Following up on follow-up

An earlier post focused on follow-up. How often are we following-up as promised? How often are we being followed-up on as promised by suppliers, co-workers and so on?

I think a critical indicator of success is follow-up. The most successful people and organizations follow up as a rule, not as an option.

Many times, we neglect to follow up because we have no news or worse yet, we have bad news. To further add fuel to the fire, when we don't receive the promised follow-up we often assume it's because of something negative: there's bad news or that the supplier/co-worker just doesn't care.

It's key to separate the results from the effort. You can't control what the news is--whether or not it's good. But you can control whether or not you follow up.

Barry LaBov
LaBov and beyond
www.labov.com