The Psychology of Follow-Up (Without Feeling Pushy)

Are you struggling with follow-up, consistency, or sales in your business?

Most people think they need more leads…
But the truth is: the money is in the follow-up.

In this video, I break down:
• Why follow-up feels so hard (it’s not what you think)
• How your nervous system impacts sales and consistency
• The fear of being pushy and how to overcome it
• How to reframe follow-up as a service, not a sales tactic
• Simple systems to make follow-up easy and repeatable

Follow-up isn’t about convincing people.
It’s about guiding, supporting, and helping them make aligned decisions.

If you’ve been stuck in procrastination, overthinking, or avoidance…your nervous system may be the missing link.

👇 Download my FREE Nervous System Reset Guide:
https://www.walkitfree.com/nervous-sy...

This 7-minute reset will help you regulate your system so you can take consistent action in your business without burnout.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, hello, Stephanie Zima here coming to you live today with something that you are going to love. So don't go anywhere. The money is in the follow-up. That is something that you have heard in the past, right? You have heard the money is in the follow-up. And it's just something that we might have some trouble with. If you're not, lucky you, you probably are making a ton of money and you don't need any coaching and mentoring. But if you are like the rest of us, like a human, okay, and not like a superhuman, like you are a normal human, then you probably have had some problems with follow-up in the past. And this is what I'm addressing here today. But before I dive into this, um, if you're new to me, I am Stephanie Zima. Say hello in the comments. I am the founder of the Walker Free mentorship program where we heal, connect, and level up. And what do we do in there? We heal, meaning all the things that are holding us back, becoming aware of what our paradigm is, our nervous system, the system, the way how we take, the way how we like to work. Basically, we develop our identity from scratch again, the way that we want it now. Then we connect with who we want to be in the future, who our ideal audience is going to be, who we are going to impact and serve. And then we level up, we actually learn some sales skills that will help us put all of it together. And all of that is in my mentorship program, The Walk It Free. That is what I do. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the psychology of the follow-up. Because when we follow up, we often don't because we feel pushy. We feel like the salesperson we don't want to be. We feel like maybe they're gonna come up with some kind of a rejection, maybe they ghost us, and every single time that happens, what happens to you? You have a nervous system response. See, I refuse to believe that 80% of people are not successful in online marketing. I completely refuse that to believe that they don't have a desire. I believe every human has a desire. Everyone has the desire to feel better, do better, have more. Okay. And even though you may say, oh, I'm happy with what I have, if I would give you a million dollars right now, would you take it? Probably yes. If I would give you$5,000 for free every month, would you take it? Yes. If I would give you$1,000 extra every single month, would you take it? Yes. You would take every amount of dollars that I would give you because you would not have to do something about it. And the only reason why you're satisfied with where you are right now is because you somehow think that what you would have to do to create the extra money that you could use for paying off the debt that you have, supplementing your income, um, you know, maybe get better foods, maybe go get organic foods instead of grocery store aisle foods. Or maybe you want to go on a vacation that you could never afford, or maybe you want wanted to um, you know, like me, upgrade you 41K because it's actually not that much money in there. And you feel like, you know, do we have five million dollars in there to keep our lifestyle or not? Right? There's a lot of gazillion reasons as to why we need more money. But when you say that you are satisfied with what you have right now, I will challenge that thought because I think if I would give you extra money every month without you having to do something, you probably will take it because you could use it. So when you don't take action, it's not because you don't need the money, it's because you're somehow afraid that something is not quite aligned with you. Now I like I want to fix that. I want to fix that for people because the 80% of people have$38,000 plus dollars in debt. That number is absolutely mind-boggling to me. That so many people have so much credit consumer debt. And I know the pressure of debt, I know how awful it feels, and how when you don't have money, how restricting it feels. And I want to help everybody to feel free, right? That's why walk it free is not just walk it free from yucky emotions like shame, but also yep, walk it free from financial stress, from toxic relationships, from having to be in these situations where you don't want to come out. And I'm not money hungry. Money is not the root of all happiness, but money is also not the root of all evil. Money is actually neutral, and money is something that gives you options and opportunities. And without a lot of money, you can't help a lot of people either. See, this was an awareness that came over the last few eight years that I've been in business, you know, working on my money mindset, working on the situations. Oops, I'm not I'm like a hot mess here. Um, all that stuff. So it's something that was stuck in my mind, right? I was raised in Germany, I was raised with a be happy with what you have kind of mindset. And you know, I started realizing like I would really love to help a lot of people. I would love to help all the homeless shelters around here. I would love to end teen mom uh suffering because they don't have options. I would there's so many things I would love to do, but you can't do it if you have no money, you can't give to all the people. You need to have some money to be able to do that. So, you know what? No shame, no game, right? Okay, follow up. Follow up, the money is in the follow-up. That is why we need to talk about it. When you feel shame about following up, and that shows up in ways that maybe you don't, maybe you're too busy, maybe you get confused, maybe you are like me. I would make the list, I would make the reach out, and then I would get so confused all the time because I had so many people. I got motivated and I sent so many messages, and then I had so many responses, and then I would like be completely foggy. My brain would be so foggy, and I could not, for the life of me, follow up with anybody. That was, and I found that out later, way later. It took me many years to figure this out, and now I want to share with you. That was actually a nervous system response of keeping me safe because I was afraid that they would reject me. And it was not something that was top of mind. So when you say, Oh, I don't have a problem with rejection, I want you to think again. I want you to take a look at your behaviors, I want