Follow Up Email After Sales Meeting – No Response? Use This 1 Awesome Template Email

Rob  00:00

Hi, I’ve attempted to reach you to chat about whether or not our services are a good fit for you. But unfortunately, I haven’t had any success. That said, it’s become fairly obvious that either you have been eaten by an alligator, or you’re just playing swapped. Welcome, everybody. And thank you for listening to us here on The Small Pitch. And, you know, we talk about sales and the problems that you might have in sales, and especially for new people that have gotten into sales, and we’re not sure what to do. So that’s kind of what we’re all about. And if you’re new here, I’m Rob.

Lane  00:42

And I’m Lane.

Rob  00:43

Hey, Lane, how are we doing?

Lane  00:45

Doing great, Rob, how are you doing? Yeah. So first of all, I hate getting emails like that. But this one is a little bit better than the typical one. So, I groaned a bit that the you’ve either been eaten by alligators, or you’re just swamped?

Rob  00:46

I’m doing well. Hey, that first little opening question … sounded like an email, right? And did that ever? Did that pique your interest at all? Do you get a… Did you think, what is this? What is this guy talking about? Is this guy crazy? Well, that is the point. So today, we’re gonna talk about the one email that I will send, particularly when people stop responding. And I get like, I can’t even tell you how high of a percentage rate of like… ah, if I had to guess it’s probably 95% response rate when I send this email. So are we are we ready? Let’s get started.

V/O  01:29

You’re listening to The Slow Pitch Podcast, a podcast about selling less and closing more.

Rob  01:36

All right, Lane. So you said you hate getting these kinds of emails. Why do you hate getting these emails? Why is that?

Lane  01:41

Well, it’s those cold, those cold emails that you get, were just Hey, I want to talk to you and, look, I don’t want to talk to you. And then you day later, you get the next one. I’d still really like to talk to you. And I still don’t.

Rob  01:51

Or I don’t know, maybe didn’t see my email. Well, maybe. Maybe Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I know, everybody’s like, yeah, okay, maybe it’s, maybe it’s because I didn’t want to see your email. And I don’t want to talk to you. Right?

Lane  02:01

Exactly, exactly.

Rob  02:03

Alright, so that is not how this email works. So this is an email. This is a template I use. And this is an email that I send out, particularly when I run into somebody who’s stopped responding. That doesn’t mean that I send this out before I’ve ever met with them. I don’t send this out just after I’ve met with them. I don’t send this out anytime ever, until certain things are met. So that being said, Let me read the full email for you. So you know what the whole thing really says. So you heard the beginning. Hi, I have attempted to reach out to you to chat about whether or not our services are a good fit for you. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any success that said has become fairly obvious that either you have been eaten by an alligator, or you’re just plain swamped. If you have been eaten by alligators, my deepest sympathies go out to your family and you. If you’re in fact alive, I can only assume one of the following has happened. Please pick one that best fits, and let me know what our next steps will be. Right? And then I have a list of things that they can pick from. And this is their options. One. Yes, I’ve been eating my alligators. Please send flowers to my family. That’s obvious. You got to address that one first, right? So it always gets a laugh, I’m sure of it. Because I’ve had people actually call me and like laughing call me. Number two. No, I haven’t been eaten by alligators. But you may wish I had, you’ll wish it because I have zero interest in your service. Thank you for your honesty, I can handle it that’s in parentheses. Thank you for your honesty, they but the important part is you put the word zero capital letters, zero interest, bold, underlined, make it so that it’s a point of I have zero I don’t ever talk to me again. I want to know that right? I’ll put in there sometimes, like I can handle it, or, you know, I have my big boy pants on? I can you know, it’s okay. You know, it depends on their personality, I’ll say different things in there. The third option they have is yes, we have some interest in learning more about and you fill in your service. But here are my challenges. And then there’s a space for them to be able to address that whatever that might be. The fourth option is is Yes, you’ve reached me at the right time. And I’d like to set an appointment to talk or meet. And then I put in there, here’s where a couple locations that could be. And a good time to contact me is and then I put some space for them to be able to tell me when’s a good time to contact. And the fifth option is I’m not the right person. And in parentheses I have I never was or I no longer am please contact and there’s a space of who I should contact. So it’s happened where someone’s gotten promoted. Okay, or moved, and they’re not the person I should be talking to anywhere that’s happened. So that’s what that’s there for. And number six is other, it’s just like, Okay, if it’s none of these, what is it then? Right, and it simply closes? Thank you, Rob. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Why do you think I get a good response rate out of this?

