AP 0851: What’s the Best Follow-Up Email Etiquette?

AskPat 851 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to episode 851 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week. We have a great question today from Adam, but before we get to that, I just want to mention that, hey, in June, so a couple months from now, I'm relaunching my course, Smart From Scratch.

This is for those of you who are just starting out who have no idea where to get started. You've been listening to these episodes and you're like, man I wish I knew an idea that I had that was going to work or I wish I could pick the one idea that is going to work out of the thousands that are going across my brain after listening to all these episodes. Well this is what this course helps you do and it helps you be sure that you find an idea that will work for you and the market that you're getting into. This is very much similar to what happens in my book, Will It Fly?, but it walks you through the process with more detailed videos and accountability and a community, so other groups of students who are going through the process with you. Hundreds of people have already had access to this. It's reopening again in June and I'm so excited. If you want to check it out, go to SmartFromScratch.com and sign up for the waitlist there.

All right. Here's today's question from Adam.

Adam Spencer: Hey Pat. Adam Spencer here. This is kind of a follow-up question to my question regarding partnerships and how you would reach out to potential partners. When you reach out to them or when you reach out to anyone to do with anything and you need a response, how long do you wait between sending it out or sending out an email, whatever, and following up and how many times do you follow-up and in what way would you follow up so as to not be annoying? Thanks, Pat. Love everything you do and thanks. Bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Adam. Thanks so much for the question. There's a quote that I like to share that I believe Dane Maxwell was the first one to introduce me to this quote, but it's so, so important. That is “The fortune is in the follow-up.” “The fortune is in the follow-up.”

That doesn't mean that you're going to get rich the moment you follow-up, but it basically is a way of saying you have to follow up because a lot of times that's where the action can finally start to happen. When you send an email out or you reach out to make contact with somebody, oftentimes they just don't see that first attempt or maybe they do and they get distracted or maybe they just didn't believe that what you were saying was really important and it would take a second or sometimes even a third time to have them realize that this thing that you're asking them is really important.

Well, there is a line there, obviously, because you could ask somebody every hour of the day and make them really annoyed at you so what happens, how do you do this right? Well, for me, it obviously depends on what it is that you're asking. So if I'm going to ask somebody if they'd like to be a guest on the podcast, for example, I'll send them an email and if I don't hear back from them within a week, then I'll send them another follow-up email. Sometimes, I'll help stir up the process a little bit by reaching out to them on email. Email is always the great place to start communication, but also at the same time let them know on a social media that I have access to where I know that they're at, to let them know that I just sent them an email. I don't want to copy and paste that same message, but it just might be a quick thing. So, for example, again, if I'm trying to get somebody on the podcast, I might say on Twitter, for example, “Hey Adam, just sent you an email, would love to have you on the show. Let me know when you read it.” Or something like that. Or “Looking forward to your reply.” To sort of imply that I want you to read this please.

Oftentimes, the social media outreach is a great way to poke somebody, if you will, without annoying them if you've sent them an email to start. Other times, things are a little bit more urgent. So if it's a team member, for example, and I need something done ASAP because there's an emergency or something, then I'll reach out to them. It would probably not even be an email, but on Slack and then if I don't hear from them on Slack right away, then I'll contact them via text and I have their phone numbers, which that's the last resort. So in that regard, it's a sort of other extreme, right?

It depends on what it is that you're asking, but you just have to use your best judgment, right? But don't be afraid to follow up, first of all, and following up once or twice, not with the exact same message, but with a follow up message, is also important to keep in mind, so don't just resend the same email, it just seems like you're in it for the wrong reasons, right? So following up and replying to that same email that you sent out, saying, “Hey, by the way, I just wanted to make sure you saw this. Let me know when you get a sec.” Quick follow-ups like that work very well and a lot of times, that's all it takes.

Then, that's all you need to know. It's going to be difficult to answer this question, Adam, without any specifics behind it. And, of course, the other thing about it is everybody's different, right? So, depending on how much you know this person, you might know that, well, you can annoy them a little bit because you have a little bit more friendly of a relationship and maybe you just know that they didn't see it when normally they would respond, in which case you would send more emails or more notices or hit them up on social media more often versus if it's a more higher profile person. Well then you want to take your time and not be annoying, but you also want to be confident and also consistent and persistent, but without being annoying. So you have to really define what annoying might be and to me that is just copying and pasting the same thing over and over and over again, asking without giving a person time and when it comes to email, typically, if I had to pick a certain time period, two or three days is a good time period to wait before following up if it's not a very specific time-sensitive situation.

So, Adam, I hope that answers your question and gives you some ideas on how to handle that, but thank you so much. I appreciate you and I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for everybody else out there, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, as well, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

As a reminder, head on over to SmartFromScratch.com. You can sign up there for the waitlist for my upcoming launch in June. There are going to be some really cool students coming in, I'm sure, who are going to be working together and, along with me, be putting office hours on, giving you access to me so you can ask your questions about your new business all along the way because I'm here to help, guys. So check them out. SmartFromScratch.com, sign up for the waitlist and I look forward to serving you there.

Also, here's the quote to finish off the day, by Andre Maurois. “Business is a combination of war and sport.” All right, guys. Take care. Thank you so much. And once again, that link for you to sign up for the waitlist for Smart From Scratch simply is SmartFromScratch.com. Take care. Thanks. Bye.