, here's your next steps. Let's have been using words like, well, I I I said uh would it make sense for us to check in in a week or so to uh to to reconnect and and answer anything? All right, so hold on a second.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Did you schedule a meeting with them? Yes or no from the first meeting on your calendar?

SPEAKER_06 27:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Oh, you had a schedule, you so you sat there, let's schedule together, and we'll meet again on Wednesday, whatever, four o'clock, whatever it was, right?

SPEAKER_06 27:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

So did they not show up or or what happened?

SPEAKER_06 27:44

It was uh yeah, uh all these meetings they they didn't show, and I I did risk they did get a response finally. Oh, we were we were I was on tra I was traveling today unexpectedly. Oh, and then you know, let's res let's reconnect. How's the schedule over the next couple weeks?

SPEAKER_03 28:00

And you know, okay, so I got it. So they committed to you. The chemistry was gay, great, but they didn't show up to your scheduled meeting. Yeah, how many days apart was the next meeting?

SPEAKER_06 28:12

Um, it's it was within a week. We had a schedule within a week. Okay. And so okay. I've got apologies saying, oh man, we we weren't able to meet in then when I hear some times and dates. And this is after, you know, very much uh a lot of interest in you know, excitement about the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Yeah, I know they always give you the hopium drug, kind of pretend it's all gonna be made. We're so excited to have you with us. Um, but do you have an assistant of some sort? Uh can that in your it can work with you? What I'm suggesting to you is you need to implement having an assistant who calls them before the second meeting to remind them of the meeting they have committed to with the doctor. You're the doctor, they're the patient. I think you're missing that piece there because then either they would have caught the change of date or they would have been, oh yeah, you're right. They they remember how serious that commitment was for them. So that's one piece that could prevent this from happening again is to have an assistant, so to speak, call the key people and say, just want to confirm two o'clock on Friday, you're meeting with you know Ryan, and want to make sure you'll be on time. And that there's a lot, there's a lot of weight with that. Uh, we have a team that does that for us, and people kind of like go, oh right, thanks for the reminder. Almost like, because what happens is Ryan, in the first meeting, the chemistry is incredible. It's like it's like fireworks everywhere. So you you leave feeling like, oh my god, this was amazing. They leave the next after when you left, they forgot about you. Nothing personal, they don't feel like it was amazing, they just leave the next task they have to do. So you're hoping and waiting and excitement, and they've already forgotten about you. Not not a personal thing, it's just the way it works. So you need someone on your team to call, not email, but to call them to remind them of their of the voice connection of the seriousness of the next commitment. Okay, that's this one fix to prevent this from happening again. It it helps us a lot. It might help you as well. Now, yeah, that's great. So now the next step is you're trying to get them to circle back and schedule again. And they said, Do you what again? What was the last comment from them? What was the last uh message from them?

SPEAKER_06 30:25

Oh, the the the it was yesterday uh on one of them, and it was uh well I he said I know you're very busy. Oh, let's see. So sorry, Ryan. Yes, need to reschedule. I know you're very busy. Are there times and dates that would work for you better for you? And uh, but I've had a response.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

All right, do you can do you have someone who can call on your behalf? Here's what I want to do scheduling is below your pay grade, Ryan. You should not be an administration assistant scheduling with emails, like that's as low as your profile and your positioning. You need to this is the issue. You need someone in the role to play the tennis game to do the connection for you, to schedule the meeting with you, the doctor. The doctor is busy with the patients. Now you're the front desk all of a sudden, your role is shifting, and now they treat you like that. Did you see what I'm trying to say? The positioning there, yeah. So I would I would stop replying. Go find, preferably, uh a friendly person who can work with you and call on your behalf. Like pick up the phone and call them and say, Hi, I work with Ryan's office here. I'm uh he's quite busy. I'm trying to find a schedule to find some time for him to talk to you. Can we quickly have a quick discussion about what's a good time and I'll get you locked in? Okay, that's because really you doing this is not working.

SPEAKER_06 31:50

Yes. I'm I'm handling I'm handling everything rather than delegating.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Correct. Your job is the position yourself as the doctor who's busy with patients. You don't do admin work. That's not your job. Scheduling, emailing, times and dates, not showing up, following up should not be your job, visibly. That makes a lot of sense. It's easy to get caught up in that because we think we have a quote relationship with them. Somehow they just we connected, so they're gonna work with us. Clearly, they're not. What happens is you will drop down their priority list real quick after a couple days. They almost forgot about the first conversation because it's not you, it's just that the priorities are always uh adjusting all the time, and those people's lives are frazzled with the the world and texts and social media. So people's brains unfortunately aren't like they used to be, where they actually remember uh the previous meeting, they actually forget about that. Now, you and I, the sellers remember it like it was like the extra five minutes ago. Yes, oh, it was a great meeting, it was awesome, but they're really excited. Why are they not contacting you? So, what I'm trying to say is put yourself on their shoes and implement a process that keeps them alive and viewing you as somebody who's more busy than them. Got it. That makes a that makes a lot of sense.

unknown 33:24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Awesome, awesome. So try that and come back and let's know how that goes, okay? Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks for your time. All right, thanks for coming on. All right, well, that ends our stump the girl show today. We're a little bit over time. Uh, but I think the theme of following up and chasing, as you can, as you heard today, is so critical for everyone to avoid this process. And if you want to learn more, uh join our community for free at uh arigalper.com forward slash free to start uh or come directly to us at the trust of trustbook.com, order my book, get engaged, get involved, and don't be afraid to learn something new because it might be that right under your nose you're doing certain things and I've been realizing it, losing the sale. On that note, we'll say goodbye for now. Thanks for everybody coming in and we'll talk soon. This will be now a podcast on Spotify, all the channels to listen to, and we'll be in touch soon. Take care, everybody, signing off.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

We hope you've enjoyed this month's segment of Stump the Guru and that you've discovered some new trust-based selling strategies that you can apply directly to your sales process. You can get access to Ari's trust-based selling 60-minute masterclass at www.unlockthegame.com forward slash video. And if you want to go one step further, you can order his latest book, Unlock the Sales Game, and get a free one-on-one sales growth consultation at www.unlockthegame.com. Before we say goodbye for now, if you enjoyed this podcast, please take a moment to review this podcast. It's easy. Just scroll down to the bottom of Stump the Guru Podcast within Apple Podcasts until you reach ratings and reviews. Click one of the five stars under tap to rate to leave a rating. Thanks so much, and we'll see you on the next show.