I Secured a Pilot Deal After 10 Follow-Up Calls & 5 Meetings. Here’s What I Learned.
You must love the hunt if you aspire to become a 1-Man consultant on the side
I know you hate follow-ups. Same for me.
But I say this. Consulting is a client-facing business. Clients want to understand what we can offer before signing any contract.
Your clients and mine think alike.
That said, no one in their right minds loves the Wild Goose’s Chase. It is okay to follow up once, twice, or thrice. The 4th attempt takes a deep breath. The 5th one requires us to have our eyes on the prize.
1-Man consultants must learn to stay the course.
The Consulting Sales Follow-Up Process is Like a Marathon (and More)
You need patience and stamina to succeed in consulting sales. Here’s why.
- Services are invisible
- Our value proposition is invisible
- Future-oriented thinking is a mindset, and it is invisible
- Industry know-how, experience, and exposure are invisible
- Our client’s thought processes are invisible
If only we can read our clients’ minds. Given that ability, we can ferret budget limitations and decision-making variables without them sharing anything.
The fact is, we do not.
Therefore, routine dialogues are necessary for 1-Man consultants to genuinely understand our consulting client’s asks, pain points, and strategy orientation.
We cannot skip calls, on-site visits, and coffee chats. They are the source of our client intelligence.
It is like a marathon. You must keep running to get to the finish line.
But there is a twist.
The distance to cover in a marathon is publicized right at the beginning. It’s 42.195km.
The distance to cover in a consulting sales follow-up process is measured in activities, not kilometers.
The Activities I Performed to Secure a 5-Digit Consulting Services Contract
Taking initiative is everything — waiting for customers to call back is simply a process of allowing the customers to look for other options. A follow-up call ensures that from being the only one you don’t become one of the many options.
Shahenshah is right. 1-Man consultants must act to get the deal. It applies to low-ticket or high-ticket contracts.
I secured a Proof-Of-Concept consulting deal after following up with one client for 3 months. These are the activities I have performed.
- At least 50+ emails
- 10 follow-up calls
- 5 Zoom meetings
- 3 on-site visits
These are the activities performed in terms of time spent.
- 10 follow-up calls — Average of 60 minutes each call, therefore 10 hours in total
- 5 Zoom meetings — Average of 45 minutes each, therefore 3.75 hours in total
- 3 on-site visits — Half a day each, therefore 12 hours in total
A grand total of 25.75 hours has been committed for 18 follow-up sessions. Of course, I am inefficient compared to a mystical average of 5 follow-ups for deal closure.
I argue that it is time well spent.
Firstly, I understand my client way better compared to our first conversation. Each conversation is like peeling away the onion skin I see. Every subsequent peel reveals a pain point that even consulting clients may not know.
That is beneficial for securing business today for tomorrow, and beyond. My time horizon for each client (at the get-to) is forever. I focus on long-term contracts.
This is why.
There is no point in acquiring new clients when you are losing them fast. That means our client base remains stagnant, and our 1-Man consulting practice cannot scale.
Secondly, constant contact builds relationship stickiness. Once clients recognize you as the go-to person for consulting in this niche, you become the go-to person for this niche.
The = One and Only
Persistence in follow-ups pays off handsomely. Think about your network circle. As much as you work to expand it, there are only this many people you contact for business matters frequently.
It works the same way for our consulting clients.
Why not make them think of you when they have business issues to resolve?
Securing the Pilot Deal in an Unexpected Fashion
It was a deal that wasn’t meant to happen.
The client opened a Response-to-Proposal tender process 2 months back. Then, they closed the tender before any consultant could submit their killer proposals.
Their reason for tender cancellation? A 50% budget cut.
Just like that, my opportunity to work with them evaporated. I thought it was time to move on until they called me one evening.
They asked if I was still interested in this opportunity. I got confused. Didn’t the tender close, I asked.
“The tender was closed because the budget got slashed. That said, we are interested in having you onboard because we spoke many times, and you know us. Would you come to meet us, share your proposal, and meet us in between in terms of the budget?”
Just like that, I am back in the game.
I am convinced that follow-ups work their magic. A humble dose of patience and stamina allows us to run this marathon and reach that undefined finish line.
Parting Keynotes
No one in their right mind loves to follow up. Not even call-center professionals.
But, hey. A 10% chance of success trumps 0%. We hit that big fat zero when we throw our hands up and walk away.
Don’t.
You never know when opportunities come knocking at your door. Yes, the keyword is when.
Because they may appear when you least expect them to.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
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