Lane  04:37

Probably because it makes them stop and laugh a little bit. And it makes it easy to actually reply to you. Even if it’s I have zero interest. At least it makes it easy to kind of break that ice.

Rob  04:49

Yeah, in fact, I’ve had actually people email me just the number two. That’s their only that’s all it said their email was number two. I’m like, Okay, well now I know. Right? So, but that’s okay. I’ll tell That I’ll take that versus no response whatsoever, but at least they are able to say two, and they know, that’s not gonna offend me, you know, that’s the other thing I’ll put in there too, is like, thank you for your honesty, you won’t offend me, it’s okay. You know, whatever that might be, whatever it might be that I need to put it that addresses either their personality or the style that they have for their disc profile, that kind of thing. But it really is one of those responses that you get at first is usually a laugh. So they’ll start their email with a ha ha kind of thing. And then they’ll give me some answers. Or they’ll call me, I’ve actually had people call me after that email, and they go, you know, I’m really sorry, it’s taking me so long to respond. We had this, this and this happen. It was unexpected. And you know, we should talk some more, let’s go through this, or let’s finalize it, or what or, you know, hey, there’s no interest, and that’s okay. But the goal of the letter is, is to just get people to move from nothing, right? I want to know, are we moving and taking another step? Or are we not taking another step? So when do you think I would use this email? Because I said, I don’t use it before we ever meet. It’s not one of those ones that you get, we’re just like you described, I’ve gotten those words like, hey, I want to talk to you. And have you ever responded to something like that?

Lane  06:06

I don’t believe I ever have no.

Rob  06:08

Me either, even if it sounded interesting, like, Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder if I’ve ever used an app or a …, whatever, whatever. It never pans out for me to be able to respond. And I don’t know anybody who would So to me, if you’re going to cold, anything, it’s going to be a call. And even better than that, you get an introduction, right? But when do you think I use this email?

Lane  06:26

Well, my guess would be after you’ve had a one or two meetings, you’re kind of flushing things out trying to get an idea for what your prospect is doing gauging their interest in things. That would be my guess that’s that’s kind of where I have in mind that I may need to utilize this for one of my prospects.

Rob  06:43

That’s a good guess, I would say that it’s, I guess the best way to word it is is that I’ve rarely, I rarely send this email out. So it’s never after a meeting or two, the only time that I’ve ever had to send this email out is after I’ve gone through the estimate with them, I’ve gone through I go through their their whole… all of the discussion, all of the stuff that we talked about where we you know, you get all the pains you go through all that you go through the budget, you know, you’ve got all the people that are supposed to be involved, involved. You start making sense of all their pains, you just put together the project, whatever that might be, you get an estimate, you put all the other numbers, they know everything, right. That’s when they usually disappear if you don’t do it right, right? So, have you ever had it where you finished kind of going through numbers going through a little bit of that conversation? And then you can’t get another meeting with them?

Lane  07:30

Yeah, you just get ghosted.

Rob  07:31

Yeah. And how do you do? What do you do then? Right? You can call and call, they just, what, send you an email or voicemail?

Lane  07:37

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you can, you can reach out a time or two, and then you just have to kind of give up.

Rob  07:42

Yeah, so the best thing I would recommend, when that happens, I refer to this email. But not until a couple things happen. One is, is if you’re using this email you’ve already had and have belt built some sort of a relationship. So use the phone, first, pick up the phone, and call the person and leave a voicemail. And sometimes the voicemail can be as simple as Hey, I’m, you know, I know, I didn’t, I didn’t think I think I’d get ahold of you at all. And, and I just wanted to be able to ask you one more question. If you have a second, it might impact what we talked about a little bit. And that’s it, like make it or give them a reason to call you. And the one question that you have is, you know, what are we doing? That basically, is what you want to know the answer to right? But but if you don’t make that phone call, you have to do that a few times. And leave those voicemails a couple times. And to me mentally I say, I wouldn’t send this email, unless I’ve called at least five times to reach out and ask them to call me back. Because usually the first time that happens, second time, Hey, you know what, they’re busy. I know, I get it. The third time, I might say, Boy, you must be really busy over there. I know, when we talked, it seemed like you were really busy. But boy, this is obviously true, because I can’t seem to get hold of you. You know, if you call me back, I promise to only take 10 minutes or less. That’s, that’s all I need. And usually I’ll get a call back from that. But if I don’t get any calls back, that’s when I send this email out. And I get a response almost every time. Can you think of a situation that you’ve had Lane where in the past or a little last little bit that you’ve you run into where you could use this