you to take a look of how and where is your body at? Are you feeling foggy? Are you feeling strangely busy every single time you're supposed to be following up? Do you not have a good uh discipline record? Maybe like you time block and you say, I'm following up on Fridays, Friday follow-up, and for some reason you just don't do it. Because Friday something else happens all the time, right? If that is the case, that is fear of rejection in disguise. This is where your nervous system just puts on the screeching halt and says, wait a minute, uh, let's just not even look at that. And let's also just not even think about this, because if we think about it, maybe she will do something about it. You be smarter than your brain, okay? Be smarter and realize that it's rejection rejection, maybe not fear, but maybe a sensitivity to it. Okay, now framing follow-up as service when you follow up with people. I have been able to overcome that by adopting a mindset of I am not somebody here to make you do anything. I cannot make you do anything, I cannot make you like me, I cannot uh make you buy from me, I cannot make you click on my content and say, hey, you know, I cannot make you do anything. I couldn't make my husband do anything, I couldn't make my kids do anything. Like you have to understand the only person you can actually influence is yourself. You can do this for yourself. So when I was originally thinking about following up, I always thought, like, oh, what messages, what verbs, what how can I like how what do I need to say? How can I frame this in a certain way? And that yet always felt yucky to me because I am somebody that wants to serve other people. I want to help other people, I genuinely want to help people. I love money too, but I I my personality color actually is yellow. I am a whale, I am somebody that that likes to have impact, I like to give to people. But, you know, of course, we need to be compensated for our time. Of course, we need to have some money also. Now, follow-up is now in my mind a service. Because you know, here's the thing: if I can be the guide, whether or not you can be helped, I can, you know, if my products don't help you, maybe my friends' products can help you, or this friend's products can help you. If I position myself as the guide, the one that helps connect people together, that is then the follow-up now becomes service. The follow-up now becomes thinking about it as, hmm, was it helpful to you at all? Give me feedback, give me feedback, right? Not oh, I need your money, please do this. No, give me feedback. How has this been helping for to you on a scale one to ten? Where are you at? Have you been able to make a decision? Do you need any more follow-up questions? Do you need any more um, you know, information before you can make a decision if that works for you or not? The you know it's service, that's what you need to do if you struggle like I used to do with not wanting to manipulate people to make a decision. Okay, maybe that'll help for you. Let me know in the comments what your experiences are. I would be really curious to know what are your experiences with follow-up, drop it in the comments and let me know. Okay, creating a simple follow-up system also really helped. When you have a list of people, and I know there is lately there's been all over the place, don't make a list of people. That is nonsense. You do need to have a list of people. You do need to have a list of people because how do you remember those people? How will you remember who you talk to? Now, if you are just started out and you have 10 people in your neighborhood, and those 10 people, yeah, you don't have to have them on a list because you remember your neighbors, you know. But once you are out in the cold market, meaning you are out there talking to strangers, you won't remember those names. I promise you, you will not. If you reach out to more than two people in a like even those two people that I talked to yesterday, if I wouldn't write their names down, I would not even remember them. I wouldn't recognize the name uh if I would see it anywhere. And um, that's just how my brain works. I like faces, I can see faces, I remember faces very well, but names, I don't remember. So, you know, if I would rely on me remembering who I talked to yesterday, that will not happen. Put in the mix that I'm also a mom of three and uh doing things by myself, pretty much. You know, I mean, let's just get real, right? That is not something that that uh my brain can actually offer. So I have to have a system, meaning I have to write it down and then I have to find out how and when am I going to follow up with these people. That is something that really helped. Taking my emotions out, okay. Yes, I want to make money, yes, I want to uh help other people, and yes, they're gonna depend on me at some point. All of that would stress me to the point that my nervous system would shut me down. Because then comes the self-talk of like, who are you even to be taking on this undergoing? You can barely like do your own stuff, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It's like it spins and spins and spins and spins. You can probably relate. So that did not work, right? I had to learn, I had to learn how to detach myself from this big goal, from this big thoughts. I had to detach myself to the point of like, okay, I can only control myself, and I cannot control you, I cannot control if you want to give me money or if you trust me or anything. So what I focused on was action. What action could I take today that I would assume will have some impact? So if I speak to you on a live video, you see my face, you hear my heart, you can see that I'm a real human. I am not an eye, I am a real human with mistakes and an accent, and just like, you know, you can make your decision if you like me or not, or if this is something that you find valuable, or if you would take a look at my nervous system guide that I offer, or if you want to go into my hundred dollar coaching subscription, or if you wanted to have a deeper one-on-one coaching session with me, right? I mean, it's just you decide that. I can't decide that. What I can do is I can say, here I am, first of all, my face, my my brain, my ability. Um, and then I can say, I am going to post and post and post, and I'm gonna do this, this, and this type of content so you could see me. And then I could say, I can sit and find people and talk to people, I can control my action, and I can control when I want to follow up with you, and I can control those kinds of things, but what I can't control is what you're thinking about it. So removing my emotional attachment to your action was huge, and really, really just focusing on serving, showing up, talking, speaking my truth, standing in, you know, for the longest time, every time, and here come the dogs, every time I've been told that um oh, hang on one second. Hang on one second. I'll be there in just one second. One second, I'll be right down. Okay, so that was basically it. Um sorry, I gotta go. All right, so yes, we've talked. Gonna be crazy now. Okay, I gotta go. This was it, you guys. I'm so sorry. I'll be back tomorrow. But long term trust building is really what's important, okay? I'll talk to you all later. Bye bye.