Trade Secrets

Don't forget your follow up and actions - people assess you by them

By Nitin Dahad

We'd like to tell you something that you probably know but all too often forget to act upon. It's something very simple, but can make all the difference, whether you're dealing with investors, customers, potential customers, partners, media or analysts. It's called following up. More importantly, following up in a timely manner.

General communications issues

Meetings - take advantage of the moment

Phone calls and meetings

E-mails and follow up

The value of your actions

Lost opportunity

General communications issues

In business, as in any other part of life, people respect those who are true to their word. When you're in startup mode, it's probably very likely that you've spent years building up relationships and contacts that could be helpful to you in your future venture.

In the design world, this may mean you've delivered projects on time, or met certain delivery specifications beyond the expectations of your customer. In the public relations or advertising world, this might mean you've built a reputation on delivering what a newspaper or magazine wants, in terms of timely responses to questions for their articles or features, ensuring you make key executives available for comment or interview, or ensuring you deliver copy on time.

The point is that if you've been successful in building a reputation, then when you start a business, you need to continue to act professionally if you want your new business to succeed. Many people think that when they start their business, that everyone they deal with will be sympathetic to their situation, and will understand, because you're stretched for resources or 'are only doing your best' given the frantic nature of building a company.

But this attitude will only undo all the good work you might have done so far, and as this article explains, it's important to maintain that level of professionalism in your communications and in following up your actions from meetings.

Meetings - take advantage of the moment

Everyone in business attends meetings. If you've come from the corporate world into business, then you may be used to attending meetings where you wonder what the purpose was. It happens all too often, and then what makes things worse is that those in the meeting who have been given actions do not follow up, or spend a long time to complete the action. The result is slow progress.

As a startup or growing business, slow progress is the last thing that you want. It's important not to get in to the meeting habit without trying to capitalise on the objectives of the meeting. The point worth remembering here is that to make things happen you need to ensure you follow up on your actions agreed at the meeting, and take a proactive role in encouraging others to do the same (ie: "Did you say you were going to send me that plan?").

It's surprising how many people put themselves to shame by conducting a meeting professionally, yet not following up on the agreed actions. Its almost like saying "I want to do business with you" at the meeting, yet the lack of communication or follow up really says "I don't want to do business with you".

One further tip on the meeting - if you come away with too many actions, you may find it difficult to fulfil them. So distribute the actions at the meeting or after the meeting within your company. It's better to be seen to be 100% effective with a manageable number of actions rather than 50% effective because you took too much on.

A startup is chaotic by nature and there are a million more things to do than available resources allow; this is where priorities come to play. The priorities for a startup can change on a daily basis, and it is therefore important that everyone is tuned in to what the latest priorities are and that there may be no time for proper meetings to communicate these new priorities for weeks. It is therefore important that all key staff make themselves available on the phone, email and if necessary in person, at all times.

Phone calls and meetings

The phone is quite often used to hold meetings - teleconferencing is now commonplace and videoconferencing increasingly so. If you're holding a meeting by phone, you don't get the signs usually possible through body language in face-to-face meetings (even videoconferencing doesn't always give you the true signs). So if you agree to actions, it's even more critical to follow up and deliver on the actions, if you want a chance to develop the relationship into one that's useful in growing your venture.

A typical example might be a telephone interview with a journalist or analyst. The interview goes along, with several questions asked by the journalist, most of which are addressed there and then. But there are some questions that you don't have the answer to at your fingertips, and you've promised to send a technical specification on your product, or you've promised to arrange a executive photograph or copy of a presentation to be sent. But, it's quite surprising how many people don't take note of the journalist's deadline to receive the material, and worse still, not send the information promised at all.

E-mails and follow up

Email is literally free communication in most organisations - with leased lines, or for smaller companies, with ADSL or high-speed internet, always-on connections. Given this, it is easy to get carried away and lose sight of the objective of sending and receiving e-mails in a start-up or growing business environment.

For new ventures, e-mail is a godsend because it allows you to communicate on an even footing with some of the larger organisations you'll have to deal with; and with the right approach your potential client won't even know that you're sending it from a makeshift office above a cheap restaurant in the high street of a run-down inner city.

But if you're in this situation, two important things to remember are: treat it as if you are sending your messages from a professionally run office; and don't forget to follow up immediately if someone requests something to you by e-mail based on a previous conversation or meeting. You can also use e-mail to your advantage by sending out reports and meeting notes by e-mail, but most of you will be doing this anyway.

One side issue worth noting in the context of this article is to treat e-mail as you would a normal printed letter. That means give proper thought to what you are saying, with proper formalities observed in the language, and of course, make sure you spell-check your message. Just because email is free, it doesn't mean you should cut corners on language and proper letter writing. It all adds to how professional you look.

The value of your actions

As it might have become apparent in this article so far, the art of communication, and follow up, is important because other organisations will judge you purely by your actions and your words. But more than that, they'll judge you by how keenly you take those actions.

People want to work with other people whom they can trust or who can deliver the goods. If you can't be trusted or can't deliver, you might as well start again. And if you are seen to be reliable, then your reputation will go before you as you start getting referrals to other potential customers. This is the hidden side of the need for following up - the intangible as it were, in terms of building your reputation. It's easy to forget this in a startup environment.

Lost opportunity

There's also a flip side to this. If your meeting is a crucial one (as many are in the startup environment), then you only get one chance to impress. So if you turn up at a meeting and agree to something yet you don't follow up - well then, you can very easily wave goodbye to the opportunity. There's no excuse at not showing the professionalism required.

In summary then here are The Chilli's top tips for communications and follow up:

• Follow up on your actions - it shows professionalism
• Be timely with your follow up - it shows you understand the other party's time pressure
• Treat e-mail and phone communications in the same way as you would a letter or formal meeting - give proper thought to content and any follow up required
• Don't use the 'startup' phase as an excuse for poor communication or not following up
• If you do all this - then use it as a USP (unique selling point) in telling customers and potential customers of the advantage of dealing with you

If you have any comments, please e-mail editor@theChilli.com.

© Chilli Publishing Ltd 2003

11NOV2003