Lane  09:14

Yeah, Rob, I’ve got a customer that or I can’t say customer I hope their customer or prospect that I’ve been working with that went through everything and I’m just having a hard time getting hold of them send emails, a call or two and I just can’t can’t seem to capture their attention again.

Rob  09:28

And that would be a good time to do that. Even if you haven’t gone through the estimate. If you have that’s even better because you at least know Alright, we’re there’s something going on here. I know we’re probably not going to do business. And sometimes that’s one of the voicemails you might call so if you were running into that now with somebody, you could easily reach out leave him a voicemail that says hey, I get the feeling. I mean, even this email says the same thing. You can even leave a voicemail it just says I get the feeling that after we spoke you decided we’re not a good fit and listening to that they may say to themselves. No that’s not at all just really busy which may spark a quick note from them or a text message back or a phone call back to say, No, no, just hold tight, we’re running into a couple issues right now or we’re dealing with something right now, we just got to deal with that first that happens, you know, when you leave a voicemail, it can be something like that, hey, I get the feeling we’re not going to be doing business at all. And maybe I’m wrong. But it just it feels that way. If I don’t hear back, this is the fourth or fifth call, I might I might leave that message. If I don’t hear back probably by the end of the week, or by whatever date in the future, I’m going to guess that it’s not going to go far. I think it sounds pretty fair, because I haven’t heard anything from you. It’s usually what happens. So I hope to hear back from you. But have you know, have a nice rest of the day. You know, that kind of thing. And, really, you’ll get some sort of a response from that. And if you don’t, you know, that’s what’s happening. So that’s when it’s fun to send us email, because it’s one last time where you can have a little bit of fun with somebody and make them laugh and least go out on a high note. Right

Lane  10:50

Right. Yeah, that’s true.

Rob  10:51

When they are hearing or reading this type of email, they will remember you. I’ve even had it where after I send the email, months later, they’ll reach back out and say, Hey, alright, now can we talk because they remember the email and they know that you’re not trying to mess around, you’re just trying to make sure that they’re good or not good. That’s all you want to know. And they’re happy with that you’re pretty straightforward with them. So does that you find that helpful? Would you ever use that again, in the future? If you’re in the right situation?

Lane  11:17

Yeah, absolutely would?

V/O  11:19

Do you have a question about sales? call or text your question at (608) 708-SLOW thats 608-708-7569. Or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com. Now, back to the show.

Lane  11:39

So, you’re saying not you wouldn’t send this until after you’ve made three or four or five phone calls? So what do you say on your first phone call?

Rob  11:47

Yeah. So it depends on where you’ve left it last. So my response to that question would be when you last spoke to them, what were you working on? or What were you… What did you just speak about? Because Well, the reason I’m asking is is the way you asked that question, it sounded like you hadn’t gone through the estimate.

Lane  12:03

No, we’ve not had gone that far. We were, I just learned about them, I was going to come back and create my more formal proposal.

