{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "description": "Once you’re following up with more than a few people at once, your brain can’t keep track — here’s a simple spreadsheet system that keeps your outreach organized.",
  "path": "/articles/how-to-track-your-follow-up/",
  "publishedAt": "2022-12-29T20:20:59.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:jznynyzgerlqmdbbj33o7wfs/site.standard.publication/3mnll3icujb2z",
  "tags": [
    "Outreach and Email"
  ],
  "textContent": "Let’s say you buy into this notion that “If you follow-up with people, you’ll get more replies.”\n\nYou decide that today is the day to get started with persistent, polite follow-up.\n\nWeek 1: You start slow\n\nJust one or two contacts or colleagues at a time for follow-up\nFive simple follow-up messages over ~8 weeks\nPersistent and polite\n\nYou can keep track of these first few folks pretty easily (maybe on your whiteboard, a legal pad, or in your head).\n\nContact A: Week 1 of Follow-Up\nContact B: Week 1 of Follow-Up\n\nIt’s when you start following-up with more contacts (5, 10, or 38+ contacts…) that everything starts to get a little brain melty.\n\nWeek 2: You send out a proposal to a lead\n\nYay! 🚀 You decide that following up on the proposal is an excellent use of your time, because money.\n\nNow you’re following-up with three people:\n\nContact A: Week 2 of Follow-Up\nContact B: Week 2 of Follow-Up\nLead A: Week 1 of Follow-Up\n\nWeek 3: Someone gets in touch with you to see if you’re interested in speaking at a local meetup\n\nHeck! Yes, you are!\n\nSo you say yes, trust your friend Kai on this follow-up thing, and plan on following-up up with them if they happen to go silent.\n\nThey go silent.\n\nYou add them to your follow-up.\n\nYou’re up to four people now:\n\nContact A: Week 3 of Follow-Up\nContact B: Week 3 of Follow-Up\nLead A: Week 2 of Follow-Up\nSpeaking Lead A: Week 1 of Follow-Up\n\nWeek 4: A slow week. Nothing much happens\n\nYou send your follow-up emails, eat a burrito, and keep on truckin’.\n\nContact A: Week 4 of follow-up\nContact B: Week 4 of follow-up\nLead A: Week 3 of follow-up\nSpeaking Lead A: Week 2 of follow-up\n\nWeek 5: Hooooooboy. A doozy of a week!\n\nA past client (an accounting firm) gets in touch with you about a (metaphorical) five-alarm fire.\n\nThey need help. The Accounting Firm has an expensive problem. Everyone there is saying you, dear reader, are the person to help them solve it. And who are you to turn down an opportunity like that?\n\nThe accounting firm tells you.\n\nHey, it’s tax season, and we’re 140% focused on our clients and their taxes. It will not be easy to get a reply from any of us. Jane is managing this project and needs your help, but she’s out of the office this week. Follow-up with her and her assistant and set up a meeting to discuss this.\n\nYou add Jane and Jane’s Assistant from The Accounting Firm to your follow-up. (You’re up to 6 people).\n\nContact A: Week 5 of follow-up\nContact B: Week 5 of follow-up\nLead A: Week 4 of follow-up\nSpeaking Lead A: Week 3 of follow-up\n\nJane at The Accounting Firm: Week 1 of Follow-Up\nJane’s Assistant: Week 1 of Follow-Up\n\nAnd then the hallway light near your office goes out. Again 😠. You add your handyman to your follow-up. (You’re up to 7 people)\n\nHandyman: Week 1 of Follow-Up\n\nWeek 6: You get a terrible cold\n\nSo you miss a week in the office. Your follow-up waits for you to get back.\n\n…Of the seven people you’re following-up with, do you remember when you last followed-up with each of them and what you’ve already said? (Nope, me either).\n\nHere’s the thing\n\nThe more people you’re following-up with simultaneously, the harder it gets to remember who you’re following-up with.\n\nYou’re human, not a robot. Your squishy meat brain is a powerful thinking engine, but can get a bit melty when doing foolish things, like tracking multiple follow-up campaigns with numerous contacts at the same time.\n\nOnce upon a time in the year of our lady two thousand and fifteen, I was coordinating a Shopify merchant’s outreach + follow-up campaign to a group of authorities and influencers.\n\nI was reaching out to three or five new contacts at a time and following-up with them until we got a response. Over the first month, I ended up following-up with 35 separate contacts.\n\nEver try to keep track of thirty-five people and conversations in your head? That does not work well. The brain goes all melty.\n\nYou need to use the right tools for your follow-up\n\nWhen it comes to your outreach and follow-up, I recommend:\n\nAn Outreach Tracking Tool\n\nLike a spreadsheet. Here’s mine in Google Docs. It’s free. Make a copy and enjoy.\n\n/the-vault/outreach-tracking-spreadsheet/\n\nA spreadsheet is a good starting point for outreach + follow-up tracking. You can use other tools for this - Trello is okay, a CRM like Pipedrive is excellent - but you can never escape the fact that tracking your follow-up will require more tools than just your brain.\n\nEmail Templates\n\nMake follow-up easy on future-you by writing your follow-up emails ahead of time. Then, when it comes time to send your next follow-up email, you can grab the template, personalize it, and send it.\n\nYou’ll love the 45+ templates for outreach and follow-up included with The Outreach Blueprint: /outreach-blueprint\n\nA Blueprint For Your Outreach\n\nOutreach can be a complicated skill to practice and do well. It’s easiest if you’re able to stand on someone else’s shoulders to get perspective on what to do.\n\nIn The Outreach Blueprint you’ll learn:\n\nHow to get people to pay attention to your emails\nThe technique of writing ‘You’ focused emails\nAn overview of an outreach strategy\nMy recommended implementation of Your Outreach System\nWhat to think about when optimizing your emails\nThe skill, craft, and habit of outreach\nWays to use outreach to Get More Clients\n\nCheck out The Outreach Blueprint right here: /outreach-blueprint\n\nExcelsior!\n\nKai",
  "title": "How To Track Your Outreach + Follow-Up (Without Your Brain Melting Like Ice In The Sun)"
}