Following up is a super power. Bugging people to stay at the top of their inbox is the only way to move the needle forward.

I’ve produced a lot of value for technology companies over the years simply by following up 3 or 4 times on stuff.

Weirdly, I was very protective over this ‘secret’. I kind of thought it was my edge. People knew you needed to follow up, but many don’t do it a 3rd or 4th time. I became very nervous that this was the only value I provided to any organization I’ve ever been a part of. And naturally, I fear AI replacing me.

And it has! Thank god. Email automation has been around for years. Following up is a time-consuming pain in the ass but it’s incredibly necessary to get anything done. The fact that it’s automated helps me focus on higher value stuff and realize I have a lot to add!

“Good things come to those who wait, but the only ones getting anything done are the ones who follow up”. I wrote this quote. Not Abraham Lincoln.

Here’s a 3 email recipe you can use for followups:

1st Email/Message

Hi person, this is who I am, what I want, and why I’m emailing you.

(I’ll probably write more posts on how to do this most effectively).

2nd Email/Message

Hi person, just wanted to follow up on this and see if we can chat. Let me know if you have some time to connect in the next couple of weeks.

(Or whatever your goal is – more on these goals a bit later).

3rd Email/Message

Hi Person, are you getting these messages? Just wanted to check to make sure they’re not hitting your spam folder.

This last message is key. Most people actually respond to it. What you’re intimating is that – ‘this message must’ve gone to spam because otherwise you would’ve responded to me’. It also gives the person an escape route to say “ah yes this was in my spam folder” whether it was or it wasn’t.

And there you have it. This can be changed, modified, adapated, and can get more sophisticated with other tools, platforms, workflows, sequences, etc. And all of this can be automated. I wish every email client had that automation built into it but unfortunately it’s usually only available with at least moderately expensive SaaS tools.

Follow up!