Rob  12:10

Okay, before you leave, and this is more of a learning thing for anybody is, before you leave your last meeting, that’s when you should be lining up your next meeting and putting it on the calendar with them. So it’s one of those situations before you step out of the office before you leave your last, you know, whatever statement you’re gonna make on the phone, whatever it is, then it’s that that point, you say, hey, just so we’re on the same page, and I don’t pester you. That’s always what I always tell them too. I don’t want to pester you. So I don’t pester you. When, when are we? When are we meeting next to wrap this up when we were meeting next or talking next, to make sure that we finalize all the details or whatever it is that your next step is? Every time you leave a conversation you should have a, “Here’s what we’re doing next,” so that they know what you’re expecting… And more importantly, you know, what they’re expecting. If they go oh, I don’t know, whenever just call me, they’re not probably gonna answer your call. But if they say to you, well, alright, let’s look at the calendar here real quick. And let’s go through that, and they’d schedule it, then you know, that they’re, you know, 90% going to, they’re going to meet with you unless something weird comes up that they have to be be a part of, and sometimes it helps to even say, when you’re looking at the calendar, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to if you’re on the phone, you can easily say I’m gonna, you know, I was gonna put on my calendar, but before I do, I should have used a pencil or pen. I know it sounds funny, but is this gonna change? Or is this not gonna change? It’s kind of what you’re asking. And if they go, Oh, no pen, this is what we’re gonna meet, then that’s one thing. The other thing is is is that I always ask is, if we’re going to talk about the next meeting or conversation is, let’s assume that that we’ve set that date, and something happens, where you can’t make that, how do you want to handle that? Well, you give me some options to choose for how you want to deal with that. Because you know, that could happen. And these are situations that you would come up with or say, or deal with, if they happen to you often. So if you have it where somebody says I want to meet and talk again, and then they ghost you or they don’t confirm or they don’t do anything, then that would be the time that you would want to say, All right, let’s make sure that we’re in in good shape by asking that question, how do I deal with or what happens if we don’t talk again? Or we have to change your appointment? How do you want to deal with that? Does that make sense?

Lane  14:17

Yeah, totally does.

Rob  14:18

So my first question back to you would be when were you in the situation? And I’m not sure I would use this letter than my at all at that point, then it’s more about getting in front of them again. And your job every time you leave a meeting is to try to set that up.

Lane  14:31

Yep, lesson learned. Yeah. What other questions? No. So I was really just asking you the first phone call is there, you know, you You seem to have a pattern of what you say on phone calls. So you cover the first, you know, is there something different for the second and the third?

Rob  14:46

Yeah, no, it’s not much different from each one. I mean, it’s every one of them is going to have a follow up question and a statement of hey, I don’t want to pester you. When should we plan to talk again next? Let’s just schedule that right. And yeah, And there’s a, the way you phrase, it makes a big difference too. Because if you, if you come across as let’s just schedule that people are used to being told what to do when it’s nice and gentle like that. When when you when you say some some things that don’t sound really solid, like, I don’t I’m not sure of myself, I don’t know what I’m going to say next or how to say it. They pick up on that. And so they know that they pretty much have you where they want you. And so your job is to be very confident what you’re saying. All right, what are we going to talk next? And they’ll tell you and I think kind of get a little weird on you. They don’t want to be very specific. They don’t want to talk and answer the question… All right, now you know where you’re standing. And, and honestly, that’s one of those situations, I would call out, I would say to them, I get the feeling you really don’t want to meet again. And that’s okay, if you don’t want to, because it may not be a good situation. Remember, in the beginning, when we first sat down, I told you that, hey, if we don’t feel like we’re gonna fit well together, just tell me. That’s totally okay. They’ll tell you at that point. If you say and you call it out. If you don’t call it out, then it gets weird. Because then you don’t know what to do, and they don’t know what to do. And they don’t want to just like avoid you. Have you ever been networking and you know, you meet with somebody and you’re in this position all of a sudden, where they’re asking all these sales questions, and then you you have to go see them again at another event and you’re like, I don’t want to see them again, you just turn around, walk away, or avoid them. That’s not where you want to be. My goal is always to make it so that if I ever have to see them in public network ever in that same situation, I don’t want them to feel that way. I always want them to feel like Hey, how you doing? You know, and it’s totally normal, totally fine, and no skin off my back if you don’t do business, I get it. No worries. There’s plenty of other people out there. And you want them to feel that way because then they feel comfortable, and they’ll come back.

Lane  16:46

Good advice. Thank you.

Rob  16:52

Hey, if you liked this episode, and you want to hear more, go to TheSlowPitch.com. You can find more episodes or you can go wherever you listen to your podcast. If you found this to be helpful. Would you mind giving us a review and share it with someone who you think you’d use this information. We really appreciate it.